| Fav | Spread | Dog | Dre | Jay |
| Saturday | ||||||
| NO (14-3) | 3½ | SF (13-3) | SF | NO | ||
| Sat. Nite | ||||||
| NE (13-3) | 13½ | Den (9-8) | NE | Den | ||
| Sunday | ||||||
| BAL (12-4) | 9 | Hou (11-6) | Hou | Hou | ||
| GB (15-1) | 8 | NYG (10-7) | GB | NY |
New Orleans @ San Francisco
So I'm disagreeing with Jason on three games again this round, and because there just aren't many points left to gain after this week, I'm fucked if I don't run the table this weekend. This is one where I changed my pick, and just like when Jay changes a a pick and gets it wrong and I ride him relentlessly, I will never live it down if the Saints go to the Bay and house the 49ers. But really, I felt sick about this pick all week. I'm sticking to my vision of a Saints-Packers NFC final, but this number frightened the heck out of me, especially that hook. It's a big number anyway when you consider that SF is the home team coming off a bye. But the hook is what I am relying on here. It smells like a 3-point game, and it smells like a relatively low-scoring contest. As I've made it known, as great as Drew Brees and NO are, I don't think they're the same team on grass. Those 30s and 40s they're running up at the Superdome turn into 20s on the road, and the case can be made that SF won't make it into the 20s with their pop-gun passing game. But they can do it even if the offense doesn't provide; a pick-6 or sack-fumble, and boom, the Niners are right there. Jason's on record--the words he used in taking New Orleans were "No shot" and "31-17 Saints." Again, I was right along with him all week, but a nagging feeling is causing me to go with the underdog, just like I did last week with Detroit. Oy. Our X-factors: These could be called our "No Factors," because Jason pointed out how little impact our X-factors made last weekend. Hell, one of mine, Broncos QB Brady Quinn, never touched the Goddamn field. Yet we're back with more X-factors, because getting embarrassed has never taught us any lessons. Mine is 49ers LB Aldon Smith. A 22-year-old rookie pass rushing LB? Yep. If he gets off and puts Brees on his ass, the Niners can hang tough with the Saints. His 14 regular season sacks suggest that he'll be a handful. Jason's is 49ers WR Michael Crabtree. Any downfield movement by Alex Smith and the sad SF passing game will have to incorporate the only decent WR left, Crabtree. If Smith gets into a rhythm with anyone outside of TE Vernon Davis, odds are it will be Crabtree.
My Pick: New Orleans 23-20
Denver @ New England
It feels like only yesterday that the Broncos were racking up over 200 yards of offense in the 1st quarter against the New England Patriots, and then pissing it all away in getting blown out by the Pats. It was Week 15, actually, and in my review, I cited that 1st quarter as all the proof you need that the Patriots were not on the road to the Super Bowl. No defense that shitty against the likes of Tim Tebow and the rest of the Denver offense would get close to the Super Bowl. Well, little did I think that the Pats would wind up drawing those Broncos in their first playoff game. Okay, so New England will get close to a Super Bowl by virtue of putting to death the Tebow Thing once and for all. How am I so sure? Well, this game's in Massachusetts and not Denver, this game has real stakes, hopefully Bill Belichick watched intently and intensely the tape from Denver's victory over Pittsburgh and learned a lot of things, and hopefully Tom Brady is as offended by the praise heaped upon Tebow as most of the rest of the world is. One got the feeling that Brady wanted to show everyone how a real QB does business in Denver a few weeks ago, or at least, that's what I took out of Brady calling his own number repeatedly and rushing for TDs instead of just throwing them. I'm betting on Tom Terrific being similarly motivated on Saturday night. I'm also betting on one more thing that I'm totally pulling out of my arse: I am hoping that the New England D will not take the unnecessary risks that the Steelers D did last week under coordinator Dick LeBeau. Those Pittsburgh defensive backs were waaaay out of position on some of those Tebow throws, including on the 80-yarder in OT that ended it. I believe that New England's defense is so crappy that they will have to play a basic, vanilla D to try and keep the Broncos offense in check, and that will result in players defending Tebow's passes when they're supposed to. Unless Tebow developed serious pump-fake and play-action skillz in the last seven days, I'm hoping that his throws will be predictable enough to defend. The Pats can then gamble and jump the throws because they're in the right damn spot to begin with. Jason is on the Tebow Bandwagon, baby! Actually, he thinks that number is way too high for the Pats D to cover and is taking the smart pick, Denver + nearly two touchdowns. Our X-factors: Mine is Patriots DE Mark Anderson. It was Anderson who busted through in Week 15 and started disrupting the Broncos offense, causing a fumble and sacking Tebow twice. A repeat performance at home would be delightful to my eyes. Jason's is Broncos punter Britton Colquitt. WTF?! Yes, Jason thinks the Denver punter is going to play a key role. When Tebow has bad drives, as he's wont to do, it will be up to Colquitt to place Brady and the Pats in bad field position, or else it could be a very long night for the Denver defense. They're gonna need a lot of help.
