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| Can Brees & Payton figure out how to win the first road playoff game in Saints history? |
Now for the first time in 4 years (3 on the blog & 1 on facebook) I failed to type out an NFL preview but I did find the time to post my preseason playoff picks on facebook back in September:
AFC: 1. Denver 2. New England 3. Cincinnati 4. Houston 5. Pittsburgh 6. Kansas City
NFC: 1. Seattle 2. Carolina 3. Green Bay 4. New York 5. San Francisco 6. Tampa Bay
AFC Championship: NE over DEN
NFC Championship: SEA over GB
Super Bowl: Seattle 27, New England 24
How'd I do? Well for comparisons sake here's a quick breakdown of how this season compared to my past predictions of the regular season:
2009: Playoff Teams-9/12 Division Winners-5/8 Bye Teams-0/4
2010: Playoff Teams-8/12 Division Winners-2/8 Bye Teams-0/4
2011: Playoff Teams-6/12 Division Winners-4/8 Bye Teams-1/4
2012: Playoff Teams-6/12 Division Winners-3/8 Bye Teams-2/4
2013: Playoff Teams-8/12 Division Winners-6/8 Bye Teams-4/4*
*Interesting tidbit--The AFC vs. NFC divide on playoff teams I've correctly predicted is minimal, I've nailed one more NFC pick, but the contrast in division winners is significant. I've hit on 60% of AFC division winners but only 40% of NFC winners. Tom Brady & Peyton Manning sure have made things easier to figure out over there.
Obviously that's impressive on my part but, as the table above has already proven, I'm as up & down as anyone in making these predictions. The NFL is hardest of all American professional sports to predict & if the refs hadn't picked up that flag in the Panthers/Patriots game half of this paragraph likely doesn't exist. That's the margin of error in the NFL. That's what makes it so damn fun, & so hard to predict.
Nonetheless I'll continue to try. Here are the Saturday NFL picks (home team in caps):
Chiefs (pk) over COLTS
It may seem odd for this game to be a straight pick'em with the Colts not just being the home team, not just having the better quarterback, but also having beaten the Chiefs a mere two weeks ago in a 23-7 thrashing. Now to be fair the line opened at 2.5 before being bet down to a pick'em, which has prompted people to now jump on the Colts according to ESPN's PickCenter, but even that implies Vegas viewed KC as the better team despite that first game. Clearly a closer examination of that week 16 matchup is called for.
The Chiefs cruised down the field for a touchdown on their opening possession but couldn't manage a single score from their defense got worn down by having to face down the Colts offense for 38 minutes. All of this happened despite Football Outsider's WEIGHTED DVOA (which puts a greater emphasis on more recent games) showing that the Chiefs had been better in all three phases of the game going into that matchup (on the season's whole Indy is slightly better on offense). Now to be sure the Chiefs are only marginally better on offense & defense, while their special teams in the best in the NFL, so it's not as though a Colts victory was altogether shocking but the 16 point margin was & that tells us some weird things happened in that game.
Two things stand out in leading the Colts to their lopsided victory--third down conversions & turnovers. The Colts converted on 7 of 18 third downs, which is roughly on average with their normal conversion rate & only slightly exceeds the rate normally allowed by the Chiefs D, Kansas City however only converted 1 of 8. Not surprisingly to anyone who's seen Alex Smith play, the Chiefs offense is a mere 25th in third down conversion percentage but still 1 of 8? That's horrific & unlikely to be repeated even with the added noise of Indy's dome.
Of course the usual upside to having Alex Smith at QB is a low turnover rate & that continued to be true this season as the Chiefs committed only 18 turnovers, good for a tie for second in the league, but against Indianapolis the Chiefs committed a whopping four turnovers. They fumbled the ball an unfathomable six times, losing the ball thrice, & Smith threw an interception to boot despite facing a league average defense when it comes to forcing turnovers. Meanwhile the Colts didn't turn the ball over once against the 2nd best turnover forcing defense. That latter point is less surprising considering the Colts 14 turnovers were by far the fewest in the NFL, but the Chiefs turning it over four times? That's crazy. It's also, obviously, highly unlikely to happen again. That's not to say the Chiefs will win the turnover battle but if they don't at least cut that margin in half I'll be shocked.
By now I've established why these two teams previous matchup was misleading but hardly why the Chiefs should win on the road against a good team when they have a 1-5 record against playoff teams this season & have flopped to a 2-5 finish--the worst of any team to ever start 9-0. Well first, as detailed in Football Outsiders preview of the game, teams with superior records against playoff teams are only marginally more likely to win historically. Second though I expect the Chiefs game plan to be much better this time around. Last time Jamaal Charles ran the ball a mere 13 times, despite nabbing 8.2 yards-per-carry, & the game was all too often put in the hands of Alex Smith to win. That's not a plan for success, especially against the Colts & their below average run defense. In addition to a better game plan left tackle Brandon Albert's return to the line, he missed the previous Colts game, should provide a major boost to the offense, most importantly giving Smith time on those plays where he does need to throw.
