NFL Week 18 Picks – Wildcard Weekend

It is redemption time for Caveman, who is licking his wounds after suffering his first losing NFL regular season since 2005. No worries, the second season is upon, the playoffs, a chance to put the last 9 weeks out of my memory (through week 8, I was 20 games over .500, from week 9-17 I was 24 games under .500).

How bad did it get? Bad enough that when I was casually asked who I thought would win the Packers/Eagles game this weekend, I made several points for both teams before finally breaking down in tears and admitting to the person, “Man, I just don’t know!”

And though I extended the SuperCave contest with CaveKid throughout the playoffs – completely dirty pool, I was down nine games, with very little chance to win, so I changed the rules, hey, it worked for David Stern – I was locked out when CaveKid went up 12 games on me last week. So, I added the Pro Bowl, NBA All-Star game and the first 10 picks of the NFL draft to the contest in order to give me a chance. Unfortunately, none of that matters if I cannot find a way to pick some winners in the playoffs.

But the playoffs represent either a way to double-up on a successful season or a second chance for a fledgling Sports investor. So, it’s back to the basics for the Caveman. That’s right my playoff motto is – “If I don’t kill it with my hands, I don’t eat”, so I have my club and homemade spear ready for the bloodletting.

Before we get started, let’s look back at prior playoff experience, called “the playoff rules
to live by”. And based on last year, I have some additions.

• Don’t overvalue playoff experience – Of course playoff experience is important but in the past five years we have seen Arizona (a franchise with one playoff win in 50 seasons) go the Super Bowl, Norv Turner (Norv Turner!) win three playoff games, Bill Cowher and Tony Dungy win Super Bowls and rookie head coaches winning playoff games (John Harbaugh, Sean Payton and Jim Caldwell). This rule is especially true on the defensive side of the ball, where younger, hungrier defenders are in better physical shape to hold up to the grueling NFL. Veteran players, about now, are praying for a vacation. Along those same lines be wary of teams with a vast amount of playoff mileage, like Baltimore this season. The Ravens have an aging defensive that has played a third of an extra season in the last three years. That has a major impact.
  
• Pick the winner – This rule tailed off a bit in 2004-2006, but generally you can count on the winner covering the spread in at least 9 of the 11 games. Last year the winner was 10-1 against the spread. Simple enough, right? If New Orleans can’t lose this weekend, then play them.
  
• Remember the public loves betting the favorites – The public, aka as the “Squares”, feel much more comfortable betting the perceived better team or favored team. For that reason, the underdogs can be had at metro Phoenix homes prices, aka great value.
  
• Find the ceiling – Draw a comparison between the most recent, best performance for each team. That would generally be each teams ceiling and generally we would expect to see teams come close to their ceiling in the playoffs.
  

The lines from the Las Vegas Hilton, courtesy of covers.com.

Here is the back of the Caveman player card:

Career Playoff Record (1995-2010): 85-75-5

Wildcard Round: 33-26-1

Divisional Round: 30-28-2

Championship Round: 16-14

Super Bowl: 6-7-2

 

New Orleans (-10) @ Seattle – I invoke the “Don’t pick an underdog unless you truly believe they can win the game” and the “Pick the winner” rules for this game, because there is no way the Seahawks are winning this game. It’s quite simple had the Rams (the Seahawks ceiling game) shown up last Sunday to play football, the Seahawks would be enjoying the 41^st consecutive day of rain in the Seattle/Tacoma area by sitting at home watching the Rams battle the Saints. The Saints would have most likely been favored by 7.5 over the Rams. And I would’ve loved the Rams in that game!

The Seabags have no chance to win this game because Sean Payton is not Steve Spagnuolo. Spags convinced himself, his staff and probably the players that the Seahawks were a better team. He coached as though he wanted to keep the game close, hoping to pull it out in the final minutes. Thanks, Spags for the kick in the nuts!

