Aaand yeah. This is exactly why you never bet on or against the Bolts.

well that didnt go as planned........... you cant have 2 goal line stands amonst other things and expect to play for the NFC championship

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I honestly thought Carolina would give San Fran a game at least.

Brady vs Manning with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line. It's gonna be epic! :tup:

we gave them a decent half

:iagree: it will most likely be a good offensive shootout :tup:

So, what is your take on this weekend's games?

Next week will be a fierce game at the CLINK with my Hawks against the SF 40whiners for the NFC championship. Then you have Denver vs Pats at Sports Authority my picks.. Hawks with Dangerous, and the infamous Legion of Boom! Then it'll be Peyton and the Broncos over cry baby Brady and the Pats... Sorry guys its gonna be a Hawks V.S Broncos Superbowl.. Dangerous match up in my house... lol

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These are going to be tougher to call.

The 4 teams that remain were/are the best 4 teams in the playoffs (sorry Carolina) and both matchups have a blood feud/rivalry component which will make them harder to pick. The problem with championship games/superbowls is that point spreads become fairly meaningless and realistically, you're looking at a pick'em regardless of spread. Sure, that makes the underdog seem more attractive but the human brain does not process probability all that well - so just assume your chances of winning will be 50/50. All that said, let me dig a bit and I'll give it a shot. I would not expect either of these games to be lopsided blowouts.

My gut tells me not to bet anything after the divisional round except silly prop bets in the superbowl. NE/Denver is going to be especially tough to call for a number of reasons. Both teams demonstrated over the weekend that they are quite capable of beating good teams without playing they way they're expected to (leaning on Manning/Brady).

Ok here we go.

Pats at Broncos (-5 to 5 1/2 depending on who you ask. O/U 56 1/2 lmao):

I'm going to be honest with you here. I hate this game a lot for many reasons. Did you know both the Patriots and Broncos are both missing 7+ starters from their lineups? Even the guys that are participating are dinged up:

Patriots - Broncos Injury Report
*Note that the injury report does not show the 12318321 players that have already been ruled out prior to this week.

Motherf'ing Tom Brady missed practice today because he's sick. If he has the same flu/virus thing I had, bet everything on the Broncos. Then again, MJ played pretty well with a fever back in the day so...

I mean, for christ's sake, the Pats are a 2 TE passing team without a starting TE. I have no idea what to make of that. Both teams have middle of the road to crappy defenses that cause the occasional turnover (nod going to Denver). Both teams are going to throw the ball all over the place. Both teams discovered last week that they can run the ball "just because".

Expect the gloves to come off. Neither team is going to waste time establishing the run. The run game will be a nice side note to 300+ yard passing performances by both QBs but whoever wins this will be the team holding the ball last.

The weather in Denver this weekend? A balmy 60 degrees without a cloud in the sky.

This is going to be a scoregasm. The only way this gets out of hand is if Brady is super sick and implodes and somehow, I'm betting this is more traditional Belichick BS anyway.

Verdict: I would not bet this game with YOUR money but if you made me pick, I would take Denver to win straight up but betting-wise, take NE + the points and the over. Yes, the over.



SanFran at Seattle (-3 1/2, O/U 39 1/2):

If I were to bet a game this weekend, it'd be this one. Some interesting betting line factoids for those who don't know:
-The home team automatically gets 3 points for playing at home
-Seattle is the ONLY team in the league that actually gets an extra point for playing at home because of their crowd noise. Seriously.
-So that means that all things being equal, the 9ers are actually favored by a half point.
-A half point means nothing.

So, You have two "new breed" QBs, two teams that pride themselves on defense, a divisional rivalry game, a payback game from last year's playoffs and ...man this makes my head hurt.

My take: Both teams will get after the QB. I expect Kaepernick to get shut down hard. Both of the worst games of Kaepernick's career have come against the Seahawks at Seattle. Seattle is the one freaking team in the league that has a secondary that can get physical enough with SanFran's enormous receivers to do damage. Richard Sherman is a dirty, cheating douchebag but unfortunately, he and his smirking chucklefuck buddies are talented. They're going to stick him on Davis and beat the hell out of him.

Very quickly, SanFran is going to have to lean on their running game and I'm not sure Frank Gore's poor plastic knees can take the abuse. Once that breaks down, Seattle's D will start forcing turnovers when all Kaepernick has left are shitty outside dump passes and the corners start jumping routes.

Did you know Russell Wilson has less than a 60 percent completion percentage over the 2nd half of the season? Now ask if Seattle cares (not that 60% is bad - but he's no Brady/Manning).
*Yes, I know Brady is at like 60.3% right now but remember that the beginning of their season was pretty terrible and he didn't come on until late.

I also believe that the 9ers corners can be exploited. Not that Seattle has the strongest WR corps, but they do have a lot of targets which brings me to...

Marshawn Lynch is the X factor. If he has a big game, this could get ugly fast.

