2012 NFL Divisional Playoffs – Saturday
By Editorial Staff
New Orleans Saints @ San Francisco 49ers
The opener today pits one of the NFL’s most prolific offenses against a true shutdown defense. The Saints are led by Drew Brees and he has an arsenal at his disposal. Receivers Marques Colston and Devery Henderson (as well as tight end Jimmy Graham) lead a corps that features multiple players depending on field position, route and game situation. Similarly, New Orleans ground game is made up primarily of Darren Sproles and Pierre Thomas, with each nearly guaranteed to get a lot of touches in open space. Sproles is notorious for his playmaking ability and if San Fran wants to hang with New Orleans aerial antics, they need to make shutting down Sproles their number two priority. Number one, of course, is getting pressure on Brees, and with Aldon Smith, Patrick Willis and Justin Smith they should be able to mount a pretty good effort on that front. New Orleans had 5 representatives honored with a Pro Bowl roster slot, while the 49ers will send 8 players to Hawaii. The weather will be beautiful tomorrow, and the game should be more of the same.
On the other side of the battle, Alex Smith heads an offense that features Frank Gore at running back and not much else. Similarly, the Saints have relied on their offense to put games out of reach for opponents. This game should come down to who can control the game when New Orleans has the ball. If Smith and Gore can control the clock (as they are wont to do: Smith is a prototypical game manager and Gore is a tough between the tackles runner) and keep the Saints offense on the sidelines, they’ll have a good chance of keeping the Saints offense offbalance and the Saints defense winded. The last time the 49ers lost at home was a three-point loss to the Cowboys in Week 2. SAN FRAN (+3.5).
Denver Broncos @ New England Patriots
Oh my Tebow, here we go again. As a Broncos fan I’ve had the dubious privilege to be in the eye of the nonsensically furious maelstrom surrounding the Denver QB, and despite whatever criticisms that have been thrown his way, he’s still starting in a playoff game. Last week was the perfect Tebow Game: Threw for 300 yards, averaged 30+ yards/completion, completed miraculous overtime touchdown pass and did all of the above while completing less than half of his passes. There are too many storylines to digest in one sitting, so I’m going to let you Google the rest of this madness to your hearts content while I do a basic breakdown of the competitors.
The last time these two squads met, the Patriots ran away with the game due to their astounding recovery of 3 Denver fumbles, two of which occurred in the 2nd quarter. Fumbles are one of the few statistics that the sabermetrics wizards in the back room can’t quite predict (beyond labeling a player as “fumble-prone”) and it’s pretty fair to say that this won’t happen again. Nevertheless, the fumbles underlined the most basic quality of New England’s offense; when they have the ball, they are almost unstoppable. Tom Brady and his contingent of catchers, most notably Wes Welker and Rob Gronkowski, are a model of efficiency, and last time the Broncos lost big despite limiting Gronk’s impact as much as possible; Aaron Hernandez, or “the other Patriots tight end” as he’s known to most of the world, lit up the Broncos coverage for a career day. In doing so, he exposed the Broncos main flaw defensively: a lack of good coverage downfield. Since losing potential nickel corner Syd’Quan Thompson in the preseason finale to Brian Dawkin’s scary as hell “neck injury” (it’s never optimal when “generic damage” is the best descriptor of a problem), the Broncos have had trouble in keeping their secondary healthy. None of their linebackers except Wesley Woodyard on a good day can continually stick with Gronknandez.
Why do I think the Broncos will make this game a lot closer? In the first quarter, before Lance Ball and the Broncos quarterback from the University of Florida lost their fumbles, Denver was absolutely tearing the Patriots apart on the ground. Until they had to turn their offense over to the tender mercies of Tebow, they were really lambasting the Pats defense and their defense was able to hold Brady and co. in check for the most part. Whatever John Elway slipped into Tebow’s pregame meal of fish, bread and water-turned-wine seemed to work well. I can feel myself spiraling down into the black pit of Tebowmania, so I’ll end on a more rational note. I think the Patriots will win handily. But just in case, I’m taking Denver (+13.5).