EC's Playoff Predictions: Wildcard Round I'm going to borrow some of the headers from Alec's post, so thanks Alec! Wildcard Round Saturday, 4:30 PM EST on NBC

New Orleans Saints vs. Seattle Seahawks

The Seattle Seahawks are the most unlikely playoff team in NFL history. With more losses than wins, there's been much public outcry about changing the playoff system in the NFL. The truth is, this is just a freak instance and is unlikely to occur often enough to require a change in the system, so let's just forget about the fact that the Seahawks are terrible and didn't deserve to make it and focus on the matchup at hand.



Drew Brees and co. are coming off a demoralizing loss where the offense was unable to do much against a modest Buccaneer defense. The team is in a precarious situation with injuries to several of their key players including Pierre Thomas, Marques Colston, and Jeremy Shockey (Source: Yahoo! Sports). The Seahawks, on the other hand are incredibly fired up after their Sunday night primetime defeat of the Rams, and their notorious playoff berth. Let's not forget that the Saints also have to prepare for two quarterbacks (Whitehurst and Hasselbeck), each with very different styles of playing.



Everyone's talking about the rain, cold weather, and extremely loud fans here, so I'm going to give the Seahawks a an advantage in terms of spirit and momentum coming into this game. The Seahawks, however, are not a better team. The Saints will win this one, but by a close margin. The Seahawks are gonna make 'em sweat.

Final: Saints 24 - Seahawks 17.





Saturday, 8:00 PM EST on NBC

New York Jets vs. Indianapolis Colts

The Jets were the darling of the media coming into this season, largely in part to the HBO series that they did and Rex Ryan's charismatic style of leadership. All of these lofty expectations quickly fizzled, however, when their defense proved vulnerable and their offense sputtered under the leadership of Mark Sanchez, who has shown that he is very much still playing like he's new to the NFL.



The Colts had an uncharacteristically similar downward spiral midway through the season with Peyton manning having 13 interceptions in the span of 4 games (only alleviated by 11 touchdowns), but have picked things up again lately and earned their playoff spot by defeating a mediocre Tennessee team that was looking to spoil. Marred by injuries, this team hasn't been at full strength since early on in the season, around the time they lost Dallas Clark. Peyton had a hard time communicating with his substitute players, and consequently placed much of the weight of the offense on his own shoulders, causing him to force tight throws that resulted in interceptions. They have Joseph Addai back now, but he's not an elite back that will relieve much pressure off of Manning.



This is a tough one to predict, as I think it's going to be an incredibly close matchup. Peyton is likely going to shred the Jets defense, however, and Sanchez has struggled under blitz pressure. There may not be much of a running game on the Colts' side in this one, but if the Jets want to win they're going to need to pound the Colts' front 7 with LT and Shonn Greene. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that if the Jets running game can get going, it's going to be a Jets 17 - Colts 14 kind of day.





Sunday, 1:00 PM EST on CBS

Baltimore Ravens vs. Kansas City Chiefs



I was going to try not to tip my hand here and let it be known that I'm a huge Ravens fan, but whatever. I can be realistic about my team. For instance: The Ravens aren't going to win the Super Bowl this year. Next year they will, but this is not their year. I know that's not very spirited of me, but to be honest the Ravens have been squeezing out wins with very tight margins, and have never outright destroyed a team. The most they ever outscored their opponents was by 24 points. That sounds like a lot, but it was against Carolina. The next most was 16 points vs. the Dolphins, and the next most was 14 points versus the Broncos. Apart from those 3 games, they never outscored their opponents by more than 14 points. Let's also not forget that they went into overtime vs. the Bills and Texans, and have gotten into the habit of blowing huge leads in the second half. All of this makes for a situation in which the Ravens need to be extremely cautious against a very, very beatable Chiefs team.



Chiefs coach Todd Haley has done a great job this season with his two running backs. Thomas Jones is clearly not playing at the same level as he was last year (7 games with less than 3 yards per carry), but he doesn't need to. Jones is out there to keep Jamaal Charles fresh, and the result for Charles has been Hall of Fame-caliber yards per carry numbers. More importantly, the small-framed Charles has stayed healthy. It's very likely that we will see significantly more Jamaal Charles in the playoffs, as the Chiefs will no longer have a reason to conserve his strength. That's scary, especially to a Ravens defense that has not been nearly as dominant this year as it has been the past decade.



I don't mean to fear monger, because this is a very winnable game for the Ravens. Matt Cassel hasn't shown much to make the Ravens worry about the passing game as much as Charles and Jones have made the running attack potentially disastrous to a relatively porous front 7 of the Ravens. However, if Terrell Suggs continues to play at the elite level he has been, the Chiefs have no chance of even getting a semblance of a running game started. Prediction: Ravens 24 - Chiefs 10



Sunday, 4:30 PM EST on Fox

Green Bay Packers vs. Philadelphia Eagles



Now isn't this just the most fascinating matchup? The Packers lost Ryan Grant early in the year and were never able to find a running game since then. It doesn't matter though, because Aaron Rodgers has been lighting up the scoreboard like the stud that he is. Is my man crush that evident? Well, despite Rodgers' great performances lately, they doesn't really compare to the way that Michael Vick has electrified the National Football League this year. From early debates to whether he'll start or not to chatter about him winning the MVP, few players in the history of the league have made the game as exciting as Vick. It seems that he spent his two years in prison thinking about nothing other than football and improving his decision making, in all aspects of his life. If there's a story here, it's definitely the matchup of these two quarterbacks. They're both tremendously talented AND mobile (though VIck obviously more than Rodgers), and the defenses are going to have a hard, hard time keeping these boys in check.



This game might turn into a shootout, and I think the difference is going to be which defense shows up. Both teams have very talented defenses that have given us spotty performances through the year. It's in both teams' best interest to keep their players from being distracted by the two superstar personas they have at QB, and to focus instead on making sure their defense is ready to absolutely smother these guys. Everyone knows now that Vick has trouble with the blitz, so if the Packers defense can contain Vick, his stellar statistics might just come down to Earth.



Who am I kidding? There's no way anybody's stopping this guy. Final: Eagles 39 - Packers 28

Alec My name is Alec. I have been sports writing for about a year now and reading about the NFL is my main hobby. I keep up-to-date every day regarding what is going on and every Sunday you can find me on my couch watching football. I think writing about the NFL is good for me. Enrique C. Based out of Seattle and a football fan for nearly half his life, Enrique spent three years playing in high school, five years coaching, managing, and QB'ing a flag football team and has been playing video game football since Madden '98. Talk about qualifications! Also, five time fantasy football champ. Aw yeah. JD Setting up shop here in Dallas, Texas, I get a pretty good chunk of sports reading done each day thanks to a job involving a computer. However, this is my first time writing about it, and football is my personal passion. I hope to peak your sports minds through my writing, I've got years of attentive knowledge crammed up here and ready to go. Archives January 2011

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