Verdict: Seattle to win, the points and the under. For the record, I don't feel as good about the under as I do about seattle covering.




Obligatory disclaimer: 1) I don't feel as good about either of these games as I did my picks last week. 2) I don't advocate betting money on games and I am not responsible if you foolishly take my advice.

Actually I think the running games will be the key to the Pats/Broncos game. Pats have become a power running team and their only healthy receivers are under 6'. Theyve ran the ball heavily the past 3 games and will look to establish the run game here too. Of course if it doesn't work or if they get behind then they will have to throw it. In the last game, Pats pretty much gave up the run game to defend against Manning and they will try to do the same here IMO. Their D line has gotten better against the run so I wouldnt expect them to give up 280 rushing yards again.

You're drinking the kool-aid.

The Pats are not a power running team and Blount is not going to score 6 TDs every game. They didn't even have a thousand yard rusher this year. They averaged a little over 100 rushing yards per-game during the regular season and that number is skewed a bit because there were a couple huge games in there. On the other hand, they averaged OVER 250 yards passing per-game so that should give you an idea of what to expect... NE didn't magically become a "run first"/3 yards and a cloud of dust team overnight.

The conspiracy theorist in me wants to believe that last week's gameplan was Belichick trying to throw Denver off by doing something totally different against Indy.

Denver's best pass defender is Champ Bailey and he's nearly as old as I am. Moreno will have some straight-ahead runs but only to keep the D honest. I would more expect them to use him as a swing back (a lot like what the Rams used to do with marshall faulk)

Lol

lol indeed

Denver ranked 22nd in the league in points allowed (24.9 ppg)
..allowing an average of 101 rushing yards (surprisingly, 8th in the league) and 254 passing ypg (27th in the league).

That's pretty terrible folks.

DRC has more than a bit on Bailey this season

Well, DRC had their only INT return for a TD but I would still argue that Bailey is the better cover guy. Sure, DRC has more tackles but that's because people don't throw at Bailey and when they do, he defends well.

I've been digging for the past 5 minutes for a "catches allowed" stat and can't find one. Might just be a casual observer's perception of how their defense works (or me just wanting to see an old Skins hero do well).

I really want to look at the numbers but rotoworld doesn't really paint the full picture. I mean I guess you're right in that DRC had 3 picks to bailey's none, but then again - Bailey was never a big interception guy except for that one season where he had like 10. He really was a true shutdown corner.

All that said, their pass defense still blows so it's more of an academic argument than anything.

He sat out almost every game this year and has been getting lit up covering wr3s. He's not what he used to be, not even close. He's old but more importantly hurt. I mean, I'm wearing my orange # 24 jersey to the game Sunday and I can see that.

:(

No I'm not drinking the kool aid, I've actually watched the Patriots transform their offense week after week. There have been essentially 3 phases of the Patriots' offense this year. First was the crappy phase when every one was out injured and the rookies dropped every pass thrown their way. When Gronk came back, they went back to their normal pass happy ways. After Gronk went down and Dobson/Thompkins missed some games they transitioned to more of a run heavy team. Blount and Ridley both were benched in the Broncos game for fumbling and started building up their offensive snaps ever since then. NE really is a gameplan offense and will come up with something different every week depending on who they play and who is healthy.

I don't expect them to be as run heavy this game unless they're trying to protect a lead. Especially if they have Dobson/Thompkins playing, they will try to take advantage of the Broncos' secondary. Whichever defense comes up with more turnovers will probably decide this game.

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HAWKS!!! All you haters can stfu now

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Great game. I love Richard Sherman even more after the post game interview.



Dumb *** Erin Andrews interviewing someone like him immediately after he made the biggest play of his career (to this point, obviously).

Who was hating?


Talk like this is what makes real Seachickens fans look bad. :gtfo2:

Well the injuries finally caught up to the Patriots. Denver was just too good and the Patriots couldn't get the perfect execution needed to beat them.

Who do you guys think will win the superbowl?

I want to say Broncos... but im not entirely sure

You brought a guy named Blount to denver and expected him not to get smoked?

Weather will decide.

Well played sir :tiphat:

It was impressive for the Pats to play as well as they did with that many injuries. Looks like their offense ran out of steam, but still an impressive season.

Better than 8-8 :roflpuke2:

Yeah that's true, but it's their defense again that was their downfall. Brady wasn't good enough to cover it up this game. Maybe they will actually get him some playmakers on offense and not waste his last few good years in the league.

Both sides had injuries, can't use that excuse for the Pats.

They were plain and simply outplayed.




Xip, Seachickens to win the SB.


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You always notice the injuries to your team, other teams not as much.

Harris and miller's absence was obvious to me but I'd not expect others to notice.

Pats win (handily) if Brady was on his game.

*cough*

Broncos were able to step up on defense despite the injuries, but the Patriots defense fell apart. It would have been close if Brady was more accurate with those deep passes, but I think the defense would still have won it for the Broncos.

Well they wanted to be a power running team, but they just failed at it pretty hard :p