2011 Playoff Predictions

I don't think this is the year for the Steelers, but I never think it's their year.  I didn't think it was their year in 2005 or 2008 or 2010, but I totally thought it was their year in 1998 and 2006, so there's that.  Having said that, there are only four teams that scare me in both brackets.

In order of most scary to least scary:

1. The Saints (indoors)
2. Green Bay
3. Hated Ravens
4. New England

If I were a playoff team, those are, in order, the four teams I would not want to play.  I'm not saying that anyone else in the bracket is a pushover, I'm just saying those are the scary teams.  Given that New Orleans has zero chance of playing indoors throughout the postseason, I don't think they're going to make it.  If they somehow make it all the way to Indy, I feel sorry for the AFC team that has the misfortune of playing them in a dome.

On with the predictions.  Hopefully, I'll do slightly better than I did last year.  By "slightly better" I mean "not completely getting everything wrong and looking like an idiot."

AFC Bracket:

I know that TJ Yates has an injured shoulder and that the Texans backed into the playoffs.  I also know that it's his non-throwing shoulder and he's practiced all week.  Cincinnati didn't exactly storm into the playoffs.  They went 3-5 in the second half of the season.  They beat Arizona, Cleveland, and St. Louis.  They went 0-7 against playoff teams.  Houston wins this weekend and then has to travel to Baltimore, where they already lost convincingly way back when Matt Schaub was their quarterback.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to say that the Bengals really scare me.  They got AJ Green and Andy Dalton in this year's draft and they fleeced Oakland out of a bunch of picks in the Carson Palmer trade.  They scare me more than anyone in the AFC over the next five seasons, including the Patriots and hated Ravens.

The Texans have themselves an exceptional offensive line and a couple of great running backs.  They also have a solid defense, especially now that Wade Phillips is back on the sidelines.  But, they still have TJ Yates as their quarterback and that's not going to cut it against the Ben Roethlisbergers and Joe Flaccos and Tom Bradys of this bracket.

Football Jesus will also fall short against a real defense and a real quarterback, but that game is going to be ugly.  If I wasn't obligated to watch it, I think I would pass.  There are going to be bad passes, turnovers, failed red zone opportunities, and half the Steelers hobbling around with injuries.  It's going to end with someone winning 16-12 and I believe that someone is going to be the Steelers.

Houston travels to Baltimore and gets crushed.  The Steelers will have to go to Foxborough, where the Patriots are 0-2 in their last two postseason games.  I don't think that means that they just roll over and die.  The fact that they have Tom Brady and Bill Belichick and Wes Welker and two of the best tight ends in the NFL, plus a great offensive line, makes them dangerous in a single elimination tournament.  Since I know I'll be wrong anyway, I may as well pick the Steelers to go to New England and finally beat Tom Brady when it matters.

If the Steelers play the hated Ravens at any point in the playoffs, that's going to be Baltimore's Super Bowl.  They're going to go all out and they will not allow themselves to lose.  If the hated Ravens need to go to Foxborough, I think they still win.  They have the best individual athlete in the AFC bracket (Ray Rice) and the best defense.  They have a veteran roster that is loaded with postseason experience.  They used the offseason and regular season to prepare themselves for this run.  They will beat anyone that stands in their way, even the Steelers.

You know who says it's tough to beat a team three times in one season?  Teams that already lost twice.  It's hard to beat any team once, especially when that team is a playoff team.  The fact that you already beat them twice only gives you confidence.  It also gives you film that you can look at and say, "Oh, yeah.  That's how we beat those guys the other two times.  Let's do that again."

As much as it pains me to type this, the Hated Baltimore Ravens will be your AFC representative in this year's Super Bowl.  Now for the NFC...

NFC Bracket:


If the road to the Super in the NFC went through the Super Dome, the Saints would play in -- and win -- Super Bowl XLVI.  But, they have to go outdoors and the non-dome version of the Saints don't scare me.  I think that they crush Detroit at home on Saturday, but I think they fold outside the friendly confines of their dome in San Francisco.

