I Blog about Sports with a little of the rest of life thrown in I thought I'd put together my playoff previews and put them up here.
Titans at Chargers – The interesting side note to this game was set shortly after the first match up ended in week 14. Shawne Merriman accused Jeff Fisher of issuing a hit. He claimed that as a result of a blind side shot he took at Vince Young after he completed a hand off .Now that his Chargers will be facing those same Titans apparently he was just kidding? He has now done an about face saying he was just repeating something some teammates who weren’t playing had told him they saw on the other sideline. Everytime I he finds himself in the public eye, I find myself less impressed with him. The Biggest question mark in this game is will they go with Collins(Kerry not Todd, that’s the other Conference). I am pretty much breaking this down with Young in mind. It is just to risky to go Collins, yeah he has experience but a lot of that isn’t successful experience. On to the trends. The biggest trend in Titans games has been there inconsistency. At little look behind the curtain here. I look at Turnovers, Sacks, Interceptions, Rushing Yards, Passing Yards. I focus on differential. I find that usually success is based around winning a category. It doesn’t matter if a team only has 78 Rushing yards, if the other team has 60 that is a win in that category. Almost every team consistently dominates a particular category for wins or can’t seem to manage a category in all their losses. I explain all this for one reason. The Titans are a mystery. They don’t consistently win or lose any one category. So this is what I’ve got. You can look at this two different ways. Either that Titans can’t consistently do anything well, or you can go with the positive. The Titans do whatever it takes to beat any one particular team no matter which of their strengths they have to turn to. Me I am thinking that it is more, the former. I think this inconsistency stems from the Quarterback position. Vince Young has shown some passing ability, he of course also has the ability to run. I think the biggest attribute he brings to the table is the fact he is a winner. So if one or even all of the aspects of his game aren’t working he knows how to find the way and lead his team. On the Chargers side there is a clear cut key. In every Win but one they had a positive margin for interceptions. The one win where they didn’t, ironically was the win over the Titans. This game was actually surprising as I reviewed the stats. They were very close in every category, other than the Titans pulling in one more interception while bringing Rivers down 3 more times than Young found the turf. Surprising that the Chargers still won, but they did expect a repeat of that this weekend.
Jags at Pitt – I know I got a little off the trends with the Redskins at Seahawks match up. It just seemed to me that the numbers aren’t really what is going to make that game. So here’s a trend, we are going back to the numbers. In the Jags losses the consistent trend is rushing. The Jags have one of the top running back tandems in the league this year. (I am a little partial to Adrian Peterson and Chester Taylor, but that is a little hometown biased) In every loss (except one, but sit tight we’ll get to that one) the Jags were out rushed. Mind you these were not necessarily rushing based teams. The Titans, especially in week one were relying more on Vince Young than Lendale White and Chris Brown. They put up 282 rushing on them. In their losses to Indy they were out rushed in the first meeting and in turn lost by 22 points. In the second meeting(this is the one exception loss) they did out rush the Colts however the final score equaled the closest margin-of-loss, it was only 3 points.
Pittsburgh has an in your face problem to deal with right off the bat (or right from the kickoff, in this case). They played the Jags in the last game they really gave it their all in. That one didn’t turn out so well. I know, I know it was only a one touchdown game. But that isn’t what should worry Tomlin and the boys. The real concern should be the fact they were outmatched in every category other than interceptions. Looking past this one head-to-head match up. The Steelers had a relatively consistent trend in their losses. Every game where they were outmatched in total yardage they lose, they also lost one additional game where they had a positive difference in total yardage, but they only out gained the Broncos by 55 yards.
I think this game will come down to Pittsburgh getting out early. While Garrard has been reliable, the key has been the Jags running supremacy over their opponents. If Pittsburgh forces them into a position where Garrard must pass to stay in the game, Pittsburgh will force the balance in their favor.
I also believe Coach of the Year should be one of the two coaches in this game. I definitely see the argument for Bill Belicheck but the cheating really turns me off. I have also heard Mike McCarthy’s name out there. I just don’t see it. I mean realistically the difference between this year and the prior years is Favre has taken care of the ball this year. Is that McCarthy’s doing? I doubt it. No I like Tomlin because he has taken his team from missing the playoffs last year to winning their division this year. While Jack Del Rio basically made his case by making the decision to dump Byron Leftwich, and go with Garrard. That decision, along with the fact that it propelled them into the playoffs, makes him I believe the strongest candidate.
Skins at Seattle – Washington traveled to face the Seahawks twice last year. They met once in the regular season, and again in the playoffs. However those two teams were very different than the identities they have currently. Seattle has gone away from what has traditionally made Holmgrens teams successful. He announced in early November that he was going to go with a passing game heavy offense relying mostly on Matt Hasselbeck’s arm. My original thought was, why tell people what they are going to do. Then again if you were running the ball the way Seattle was there wasn’t much hiding the fact you would be relying on the pass. This may come to be the make or break pointing this game. If they can get Shaun Alexander on track in that MVP form that he has shown in the past Seattle will have a chance. Holmgren maybe tempted to stick with that sling it all over the field mentality but the secondary have been playing like they have a 12th man on the field with them. Ever since they took the field with only ten men to show their respect for teammate Sean Taylor who was slain in his home mid-season. You can never discount the team that is hot going into the playoffs, I think in this case it is more about playing “strong” into the playoffs. If you discount the game they played just days after his passing and just hours before they attended his funeral. The Redskins have been playing the strongest football outside of New England. They locked up their place in the playoffs by defeating division rival Dallas Cowboys by 21 points. That was the jersey number of their fallen teammate. The coaching edge has to go slightly to Joe Gibbs whom even Homgren acknowledge as a coaching legend when last year he said. “He's one of the guys I've tried to pattern my coaching after," Holmgren said of the three-time Super Bowl winner with Washington. "Really, if I could be mentioned in the same sentence as him, that'd be wonderful." Don’t expect Holmgren to be star struck though, he has hoisted some Championship hardware himself..
Now that the Wild Card week is set, I will review some of those match ups in the coming week. Here is a re-print of the Breakdown I did once the Giants-Bucs game was set.
I am a believer in trends. Every successful team has a foundation their success is built on. One particular stat will be consistent through out your wins or even your losses. The first game to be locked in is the NY Giants facing off against the Tampa Bay Bucs. The consistent key to the Giants wins and losses has been the amount of reliance they have put on Eli Manning. While he does get some leniency at times that can be credited to his last name. He also receives a lot of undue expectations as a result of that last name as well. He is still a very young Quarterback. In the Giants win they have averaged 46% of their yards from the rush. In their losses they have only managed to get 30% of their yardage rushing. Eli Manning is not his brother, he is not Brett Favre he is not someone you can ride to success. At least not yet. As important as this emphasis on the run has been to the Giants, it will be spot lighted, even more than usual when facing the Bucs. The Bucs consistent factor in their wins is applying pressure on the quarterback. If you eliminate the games where Jeff Garcia was not playing QB they won every interception battle. Additionally if you take into account the games played by Gradkowski and McCown; in all of their wins they have won either the interception battle or the Sack battle, if not both. The knee jerk reaction is to look to the protection of Eli Manning in order for the Giants to secure a victory. I say worry less about protecting him for his throws and worry more about protecting him from his throws.
