Playoffs or Bust

First off, Happy New Year!

Second off, I have tried to look at the playoff scenarios and make sense of them, but I have not had much success.

The one thing I know for sure is that the Steelers need to win. I think they can. I know my predictions have been far from perfect (they've sucked), but I don't think that a Miami team with nothing to play for beats us.

The only thing the Dolphins can do is run the ball and we've been good at stopping the run when we haven't played Ray Rice. The Wildcat formation is an issue, but that can be stopped by discipline, speed, and pursuit. And we have all that.

They don't have any deep threats or any guys on offense that can kill you -- in all fairness, neither did the Chiefs or Raiders, but I digress -- so I don't think they can do anything to break the game wide open.

Their defense is pretty bland and not overly talented and I think we match up well against them. We should be able to score points, but that's given with the caveat that the offense has been horridly inconsistent this season, so who the hell knows.

Ted Ginn, Jr is the guy that scares me. He returns kickoffs for them and we'd had serious issues in kick coverage. So, he could break the game open, but I think we take care of business.

That means we finish 9-7 and need some help.

So...

There are four other teams that have a chance to finish 9-7. Ultimately, we need all of them to lose. That would make things easier. But, the issue is that they play either bad teams or good teams that have nothing to play for. And we saw how a good team that has nothing to play for this late in the season tends to respond (see: Jets at Colts, Week 16).

Jets play at home against Cincinnati
Houston plays at home against New England
Hated Ravens are on the road against Oakland
Broncos are at home against the Chiefs

The Houston-New England game is at 1 p.m. Eastern, same as our game. Denver-KC and Baltimore-Oakland are both at 4:15. The Jets and Bengals play on Sunday night at 8:20.

Houston always finishes 8-8. They're known for it. So, I would think they'd lose to the Patriots, but I can't be sure. Belichick has been super secretive this week regarding whether or not he'll play his starters. Ultimately, since the #1 and #2 seeds are out of play, it doesn't matter if you finish as the #3 or #4 (New England is currently #3), because you still have to play the first week of the playoffs and you still get a home game, where the Patriots are 8-0.

That means that they're 2-5 on the road and they're on the road on Sunday. I think Belichick jumps out to an early lead, tries to see what happens, and plays a mostly vanilla gameplan in order to not give too much away for the next week. That means Houston -- in a do-or-die situation against a team that could care less -- wins this game.

I think the hated Ravens get it done against the Raiders, but Oakland has been playing the role of spoiler all season, so you never know. I would LOVE for Baltimore to lose, I just don't think it happens.

I think Denver chokes away the finale against the Chiefs. They just have too much choke in them, too much turmoil (Brandon Marshall is being benched again because he did something stupid), and too much Kyle Orton.

I think Cincy reviews the action of the day, realizes that they'll be the number three seed if they win, and goes out trying to win the game. And I think they win.

That means Jets and Broncos lose, hated Ravens and Texans win. I think that means we get bounced from the playoffs, but I really have no idea. Basically, we need to win and wait. If we hadn't honked away games against the Chiefs, Raiders, and Browns, we'd be in a better position, but that's where we are now.

But... my predictions have sucked this year, so maybe that means the Steelers make it. I don't know. The one thing that I do know is that we have a shot if we do make it.

After all, the last time the Bengals were the third seed, Indy was the first seed, and an AFC West team was the second seed, it worked out pretty well for us. We won Super Bowl XL that year, in case I hadn't mentioned it.

Prediction:
Steelers 24, Dolphins 13