And as luck would have it, we have an awesome, recent history comparison for these two teams that involves each teams ceiling game. The Saints ceiling game was their week 16 win against Atlanta. In week 15 the Seahawks played the Falcons and lost (the Seahawks nine losses were all by 15 or more points, prompting to wonder if can start calling a 15+ point loss a “Seahawk”, instead of Saints destroy the Seahawks, we would Saints Seahawk the Seahawks) by three touchdowns. In week 17, the Seahawks ceiling game came against the Rams, who were inexplicably coached by Radio Kennedy for that game. The Saints played the Rams team, albeit coached by Steve Spagnuolo, in week 14. The results – Seahawks win by 10, Saints win by 18. Pretty close, but when taken into account the coaching discrepancy (from Spags to Radio) and the fact that the Rams game was not the Saints ceiling game I think it’s painfully obvious that the only play on this game is the Saints or pray for a backdoor Seahawks cover.

I am telling you the backdoor won’t be open, I am merely suggesting that I am not risking my shot at immortality (11-0) on the hope that Chas Whitehurst or Matty “IceBag” can muster a late game drive to bring the Seahawks within 10 points.

Pick: New Orleans -10

CaveKid’s Pick: Seattle +10.5, “New Orleans let me down last week. I don’t think that the Saints have what it takes to go all the way this year.”

Me: Look she’s being at this all of four weeks and she is already embittered.

NY Jets @ Indianapolis (-2.5) – Once you get past the Peyton Manning doesn’t lose night games, at home, in the playoffs logic, the argument for the Colts gets very thin, I mean Lindsay Lohan life implosion of 2009, thin!

For starters, look at last year when these two teams battled for the AFC title game – the Jets have gotten better, while the Colts, with their massive injuries are worse. That was a game the Jets led at half, but ran out of gas in the second half; could the upgrades the Jets made this season be the difference. Uh, yes!

Let’s also look at the “Manning Theory”, is he really unbeatable, more importantly can Manning really be trusted? Let’s think back to happier times in the past, where betting against Manning was a staple of the playoffs, where we basically planned our entire post-season gambling around betting against Manning? Save for one crazy, everything going perfectly post-season, Manning is still, as Boomer Esiason put it, “the Dan Marino of this generation.” Simply put if the Pats complete a 3^rd and 3 in the 4^th quarter of the 2006 AFC Championship, Manning has no titles, but a plethora of post-season failure. And last year was no different, as Manning choked on the big stage in the Super Bowl.

Further, the Jets are built to win this year. I got the impression that the Colts were begging to die at the end of the season – please someone win this division so we don’t have to play another game, but essentially won the division by default when Jacksonville pulled a Jacksonville at the end of the season. Even in week 17 the Colts allowed the Titans to be one Kerry Collins fumble away from backing into the playoffs with a loss.

Finally, the odds-makers cleverly posted the number at a very enticing -2.5, begging the public to jump all over the Colts.

Pick: NY Jets +2.5

CaveKid’s Pick: Indianapolis -2.5, “Last week I picked the Jags and the Colts ended up beating them and they pulled through.”

Me: Uh, the Jags didn’t play Colts last week! And that, my friends, is the person who beat me by twelve games in a four week mini-contest.

Baltimore (-2.5) @ Kansas City – As late as Thursday I was firmly in the Chiefs camp, for the reasons that they were a solid home team with a great crowd; they could run the ball effectively against anyone, including the Ravens; and they have the dream team coaching staff with a wealth of experience. Plus, I heard the sharps were all-in on Kansas City based on them being a home team underdog. Solid logic, but home team underdogs are right around .500 in the playoffs since the 2000 season, when the underdogs were golden at 4-0. So, the ice was beginning to crack, then I decided to have a conversation with my buddy C-Man, who is a huge Chiefs fan. The last thing I thought I would hear was the following exchange:

Me: “How you feeling about the Ravens?”

C-Man: “Oh, man, did you see how bad we looked against the Raiders? We’re going to get killed by the Ravens.”

Me: “Come on, that game was meaningless. I think they have a real shot to beat the Ravens.”

C-Man: “Nah, I don’t think so. They have lost for so long now that I expect to lose games like this. I wasn’t even born when they won their last big playoff game they won.”

Me: “That’s true. But you’re at home and that place will be rabid.”

C-Man: “I am just happy they hung on to the division. . .”

 

And with those words, I immediately began to re-think my pick. Maybe C-Man doesn’t speak for the majority of Chiefs fans, but my guess is he represents a fair portion of the Chiefs supporters. And I forgot about how historically bad the Chiefs have been at Arrowhead in the playoffs – lost to the Colts as a 14-2 top seed, lost to the Broncos as a 13-3 top seed and lost to the Colts as a 12-4 number two seed. Let’s imagine that something goes bad early, Arrowhead will end up being like a family holiday meal when someone, in the middle of dinner, announces their gay.