The 49ers are a great team, but they're not a championship team.  They're too conservative, too unreliable when they get inside the 20, and Alex Smith is their quarterback.  Smith has done a good job of making the right decisions and not turning the ball over, but he's not going to be able to cut it when he has to throw down against Aaron Rodgers and an opportunistic Packers defense.

Eli Manning is a great story and the Giants have a lot of playoff experience, but that only goes so far when it comes to bridging the talent gap.  Atlanta has Matty Ice, a still-feisty Michael Turner, and an explosive offense.  They don't play enough defense to win it all, though.  The Falcons traded away their future to get Julio Jones and make it to the next level, but I don't think they've done enough to get past Green Bay.

For a 15-1 team, the Packers aren't a prohibitive favorite.  One of the reasons people are down on Green Bay is because they finished dead last in total defense in terms of yardage allowed.  But, they finished 14th in points allowed and first in total points.  When it comes down to it, they have an aggressive bend-don't-break defense and an incredibly efficient offense.  They also have the best quarterback in the bracket in Rodgers.

Atlanta beats New York, New Orleans beats Detroit, San Francisco beats New Orleans, Green Bay beats Atlanta, Packers beat 49ers to advance to the Super Bowl.

That means it'll be a Packers-Hated Ravens Super Bowl and I'm not sure who I'll root for.  The old adage is that defense wins championships.  That will be put to the test this postseason.  Will the Packers be the first team to finish last in total defense but still win the Super Bowl?  Will Baltimore have enough on defense to slow Green Bay down?  I'm really not sure.

My gut feeling is that the hated Ravens protect the ball well enough to not make key mistakes against the Packers.  I think they score enough points and play well enough on defense that they can win a close game.

It pains me even more to say this, but...

Predictions:

AFC Playoffs:
Houston over Cincinnati
Steelers over Denver
Baltimore over Houston
Steelers over Patriots
Baltimore over Steelers

NFC Playoffs:
Saints over Lions
Falcons over Giants
Packers over Falcons
49ers over Saints
Packers over 49ers

Super Bowl:
Hated Ravens over Packers

Super Bowl Review

I took some time before posting this because, first of all, I was lazy and didn't want to do anything yesterday and, second of all, I wasn't sure how I felt about the loss. Or, maybe more accurately, I wasn't sure about how I was feeling about the loss.

I was disappointed and upset, but I wasn't angry. Usually, after a big loss like this, I'm angry for a good, long while. I complain about stuff that doesn't warrant it and I'm generally agitated for no reason. I kept thinking that I wasn't angry because it was a close game and the Steelers fought hard, even if they fell short. I kept thinking that, since I don't have anything against the Packers, that it wasn't as big of a deal. That wasn't it. Until this morning, I wasn't sure why I wasn't angry.

As I was headed into my building -- I took Monday off for obvious reasons -- a guy I work with met me at the door and said, "Well, Brad, the Steelers lost." I just nodded. Then he added, "Whose fault is it?"

Without thinking, I just said, "I don't know. Everybody?" That was my gut reaction and I think it's right. I think that I wasn't able to be angry about this game because I couldn't focus my anger on one person or group.

Roethlisberger threw two interceptions and missed a wide open Mike Wallace. He was pretty erratic for big chunks of the game and choked in the last two minutes, which he doesn't ordinarily do. He also had 263 yards and two touchdowns and kept bringing the team back into the game when it looked like all hope was lost.

Mendenhall had a fumble, sure, but he also scored a touchdown, ran hard, and averaged 4.6 yards a carry.

Suisham missed that long field goal, but it's not his fault that he was out there.

Tomlin put him out there, his guys came out flat in the first quarter, and he burned two timeouts in the third quarter to "get the right call" but didn't think to do that on fourth down inside two minutes with the game on the line. I can't stay mad at him, though. He also took a team that I thought would be 10-6 at best, got them through a season full of distractions, suspensions, and injuries, and led them to the Super Bowl.