My Pick: New England 38-20
Houston @ Baltimore
Easily the mot boring game of the weekend, it will be the closest by my prediction. It felt like a really close game when I first heard that this would be the matchup, and it still feels that way to me. I have to admit that there are a couple of things that worry me about this one. First, it wasn't close in Week 6 when the Ravens at home beat up the Matt Schaub-led Texans 29-14 and covered a 7½-point spread. Baltimore was coming off a bye, just as they are this time. And Texans cover CB Jonathan Joseph was active and assigned to stick with Ravens WR Anquan Boldin. The result: Boldin went for 8 catches and 132 yards. Oh no. That game caused Jason to call Baltimore "the most complete team in the NFL" in his Week 6 recap. That's high fucking praise, and it's a little surprising that Jason didn't go with the Ravens to do it again. But he's as smitten with the Houston run game as I am, and he thinks Baltimore may not be able to score enough points to cover this time around. I will add that I'll believe that Boldin is all the way back from surgery for a torn meniscus when I see it. He can Tweet how good he feels all damn day, but I'm not giving that kind of injury to a guy already not all that fast any kind of benefit of the doubt. I'm stopping short of picking Houston to go in and win only because to lose to a rookie QB at home in the playoffs would take a real collapse by Baltimore, but if you've watched the Ravens losses, you know that they're capable of staggering collapses. Our X-factors: Mine is Ravens WR Torrey Smith. If Boldin is ineffective and Lee Evans continues to be invisible, then Smith is left as the only downfield threat for Joe Flacco to target. Expect a huge dose of RB Ray Rice when Baltimore has the rock, obviously, but someone else has to show up as an offensive weapon, or else they have no shot to compete. Jason's is Ravens FB Vonta Leach. Leach will blast open those holes for Rice to fly through, and if he's off his game and Rice doesn't find room, it's a major problem for the Ravens.
My Pick: Baltimore 24-23
New York Giants @ Green Bay
New York is the sexy pick this week because they hung in there with the Pack at the New Meadowlands in Week 13, losing by 3 on an Aaron Rodgers-led last-minute drive that resulted in the winning FG, and also because they looked awesome in choking out the Falcons last week. Um, it's still the Packers. It's not the Falcons, it's not the Cowboys, and it's not in the New Meadowlands. And another reason New York is the sexy pick is because this team is reminiscent of the squad four years ago that stormed through the NFC in three road wins to get to the Super Bowl, where David Tyree became an unlikely trivia answer until the end of time. I know the QB is the same, and so is most of the defense, but other than that, I fail to see the similarities. Yeah, Brandon Jacobs was bowling fools over, but he hasn't been doing that this year. The Falcons game was by far the best effort he and Ahmad Bradshaw turned in as a tandem at RB this season. Let's see them do it again. I think people tend to forget how great the Packers were this year because they didn't play last week, Rodgers didn't play the week before that, and the whole team had been sailing along for the last month while other teams (cough, Giants, cough) got more media by virtue of contending for a playoff spot while Green Bay had theirs sewn up. Jason didn't cite a new love for the G-Men as a reason for his pick, but he did notice that he's picking against these two shitty defenses that led their teams to the best records in football. Patriots and Packers, Dead Fucking Last in team defense and right next to it, respectively, and Jason wants no part of either of them. But they proved all year that their defense didn't matter, so long as the offense scored more points. Hey, I just pulled a Tim McCarver! "If the offense scores more than your defense gives up, you win the game! Keep that in mind, boys and girls!" Our X-factors: Mine is Packers DT B.J. Raji. OK, B.J. You saw how well-rounded and dangerous the Giants looked with a running game last week. And you had a bye week of rest, and besides, the coaching staff, led by head coach Mike McCarthy, has been resting you most of the season, torpedoing those who drafted you in IDP leagues because most weeks in the 2nd half of the year, you were posting zero points. Now's your time to wake up, make an impact, and entertain the crowd in the process, because everyone loves a big jiggly guy who makes his fat move for their pleasure. Jason's is Packers RB Ryan Grant. Jay thinks that it will be important to rush the ball to keep the defense honest, and because James Starks has been hurt and no one else has stepped up, Grant needs to come through with a nice game for the Cheeseheads.
My Pick: Green Bay 41-31
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