sports: It has been a longer than expected winter break in my writing. There was just an awful lot going on outside of the world which I write about. Then I started battling a vicious cold. Despite still being a bit under the weather I am going to do a brief (because of the cold, otherwise I'd probably go nuts) preview of the games that start Saturday afternoon and end Sunday evening.
It is kind of surprising how intriguing all of these match-ups have the potential to be. There do not appear to be any runaway favorites in any of the four games this weekend. So let's just go in order and see what's up. The first game of the weekend in the AFC six seed Cincinnati Bengals vs. the Houston Texans. In a lot of ways this one appears to be one sided. The Texans have been by far and away the better team all year. They have a balanced offense with Arian Foster running the ball and the use of play action in the passing game freeing up wide receiver Andre Johnson and tight end Owen Daniels. The Texans also have a tough defense led by J.J. Watt's dominant season on their defensive line (I'm not going to say to much about Watt. Just look it all up. There are too many superlatives for his play this year.). The Bengals on the other hand have gotten into the playoffs based on the strengths people believed they would have when the year began. The Andy Dalton to A.J. Green duo on offense is one of the best quarterback reciver tandoms in the league. Their defense has also been very solid, and although it was once thought to not have a true star, Geno Atkins has emerged on their line as a true star and leader. The Bengals could put a scare in the Texans if Green has a huge game and can break open for a few touchdowns. Also the Texans have been in a slump and not playing their best football in recent weeks. This one should, however, be won by the better team, and that is Houston.
The other Saturday game is a rematch of week seventeen between the Green Bay Packers and the Minnesota Vikings. This is really one of the simpler games of the weekend. The Packers don't really match-up well against the Vikings because they struggle with the two things that the Vikings do well. The Packers have a tough time against teams with good pass rushes and and are near the bottom of the league in rushing defense. The Vikings on the other hand will have major issues if they fall behind early and have to put the ball in Christian Ponders hands. Also, in a rematch, it is much harder to defend a win than even the score, or so a boxer would tell you. And that puts the difficulty of maintaining excellence against the Packers' adjustments and an angry Aaron Rodgers on the Vikings. And if it doesn't go without saying, playing in Green Bay in January sucks for dome teams, even ones from Minnesota. Look for The Pack to take care of business. But if Adrian Peterson has another one of those games he's had so many of this year, all bets are off.
The first of the two Sunday games is the Indianapolis Colts vs. the Baltimore Ravens. This game seems to be all Baltimore on paper. The Ravens have the experience, a great running back in Ray Rice, a solid defense, and are very good at home. The Colts on the other hand are a team overloaded with youth and inexperience. They also have a point differential in the regular season (-30) that shows they are winning a ton of close games and getting blown out in losses, a stat that typically doesn't bode will for teams in the playoffs. This, however, is the game in which stats and experience may fly out the window. The Ravens have been shaky at best on their way to winning the AFC East, being beneficiaries of the replacement refs and never ending goal posts against the Patriots and Ray Rice's fourth and 26 miracle run on a dump off pass that was one of the worst passes of the year (honestly, who throws a shoe, sorry, I meant a two yard check down on fourth and 26 late in the fourth quarter of a game you are losing. Thank god Ray Rice didn't want to lose as bad as Joe Flacco did.) The Colts on the other hand have Chuckstrong. And now that Pagano is back on the sidelines the inspiration is just overwhelming. Chuckstrong holds out for one more week against a Flacco that is hard to believe in. Luck gets it done! Chuckstrong! Plus who doesn't want to see Colts vs. Peyton Manning next week?
The final game of weekend is between the Seattle Seahawks and the Washington Redskins. This should be quite a game. We have two dynamic rookie quarterbacks going at in Robert Griffin and Russel Wilson. These two run a read option based attack that allows them to take advantage of their running skills while surveying the field to make the best possible decisions. Griffin has been the most exciting player in football this year running this offense while Wilson has grown into a leader and great quarterback doing the same. It is really hard to handicap these two offenses going against each other since they are so similar and have both been so good. The difference in this game should come on defense where Seattle has been outstanding all season. Look for their huge and athletic corners can lock down the Redskins wide receivers while their line does the hard work of containing Griffin. Despite their .500 road record, Seattle will cool off the red hot Redskins (seven straight wins) and advance to take on the Falcons. This of course is assuming that neither Wilson nor Griffin play like rookies, which they haven't all season. But the playoffs are a bit different.
So their you have it, the opening weekend of the playoffs as I see it. So much for being brief. Now I guess its time to go. I'm tired, I'm sick, and I hope I just did better with this wild card round than I did in baseball.
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