The defense gave up 31 points, gave up a 31 yard completion on third and 10 that set up the Packers deep in Steeler territory, and didn't force a turnover. They also had what would have been a legendary goal line stand if Roethlisberger and company had pulled out the win.

It's possible they blew their chance in the first five minutes when they didn't recover that fumbled punt. It's possible that the game would have changed completely had they recovered that fumble. It's possible that they would've won without the Mendenhall fumble or if they had punted instead of having Suisham attempt what was, for him, an impossibly long field goal. A lot of things would have been possible, but none of those things happened. What happened was that the Steelers lost to the Packers in Super Bowl XL.

I can actually find a lot of positives in this game.

Hines Ward announced that he hasn't lost much off his fastball by playing a great game. Mike Wallace got involved in the short game, which opened things up deep on his fourth quarter touchdown. The offensive line gave Roethlisberger plenty of time to throw in most situations, allowed only one sack, and the team averaged 5.5 yards per carry. Lawrence Timmons and Ziggy Hood looked sharp. Troy will be healthy next season. So will Starks and Pouncey. Maybe Aaron Smith retires and we get to see Hood play every Sunday. Maybe the Steelers draft Mike Pouncey or Derek Sherrod and start to form a young, potent offensive line.

Maybe there's no season in 2011. Who knows? Always in motion is the future.

But, the past is set. The Packers beat the Steelers in the Super Bowl. No reason to be angry. I guess we just have to re-focus, continue to evaluate, and move on.

Super Bowl Preview

The moment has arrived. The moment where I unveil the winner of this year's Super Bowl.

The trouble is that I wasn't sure about this game after Championship Weekend and I'm still not sure about it.

I read pretty much every preview and prediction on the Internet. I was trying to look for some key or some strategic advantage that one team had over the other that was going to vault that team to victory. I failed.

What I found was a bunch of articles and blog posts that basically said, "Player X for the Steelers is good and Player X for the Packers is good. We think that the Packers/Steelers will win because the players on that team will be gooder and that will lead to a championship for that team." It could be that Comment sections have paralyzed writers to the point that they're afraid to actually say anything because someone, somewhere on the Internet will bring up something that they hadn't thought of. But, really, I think the issue is that these are two evenly matched teams that have a lot of strengths and not a lot of weaknesses. They're so similar and strong that it's hard to pinpoint one thing that will sway the game.

That's why I think that the team that does the best job of exposing the other team's weaknesses will win the game. If both teams take advantage of their strengths and mask their weaknesses, then I have no idea who will win. If both teams exploit all the other team's weaknesses, then it's going to be a pretty crappy game... and I'm not sure who will win.

Without further ado, here are the weaknesses for each team.

Packers Weaknesses:

Right tackle Bryan Bulaga and left tackle Chad Clifton:

Bulaga is a rookie. He hasn't played badly this season, but he also hasn't played all that great. Woodley had yet another solid season and he's had a tremendous postseason. He has at least one sack in his last six postseason games.

My guess is that the Packers give Bulaga some help, either with a tight end or a running back. If Woodley is still able to beat that, or they find that leaving that extra guy in to block is slowing down their passing game, then Aaron Rodgers will get sacked by Woodley. I don't think that Rodgers is as susceptible to getting broken down by contact as Tom Brady or Peyton Manning, but you can wear him down. This is a "kill the head and the body will die" situation, because Rodgers is what makes this offense go, even though Green Bay has a lot of talent at the receiver position.

Harrison had a big game in Super Bowl XLIII and has shown the ability to take over games in the past, so he's always someone to keep an eye on. Clifton is a good player and he's not a liability, but that's not exactly high praise.

ESPN.com broke down the top 106 players in the Super Bowl last week and I found something interesting. If you look at that list, Harrison is ranked 3rd and Woodley is ranked 13th. Clifton and Bulaga are ranked 24th and 39th, respectively.

