NFL Playoffs: Jettisoning The Jets

Another successful season in the bank. The overall record isn’t as impressive as the record against the spread. If you were to follow all of my picks, and put $20 dollars on each game, you’d be looking at something like a 900-1000 dollar profit. You’re welcome. Here’s the final tally:
Overall: 158-82 (66%)
Vs. Spread: 137-94-9
Let's compare those numbers to the so-called "experts" around the media. Again, this is ranked by win percentage because I pick 16 fewer games than most do:
The Predictor: 158-82 (66%)
Mike Golic, ESPN: 161-95 (63%)
John Clayton, ESPN: 160-96 (62.5%)
Accuscore: 158-98 (62%)
Eric Allen, ESPN: 156-100 (61%)
Dr. Z, Sports Illustrated: 156-100 (61%)
Ron Jaworski, ESPN: 155-101 (60.5%)
Joe Theismann, ESPN: 144-96 (60%)
Sean Salisbury, ESPN: 151-105 (59%)
Mark Schlereth, ESPN: 151-105 (59%)
Merrill Hodge, ESPN: 149-107 (58%)
Peter King, SI/NBC: 146-115 (57%)
Dave Richard, CBS: 145-114 (56.5%)
Pete Shithead Prisco, CBS: 141-118 (55%)
Sports Guy, ESPN: 141-118 (55%)
Chris Mortensen, ESPN: 139-116 (54%)
Clark Judge, CBS: 135-121 (53%)

Now verses the spread:
The Predictor: 137-94-9 (55.2%)
Sports Guy, ESPN: 128-123-6
Harmon Report: 126-125-5
Shithead Prisco, CBS: 126-125-5
Dave Richard, CBS: 125-126-5
Clark Judge, CBS: 124-127-5

So there you have it. I'm just going to let the records speak for themselves. No one is even close. Hell, I even beat two computer systems. Maybe next year fellas...but I doubt it.

I’ve got eleven more games to go and I’m looking to improve on the 6-3 playoff mark I had last season (I didn’t pick the two Redskins game last year…something that won’t come up this year). Let’s get to it.

SATURDAY
Kansas City Chiefs (9-7) vs. Indianapolis Colts (12-4)(-7)
4:30 p.m. RCA Dome
I’m torn over what I heard from Herm Edwards this past week. Contrary to what he believes, if your season comes down to the San Francisco 49ers going on the road and having to win, then you’ve done something wrong. In other words, you’ve backed into the playoffs. On the other hand, on paper, the Chiefs are a much better team than the Broncos, Jaguars or Titans – even the Jets – and make for a much more dangerous playoff team. Anytime you combine their offensive line with Larry Johnson, it is a grouping that is very scary in a single-elimination tournament. Everyone talks about Kansas City’s defense being porous, but that’s just not the case. Their defense is ranked 16th in the league, or in other words, right smack dab in the middle of the league. This is no longer the unit that got scorched by Indianapolis a few years ago at home in the divisional playoffs (which, by the way, may be one of the greatest playoff games in the last 20 years). The weakness of the Chiefs, and who thought this would be the case two seasons ago, is their passing game. Trent Green no longer has the arm to consistently throw deep, and he doesn’t have the receivers either. Tony Gonzalez has almost disappeared completely from the offense. Dante Hall has disappeared completely from the offense. Seriously, has anyone seen him recently? Has there been anyone other than maybe Laurence Maroney who’s had more praise heaped on their shoulders for next to nothing more than Dante Hall? The guy has one season and then vanishes. Kick returners are like closers. 95% of the time, they have a couple of good seasons and then their luck runs out. So just a warning, if you’re a Devin Hester fan, you better enjoy his returns next year so you’ll have something to remember when he’s selling cars in 2010.

The defense that is now vulnerable belongs to Indianapolis. Or at least that’s what the Boston/New York media likes to tell you. See, if Peyton Manning ever wins a ring, then the media will actually have to pay attention to some Midwestern team. They don’t want that. So they’re going to bad mouth the Colts as long as possible. Yes the Colts are dead last in stopping the run. But they are the second best defense in stopping the pass. The Giants and Jets defenses both give up more yardage than Indianapolis. The Giants give up more points. The Cowboys defense only surrenders .5 points a game less than Indy. So why don’t we hear about their defensive deficiencies, hmmm? No, we only hear about how Indy and Kansas City can’t play defense because the media is lazy and doesn’t want to put forth the research for a couple of teams in fly-over country.

Here are the facts. Kansas City and Indianapolis are two of the best three teams in the AFC. They are both better than Baltimore. They are both better than New England. They are both vastly better than the Jets. It’s a shame that one of them will get knocked out here. At the beginning of the season, this was my AFC Championship game match. It’s unfortunate that it is happening two rounds early, but them’s the breaks. Back in August I picked the Colts for three reasons. One, Tony Dungy has enough sense to realize that the Chiefs offense is extremely unbalanced. They will do everything in their power to make sure Larry Johnson won’t run over them. That’s not to say that Johnson won’t have a big game. He just won’t have a LaDainian Tomlinson type of day that allows one player to carry a team to victory. They will dare, ask and beg Kansas City to beat them in the air. The second reason is the offense. Indianapolis, despite the excessive naysayers, still has the most complete and dominant offense in the NFL. Whatever their defense gives up to KC, they should be able to make up. The third reason is the home field advantage. The Colts don’t lose on turf. They were 8-0 at home this season. Look it up. It’s fact.
Pick: Colts 33, Chiefs 24

Dallas Cowboys (9-7) vs. Seattle Seahawks (9-7)(-2.5)
8:00 p.m. Qwest Field
So, is Tony Romo still on the fast track to Canton, or can we finally kill that story? Just let me know. I want to be on board with all these instant reactions from the sports media.