 

Throw in these additional factors – Charlie Weis needs to get to Florida to finalize the recruiting class; Dwayne Bowe is sick; the Ravens expectations were they are a Super Bowl team while there is a bit of truth in the feeling that the Chiefs are happy to be in the playoffs; and Matt Cassel is three weeks removed from an appendectomy, three weeks, my guess is he is healed completely but he body has to be wearing down, right? I mean the guy had an appendectomy three weeks ago!

 

Adding it all up – the “injuries”, distractions for the Chiefs trump out the two obvious playoff rules, “when in doubt back the house” (the Ravens are clearly getting the money) and “over-value experience”. If the Chiefs cover this spread, It is as if I am telling the odds-makers, “Thank you! May I have another”, after they have repeatedly swatted me with Dean Wormer’s wooden plank.

 

Pick: Baltimore -3.0

CaveKid’s Pick: Baltimore -3, “Even though they don’t have home field advantage the Ravens defense will dominate this game.”

Green Bay @ Philadelphia (-2.5) – This week I was perusing Ebay, looking for bandwagon seats. Much to my surprise the supply of Eagles bandwagon seats limitless, while the Packers were in short supply and priced in the Red Sox/Yankee “Monster” seat range. Doesn’t it feel like three weeks ago everyone was anointing the Eagles as the best team in the NFC? And now I have heard more than a few “experts” proclaiming that the Packers will be the NFC representative in the Super Bowl.

 

Hmmm, that’s quite praise for a team that needed a once in a lifetime comeback (Eagles over Giants) just to have a chance to make the playoffs. After destroying the lifeless Giants, the Packers needed only to beat a Bears team with absolutely nothing to play for. The Packers barely escaped with a win. I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves here.

 

This definitely falls into the “hype machine” and “side with house” rules, but here are two other rules favoring the Eagles – 1. “Never back a shaky quarterback on the road”, I realize Rodgers is all-world, but as we have found out with several players once you sustain a concussion you’re more susceptible to sustaining additional concussions, therefore Rodgers is one moderate hit away from Matt Flynn taking snaps on Sunday. And believe the last thing you want to see if you tune in late to the game is Matt Flynn playing quarterback. Just flush your money down the drain.; and 2. “Coaching is magnified”, I do not trust Mike McCarthy one bit. Whether it’s botched clock management or pig-headed stubbornness that causes him to stick to an ineffective game plan, McCarthy has yet to prove he can take care of business in a road playoff game. I know that Andy Reid struggles with game management as well, but McCarthy basically null and voids that would be advantage.

 

Need more proof that the Eagles are the lock of the weekend? I offer up the additional supporting evidence –a. History – the Andy Reid Eagles are traditionally excellent in the first round of the playoffs especially at home; b. The Packers cannot put teams away because they have no running game; and c. It never ends well for over-hyped teams that need a miracle to make the playoffs. A perfect example would be the 2000 Rams, who got a Christmas day miracle when the Bears (9 point underdog) upset the Lions in Detroit. All of a sudden the pundits were talking about how the Rams were headed back to the Super Bowl because they posed the most problems for the top two seeds, the NY Giants (their opponent in round 2) and Minnesota (their likely opponent in the NFC Championship). Problem was, the Rams had to get by the Saints. And as my good buddy Winston Wolf proclaimed, “The Rams started sucking on each other’s lollipops a little early.” (Or something like that)!

 

Pick: Philadelphia -2.5

CaveKid’s Pick: Green bay +2.5, “They’ve beat Philly before and they will defiantly do it again. It doesn’t matter if I’m right because I’ve already taken down Caveman!”

Me: CaveKid should watch the movie “The Great Santini”, I am like Robert Duvall’s character, this contest isn’t going to end until I WIN!

Bonus Pick – Oregon +2 over Auburn. Oregon is fast. I know, I know Auburn is big and fast, but here is the deal – I don’t think Auburn will be prepared for the pace at which Oregon plays. Plus, Cam Newton, post-Heisman banquet circuit, will look like Jamarcus Russell, the 380 pound version!

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