I'm sure Dick LeBeau has something up his sleeve, but I also don't know that he needs to have something up his sleeve. Unless the Packers keep extra blockers in the formation, Woodley and Harrison should be able to win these match-ups and exploit this weakness. If they can't -- if Bulaga and Clifton have great games and/or Harrison and Woodley come out flat -- then Rodgers will be able to pick the Steelers apart since the head will not be killed and the body will not die.

This is Green Bay's biggest weakness and it's the greatest strength for the Steelers. That's why I listed it first.

SS Charlie Peprah:

The Packers have placed three strong safeties on IR this season. They're down to Peprah -- who had 11 starts this season, so he's not totally green -- but isn't a great player. Everyone else in the Green Bay secondary was voted to the Pro Bowl, so he's their weakness.

I think the Packers will try to take Mike Wallace out of the game the same way the Jets and hated Ravens were able to take him out of the game: Put their best deep cover guy on him and give that guy safety help deep. That puts Tramon Williams and Nick Collins -- who's actually very good and has been overlooked in all the Troy talk -- on Wallace. That takes Wallace out of the game -- most likely, but I still have hope that he'll do something awesome -- but it also takes out Collins and Williams out of the game, which is huge.

Charles Woodson probably draws Hines Ward and that takes Hines out of the game. That means it's up to Heath Miller and Emmanuel Sanders to carve up Peprah.

The Packers have had trouble with tight ends and third receivers all year. The reason for that is mostly Peprah, but also because there's a big drop-off from the starting corners to the third cornerback. That third cornerback -- rookie Sam Shields -- had two interceptions against the Bears, but I think that was an outlier.

The Steelers need to be able to pick on him and Peprah. Maybe Antonio Brown has another big play left in him.

The First Five Minutes and the Last Five Minutes:

The Steelers have a bunch of guys -- 17 in all -- that will be playing in their third Super Bowl on Sunday. Those guys have already won two. The Packers have a total of two players that have been to a Super Bowl and neither of those guys played for the winning team.

Now, given the fact that a lot of first time teams and teams that were lean on Super Bowl experience have won it all recently -- including the Steelers in Super Bowl XL -- I don't think that experience is a huge advantage. Where it is a slight advantage is in the first five minutes of the game.

The Green Bay coaches have been talking to their players all week about how it's just another game and they just need to focus on what they practiced, but it won't be just another game when it kicks off. The Packers players will probably be overwhelmed by the scope of the game and they may take a bad angle, or try too hard on a play, or get stuck out of position, or miss a tackle. After about five minutes of in-game experience, everything tends to calm down and they'll realize that it's just another football game and they've been playing football their entire lives.

If Green Bay slips up in that first five minutes, the Steelers need to make them pay for it.

The last five minutes of the game are where the Steelers have a clear edge. If it's a close game, the last five minutes are the most important five minutes because they're the ones at the end.

The Packers lost their six games this season by a total of 20 points. The one side of that argument is that they're probably better than their record and they proved that they deserve to be considered an elite team because they tore their way through the playoffs on the road. The other side of that argument is that they probably choked in the last five minutes of those games.

The Steelers -- on offense and defense -- seem to take care of business in the last five minutes and they've done well towards the end of games this season. If this is a close game and it comes down to the wire, the Steelers will win.

Steelers Weaknesses:

RT Flozell Adams and LT Jonathan Scott:

I've been tough on Adams this season and he really hasn't been that bad. He's a great run blocker -- most of the yards and big plays the Steelers made on the ground this season were to the right side -- and he's a decent pass blocker. But, if you look at that list I linked to, he's ranked as the 48th best player in this game. Scott is ranked 67th.

Clay Matthews is ranked 4th overall. Matthews is an incredibly talented player and he also has a knack for destroying the guy lined up across from him if there's a big talent disparity. With Adams and Scott, there's a big talent disparity. In Week 5 against the Redskins, the Packers lined Matthews up across from some rookie right tackle I'd never heard of. Matthews would have had 15 sacks in that game if he didn't get hurt midway through the second quarter. Even with the injury, he had 1.5 sacks and two tackles for loss.