Tony’s last five weeks (aka, half of his season) hasn’t been so hot. His stats read like this: 95-157, 6 TD and 9 INT. Not a great TD-INT ratio there Tony. What happened? Did your bust get lost after beating terrible teams like Arizona and Tampa? All of a sudden the talent Dallas faces gets better and Romo’s stats go down. What a shock. And let’s not forget the 2-3 finish to the season. Which, as the quarterback, Romo is more responsible for than any other player.

Can Romo be a great quarterback? Sure. I know I’m not looking forward to the Redskins facing Romo for the better part of the next decade. But the moral here is not to get carried away. Let’s remember what happened to Rex Grossman, Eli Manning and Chris Simms in their first playoff games last postseason. I believe, and correct me if I’m wrong, their combined record was 0-3. Manning’s offense couldn’t score a point against Carolina. Simms, with his spleen intact, took three quarters off before waking up too late in the fourth against the Skins. And Grossman looked terrible throughout his loss to Carolina. The moral here: well, the same as before…don’t get carried away.

Combine all that with the fact that Romo will be making his first playoff start on the road in a place that is impossible to play in, and things don’t look so good for Dallas. Seattle did tank the second half of the season, but they are at least going into the postseason on an up note after destroying Tampa. It’s not exactly like beating San Diego, but at least it’s better than say, losing to Detroit. Which is exactly what Dallas did last week.

This game is a bettors dream. Seattle, at home, against a quarterback making his first start in the playoffs, finally healthy on offense, against a defense that is statistically worse than Indianapolis’, is only favored by 2.5? Are you kidding me? Lay the points. It won’t be that close.
Pick: Seahawks 28, Cowboys 20

SUNDAY
New York Jets (10-6) vs. New England Patriots (12-4)(-8.5)
1:00 p.m. Gillette Stadium
How did the Jets finish 10-6? I really have no answer. Statistically, they are a terrible team. They are 25th in total offense, 18th in points scored, 20th in total defense and 20th in turnover +/-. In fact, their -3 turnover ratio is the worst among playoff teams. Heck, the Redskins, who set a record this season in terms of futility in forcing turnovers, have the same -3 that the Jets do. During the regular season, the Jets only scored 21 more points than their opponents did. Which means, in their 10 wins, their average margin of victory was just below 2 points a game.

The Jets opponents .468 strength of schedule sure helped. That .468 is one of the easiest in the league. New Jersey had exactly one decent win all season. Ironically it came at New England. Here are their other nine wins, notice how none of them consist of winning teams: Tennessee (before Vince Young), Buffalo, Detroit, Miami (twice), Houston, Green Bay, Minnesota and Oakland. Their 10 wins came against teams with a combined record of 64-96. In other words, their opponents that they beat had a winning percentage of .400. I used Elias to track that. Since the playoffs expanded to 12 teams, no playoff team had a worse opponent win percentage of teams they beat during the regular season than the 2006 New York Jets. I hate labeling playoff teams this, because it’s sort of an oxymoron, but all evidence points to the Jets being one of the worst playoff teams in recent history. And it’s not like they beat those teams by a lot. They only beat Miami by a field goal in both games. They only beat Detroit and Tennessee by a touchdown. They only beat Buffalo by eight. The second time they played Buffalo, the Bills crushed them by 18.

More disturbing is their strictly average 7-5 record against AFC teams. And, any time they met a decent team, they lost. They lost to Indianapolis, they lost to New England the first time and they got shut out against the Bears. Oh, and they lost 41-0 to the Jaguars. Not to mention the ugly loss to Buffalo and the terrible loss to Cleveland.

You can talk about how great a story the Jets are. But they really aren’t. They benefited from playing twice against both Buffalo and Miami, playing the average AFC South, the atrocious NFC North and a fourth place schedule. I guarantee next season - when the Jets have to play a much tougher AFC East, along with the NFC East, the AFC North and a second place schedule - they’d be lucky to finish 8-8. Here’s an early prediction: the Jets will not have a .500 record next season. Mark it down

As much as I can’t stand people anointing Bill Belichick as one of the game’s greatest coaches, do you really think he’s going to lose twice at home to a team the caliber of the Jets? I sure don’t. And for all those saying that Rodney Harrison will be the reason New England eventually falls in the playoffs, I call all of you dopes. Harrison was not that important to New England. He’s washed up, over-the-hill. He hasn’t been relevant in the past three seasons. If he was still playing in San Diego, no one would care about him. If the Patriots don’t make the Super Bowl because of Rodney Harrison, then they didn’t deserve to go in the first place. Which they don’t and they won’t. They aren’t a Super Bowl team because, like the Jets, they aren’t very good and played a very soft schedule. But they win here.
Pick: Patriots 24, Jets 9

New York Giants (8-8) vs. Philadelphia Eagles (10-6)(-7)
4:30 p.m. Lincoln Financial Field
The good news: one of these teams has to lose. And I really don't care which one.
Pick: Eagles 27, Giants 10