Defensively the Chiefs also benefit from another starter returning from injury but Justin Houston is even more vital as his pass rushing, coupled with Tamba Ali's from the other side, is vital to the Chiefs defense. If the Chiefs can pressure Luck the Colts offense will likely struggle with their limited, post-Reggie Wayne, passing weapons. If the Colts are smart they'll counter by running the ball heavily--the Chiefs are strong against the pass but fairly average against the run--& they'll do so much more with Donald Brown rather than Trent Richardson--the rare bust to cost two teams a first rounder. Handing the ball off to the ineffective Richardson is just asking to be forced into third & long's where the Chiefs can pin their ears back & come after Luck.
I've been talking up the Chiefs this whole time but this was the toughest game of the week for me to pick. This game is all but certainly going to be close & Andrew Luck is 10-2 in one possession games, & it's not lost on me that taking Alex "Checkdown" Smith on the road is asking for punishment. I also want the Colts to win, last year I let that blind me as I misguidedly picked them over the Ravens, but this year I'm determined to remain objective in my picks. In this game that means I see a big day for Jamaal Charles & a Chiefs team that will control field position pulling out a narrow win.
Chiefs 24, Colts 20
EAGLES (-3) over Saints
Obviously the first thing to do with this game is address the elephant in the room--the Saints under Drew Brees & Sean Payton are perceived to be much, much, much worse on the road than they are at home. As Bill Barnwell has pointed out on Grantland that's not historically been the case. Sure they're generally better at home, but so is everybody. With that said Barnwell ignores that this year the Saints have been drastically worse on the road. Granted one season is a smaller sample size but those other season's also involved different players & defensive schemes, so this season seems to be the most applicable to me. Further in playoff games below 35 degrees, as this game is expected to be, dome teams have been a miserable 3-22. Now that's not a guarantee the Saints will lose, three such teams won after all, so let's look at some other factors before we right off the second best quarterback-coach duo in the NFL.
If you're rooting for the Saints a couple stats you may want to grab onto is each team's rankings in total yardage. The Saints rank an impressive 4th on both offensive & defense while the Eagles rank a fantastic 2nd & a horrific 29th. Of course you also may want to stop reading here because despite the NFL's insistence on ranking both sides of the ball on yardage we all know points & turnovers play an important role in defining a team's true effectiveness on either side of the ball & that's where things become less optimistic for New Orleans.
Now on offense the Saints remain fine, ranking 10th in scoring & committing only 19 turnovers, however Philly's D shoots up to a decent 17th because they force turnovers, 31 to be exact, good for third in the league. According to DVOA the Eagles were also the third best run defense over the last five weeks of the season which means Drew Brees will be on the road, in freezing temperatures, quite possibly without his run game (the Saints are a pedestrian 19th in rushing DVOA), against a turnover forcing defense, while trying to keep up with the Eagles offense. Now that's not impossible for Brees, because he's that good & the Eagles pass defense remains by far their biggest weakness (25th in DVOA), but it's certainly a tough hurdle to climb.
As for Chip Kelly's offense it ranks 4th in points &, like the Saints, only committed 19 turnovers. That last stat is misleading however because Michael Vick & Matt Barkley were the offenders on 8 of those losses of possession while Nick Foles set NFL records for touchdown to interception ratio (13.5) & interception rate (0.63). That's right, Nick Foles this season is less likely to turn the ball over than any quarterback in NFL history. It doesn't help the Saints that they finished 29th in turnovers forced, making it all the more unlikely they can slow down the Eagles.
But I haven't even gotten to the worst part yet! In the freezing cold with running the ball put at a premium the Saints rank 20th in DVOA in stopping the run & a similar 19th in rushing yards allowed. The Eagles run game? First in DVOA, first in yardage, first in yards-per-carry, first in percentage of runs that end in a first down, & second in runs of 20+ yards. There are only two ways the Saints will be able to stop the Eagles running game. They could sell out to stop the run but it's hard to imagine Kelly & Foles not taking huge advantage of that. The second is to get out to a big lead & force the Eagles to play catch up with the passing game but even then Kelly's unconventional enough, the offense fast enough, & the run game good enough, that the Eagles might stick with it & still be back in the game within minutes.
The Saints can never be counted out so long as they have the Brees/Payton tandem at the helm but there are too many things stacked against them in this game for me to think they have anything more than a marginal chance. In fact Eagles in a blowout is at least as likely as a Saints win.
Eagles 34, Saints 24
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