A.J. Hawk is a very good player, too. This is an impressive front seven and the offensive line will need to play at least as good as they did against the Jets to score enough points to keep up with the Green Bay offense.

Packers defensive coordinator Dom Capers probably has some tricks up his sleeve as well. He'll probably try lining Matthews up at left end so that he can go after Adams. If LeBeau is the Godfather of the zone blitz defense, Capers is Tom Hagen. Remember, Capers and LeBeau designed the 3-4 defense that Bill Cowher implemented when he started coaching the Steelers in 1992. At that time, Capers was the coordinator and LeBeau was coaching the linebackers. Darren Perry and Kevin Greene are both position coaches for the Packers. There's a lot of history between the players and coaches on these teams and there's a lot of familiarity.

Both offenses have talked this week about the fact that, wrinkles aside, both teams run the same defense. That kind of familiarity with a defense favors the offense, which is a possible explanation for the fact that last year's game ended with a final score of 37-36. Anything that favors the offense favors the Packers, because they have a better offense.

C Doug Legursky:

The fact that he has an awesome football name aside, Legursky is not that great of a player. He's ranked 66th on that list. Green Bay nose tackle B.J. Raji is ranked 6th and he maybe should be ranked a little higher. Regardless of whether Pouncey or Legursky got the start on Sunday, Raji was going to have a big edge because he's an excellent player.

The fact that Legursky is starting instead of Pouncey turns this from an edge for Raji into a weakness for the Steelers. It's a big one. The way to pressure Roethlisberger is to attack him from the edges and contain the outside. The best way to sack him is to pressure him up the middle. With the guys on the edges keeping him from rolling out and making a big play, he steps up into pressure and gets sacked. Think of how much Darnell Dockery disrupted the offense in Super Bowl XLIII and you have some idea of how disruptive Raji will be.

SS Troy Polamalu:

I was going to classify this weakness as just "the secondary" but Ryan Clark isn't a weakness and it's a well-established fact that the cornerbacks aren't the strength of this Steelers defense. They haven't been for the last 20 years or so. The best way to protect the cornerbacks is to get to the quarterback. That's the way it's always been and Sunday will be no different.

The weakness here is that I think Troy is still hurt. They've insulated him the past couple of weeks by making him play center field and allowing him to come up and make plays. He played a pretty craptastic game against the hated Ravens in the Divisional round and he was slightly better against the Jets. If he's healthy, then that means he can move around and disguise his position and direction before the snap.

If he's still hurt -- and I think he is -- then Aaron Rodgers knows where he'll be. He'll be in center field. That weakens the Steeler defense because it takes away a lot of what they like to do. It gives Rodgers an advantage if he knows where Troy is at all times and where Troy will end up.

The Field:

The Steelers had the "luxury" of playing their two playoff games in Heinz Field. They know the turf. They know its strengths and weaknesses. It's a grass field and they played on in it January, which favors the defense.

This game is being played indoors. The Packers are a dome team that happens to play their games outdoors in Wisconsin. They don't have much of a running game, they have five good receivers, and they have an aggressive, highly talented quarterback. The last game they played in a dome, they put up 48 points.

I don't think they'll put up 48 points on the Steelers, but the fact that this game is being played indoors favors the offense. Anything that favors the offense favors the Packers.

What I Think Will Happen:

I think the Packers will overcome the "opening five minute jitters" or that the Steelers won't be able to capitalize on that weakness. Maybe they get a field goal out of it.

I think Green Bay will jump out to a pretty sizable early lead and go into halftime up by at least two touchdowns.

Rodgers will keep his foot on the gas, just like he did against the Falcons. The Packers will score just enough in the second half to stay well ahead.

The Steelers will attempt to mount a comeback, but they'll run out of time. That will eliminate the "last five minutes" weakness for the Packers.

I know that the Steelers have the edge of experience and confidence and that they always "find ways to win," but this is the Super Bowl. It will come down to which team has the most talent and which team has the fewest exploitable weaknesses. The Packers have more talent and fewer weaknesses.

