Sunday's Divisional Picks

Can a hobbled Rodgers lead the Pack past the Cowboys?

Yesterday continued my solid playoff run, improving my record to 5-1 against the spread & 6-0 overall. I even got the margin of victory right in both games, though my over/under skills remain lackluster. Kudos to the Patriots & Ravens for giving us our second great playoff game of the year, with the Patriots becoming the first playoff team to come back from a deficit of 14 or more points twice in the same game. That was a thrilling piece of theater. Anyway, I was out late last night for a friend's 21st birthday, & the Green Bay-Dallas game is about to start, so I'll keep this quick.

On to the picks... (Home teams in caps)

NFL Wild Card Picks-Saturday

Can Brees & Payton figure out how to win the
 first road playoff game in Saints history?

You may have noticed, or not since only 5 or 6 people ever read this blog, that Joe's Junk has been on hiatus for 6 months. I wish I had some brilliant excuse for this like, I've been working to fight hunger in Haiti, or, I've been in a coma after diving in front of a car to save a small child (don't worry the kid was fine), but alas those things did not happen. No, the truth is simply that I'm pretty lazy & so the whole blog thing got pushed aside. But now I'm back for the 2014 NFL Playoffs! Wooh!

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. 

As you can see I'm certainly no seer, particularly the previous two seasons which were particularly brutal, but 2013 was a nice comeback. In fact, despite my horrid Houston, Tampa, & New York picks, I've bested the majority of experts. Shoot I'd say it was my best year considering I got all four of the bye teams not only correct but in the correct order of finish. I mean who else was telling you Carolina was not only going to win their division but earn a first round bye? Seriously go look at all 36 of ESPN's NFL writers' predictions, not one of them has Carolina even making the playoffs. What about Sports Illustrated's seven experts? Not a single one. Only Football Outsider's projections (which I pay close attention to) had them pegged for a playoff spot, but even then it was as the four seed. So I'm the only person, that I know of, who correctly predicted all four teams on a bye this week. That's not all though. The Carolina pick helped me exceed all 44 of the previous mentioned predictors in choosing division champs & only David Fleming of ESPN was able to correctly predict more total playoff teams than I did. He's the only guy out of all those experts who can claim to have out predicted me. 

NFL Wild Card Picks

Will Sunday be the end for Ray Lewis?

I'm back after a two month hiatus to bring you my picks for the first week of the NFL playoffs.* It's been one of the more interesting seasons in recent memory dominated by a half dozen different stories throughout the year. We had the undefeated Cardinals & then we had the regular Cardinals.** There were the replacement refs who ranged from surprisingly solid to Golden-Gate bad, an argument over which rookie QB was the best*** that began with two guys & expanded to include a surprising third, two historic comebacks by all-time greats & two historic individual seasons with Adrian Peterson somehow being involved in both.**** Luckily among all of these crazy happenings we still had the Dallas Cowboys there to help keep our bearings as they stumbled out of the gate, rebounded strongly in the second half just to get their fans hopes up, & then lost the last game of the season to blow a playoff spot in favor of a third place finish in the division, just as they had the year before. Now though the true season begins...

*Hopefully I'll be able to both redeem myself for my horrible (at least on the AFC side) preseason picks & continue my playoff prediction hot streak from last year when I correctly predicted 9 of the 11 games  & beat the spread 8 of 11 times. 

**Last season I would occasionally get into arguments with people over how bad John Skelton was. Those I opposed put forth he had promise & was probably better than Kolb, I said Skelton was a giant pile of crap trying to pass himself off as an NFL quarterback. I think it's safe to say I'll never have to argue that again. 

***It's Luck. The stats don't back me up, but they also don't tell you how much more dependent the Colts are on Luck than the Skins or Hawks are on their rookie signal callers. As good as RG3 was Kirk Cousins finished off one game saving drive & won another game with Griffin out, Wilson has by far the best team around him, & they both have great running games to support them. Luck had Reggie Wayne &... Yea. 

****My MVP ballot: 
1. AP-2,097 yards on 6.0 YPC while dragging Christian Ponder into the playoffs.
2. Brady-The Patriots scored 76 points more than any other team even with their best offensive weapon, Gronkowski, out much of the year.
3. Peyton-Looked even sharper than in his last year with the Colts as he took the Broncos from overachievers to legit contenders. 

Third Annual NFL Preview!

Can Brady & Gronk lead the Patriots back to the Super Bowl?

It's finally here, the NFL season. After a long wait I got to see my Giants lose the season opener to everyone's favorite team to hate, the Cowboys. Hopefully my picks go better than that game. And there's reason to believe they will! As I'm fond of telling people last year was the third consecutive season I've correctly predicted the AFC Champion,* & I got the the Super Bowl entirely right two years ago. Of course last season I also picked the Browns to make the playoffs, but let's not talk about that. It's going to be a fascinating season as an unprecedented five rookie QBs are set to start week one, the Saints continue to deal with bounty-gate (the players suspensions were overturned but the coach's suspensions have not, & that's more important), Peyton Manning's suiting up for the Broncos, & TIM TEBOW! So let's get on to the picks...