I've spent the past two weeks trying to convince myself that the Steelers can win, but I have failed. Any time I try to convince myself that they can win, they don't. Especially if I fail to convince myself.

I hope I'm wrong. I'll be happy to be wrong. But, I think I'm right.

Prediction:
Packers 27, Steelers 17

NFC Championship Game Preview

Let me get this out in the open right off the bat: I hate Jay Cutler's face. He looks like the bastard love child of Billy Zabka and William Atherton. Every time I see him, I want to punch him in the face. Usually, Ray Lewis or Tom Brady need to do something to make me want to punch them in the face. Not Jay Cutler. He just needs to have a face.

I desperately do not want to see his face for the next two weeks, but I still think the Bears are going to win Sunday's NFC Championship game.

I'm aware of the fact that the Packers are favored by 3.5 points to win this game. If you get three points for playing at home, that means Green Bay would be 6.5 point favorites at a neutral site. I have difficulty believing that the Packers are a touchdown better than the Bears and I'm sure they do, too.

On Wednesday, I was convinced that the Bears were going to win this game. Then I started reading a bunch of stuff online about how the Packers were going to win. I started to re-think things. Then I realized that I truly believed Chicago was going to win.

I think that everyone is a little too high on the Packers after they beat a banged up, undercoached Philly team, then trounced an overrated Falcons team. I think they beat two consecutive opponents that were as unbalanced as they were. Those teams just weren't able to strike at the weaknesses of this Green Bay team. The Bears will be able to do that.

I think everyone believes that Aaron Rodgers is far more invincible than he is. He's not going to come close to the 31-for-36 performance that he put up in the Divisional round because the Chicago defense will not let him.

I think that the Packers won't be able to run the ball against a Bears defense that finished second in the league.

I think that Aaron Rodgers will have a tough time against an underrated Chicago pass defense. The Bears basically held Rodgers in check this season and they won't let him take over this game.

I think the Chicago front four is going to take over this game. The Bears run a Cover 2 defense. When the Cover 2 defense is working, the front four either sacks the quarterback or forces him to check down. Rodgers does not want to check down. In the game against Atlanta, he wanted to score on every drive. That kind of drive helps you when you're up 35-14, but it hurts you when you're trying to slowly pick apart a defense that's hitting you on every dropback. Rodgers will want to throw a 105 yard touchdown pass on every play, but the Bears defense will pressure him and take away the big play. In order to beat this defense, he is going to need to slowly, methodically pick them apart like Peyton Manning did in Super Bowl XLI. I don't think he has that patience. He's going to flinch before this defense does and that is going to work in Chicago's favor.

On the offensive side for the Bears, the Packers have a great defense. I think the Bears can wear them down in the running game and that Jay Cutler will not make the critical mistake. I think that Mike Martz is finally on the same page with Cutler and has managed to eliminate his weaknesses (bad decisions, poor throws) and maximize his strengths (great arm, good vision). Martz will set Cutler up to succeed and do his best to insure that Cutler will not fail.

Chicago won the last meeting between these teams at Soldier Field and they hung in there when they had nothing to play for -- Lovie Smith kept his starters in -- and Green Bay barely won 10-3 when they had everything to play for.

Basically, this game is a wash. It should come down to coaching, luck, and special teams.

In terms of coaching, the odds are even. Mike McCarthy is hardly a master, but neither is Smith.

When it comes to luck, the Bears should have lost their Week 1 game against Detroit, which would have changed their whole season. They should have had to play the Eagles or the Saints in the Divisional round, which would have changed things, but they played the Seahawks. They haven't had a lot of injuries, which have plagued the Packers.

They have a HUGE edge in special teams, having won the first game in this series on a return touchdown.

Offense and defense are a wash, but they hold a two to one edge in intangibles. Add in that this game will be played in Chicago, the fans will be fired up, and the players will know the playing surface (which should be slick) and it makes sense that the Bears should win.

Prediction:
Bears 23, Packers 20