PICKS AND PANS REVIEW OF THE FIRST ROUND OF THE PLAYOFFS

Last week's first round of wild card playoff games went just as I predicted in all four games. The first game on Saturday was between the Seattle Seahawks and the Washington Redskins with Seattle defense shutting down the Redskins running game and avoiding the big pass play. All the Cinderalla hype of the Eastern press was put to sleep as Seattle whipped the Redskins with easy and now will move on to Green Bay. The second game on Saturday was the show down between the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Pittsburgh Steelers and it was a repeat of the game earlier this year with Jacksonville winning. A last minute field goal was the different in this game. On Sunday the New York Giants had no trouble beating the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as Eli Manning picked apart the lack luster Bucs both on the ground and through the air. As always, resting your key players to long after wrapping up the divison had an effect on some teams and it showed up big time in Tampa Bay's play. The later Sunday game was a lot closer than most experts thought it would be as the Tennessee Titans lead the San Diego Chargers at half time, but the Chargers flexed their muscles in the second half and won going away.

I picked all four games in the first round of the playoffs correctly and for the year, including playoff games, I'm now 158 right and 81 wrong. (.662)

This weeks picks are most difficult ,as they always are during the playoffs, as the top teams are playing closer to the same level, but I will give it my best shot.

SEATTLE  -7 (401/2) OVER GREEN BAY

First let's look at why the Packers could win this game. The biggest reason is, naturally Brett Favre. The next reason is the game will be played in Green Bay where Seattle has not fared well in recent years. The weather forecast is a chance of snow and a high of 29 game day temperature. None of the above is in Seattle favor as most followers of NFL football will tell you. But remember the Bears/Packers game late this season which was played in the snow in Chicago, the Packers did not fare well, in fact they were blown out by the Bears. So the weather may not be as big a factor as some might make it. Now the reasons that Seattle might win this game. Total offensive is in Seattle favor, total defense is about even. Total pass offensive is slightly in the Packers favor but pass defense is in Seattle favor. Run offense is about even and run defense is in Green Bay's favor (Seattle most likely won't run the ball anyway). Points allowed is even with Green Bay having scored more points than Seattle by about 40. So stat wise the teams are about even. Now the reason I think Seattle will win. Playoff experience! Seattle is a veteran team with a lot of playoff games under their belts and Green Bay except for a couple players, most notable is Favre, is a very young team with a lot of good years ahead of them. But this is not their year. Here is an interesting stat, in the regular season both Hasselbeck and Favre has thrown for 28 touchdowns, but Favre has thrown three more picks than Hasselbeck. Will the Seattle defensive backs has an influence on the out come of this game. Only time will tell. Don't listen to the Eastern hype about this game. Seattle is a much better team than the Eastern press and bloggers gives them credit for. Seattle will play up the the level needed to win 24-17.

NEW ENGLAND -111/2 (51) OVER JACKSONVILLE

New England has the edge in every stat category except rusing offense and that is just slightly in favor of the Jags. Jacksonville had a tough game in Pittsburgh while New England was able to rest the troops. Looking at the stat sheet of last week's game you will notice that the Jags only had 14 first downs, 135 yards rushing and 104 passing and 58 of those rushing yards were by Garrard. Those kind of stats will not be good enough to beat the best team in the NFL who has a defense almost as good as the one the Jaguars faced this past weekend and an offense that is superior to Pittsburgh. Jacksonville is a rushing team and New England is not, so the rushing edge stat is misleading at best. Look for Tom Brady and the rested Patriots to win this game with ease. Let's say 34-17. Remember the Patriots are not as mistake prone as the Steelers, You won't see the Patiots turn the ball over four times.

INDIANAPOLIS -71/2 (471/2) OVER SAN DIEGO

Tennessee shut down LaDainian Tomlinson effectively on Sunday past and their defense almost won the game for them. If the Colts can do the same, well this game is in the bag for Indianapolis. Manning is 100% better quarterback than Rivers ever thought of being and has the stats to back it up.  Manning wll not let opportunities pass like the Titans did against San Diego. The Chargers have started off too many games sluggish and the Colts will not let them recover as easily as the Titans did. Look for Indianapolis to put plenty of pressure on Rivers all day long. With the Chargers best reciever knocked out in last week's game it will be tough for San Diego to have any deep threat. Rivers is not a very good quarterback when he is flushed out of the pocket and the Colts will do exactly that. Manning will drive the ball up and down the field all day long in a 29-14 win.

DALLAS -81/2 (581/2) OVER THE NEW YORK GIANTS

The last game of the day will pit the Cowboys against the Giants. This game, stat wise is very close, to close to have Dallas as an eight or nine point favorite and the Giants having won eight straight on the road. But the Cowboys will win anyway. The only drawback for the Cowboys is whether Owens will play. He was reported limping heavy at practice on Monday. If TO does't play it will put a hold on Dallas' over the top passing game, but I don't think Eli Manning can put three game together without committing turnovers. Look for the Giants to try to run the ball to keep pressure off of Eli. The Cowboys will take advantage of all the breaks and win this game 33-24.

This past week saw five of the eight divisional leaders and two of the wild cards go down to defeat. But I wouldn't read to much into these loses as most of the playoff bound teams rested their key players for the playoffs and none of these games meant any change in their positions in the final standings, although it changed who plays who in two games.

Washington win over Dallas was big for the Redskins as it assured them a spot against Seattle in the first round and eliminated the one dimensional Minnesota Viking who went down in overtime to a so-so Denver team who were able to controll Adrian Peterson and won in the mile high city. Baltimore win against the Steelers didn't save their coaches job as predicted in last weeks column but might have been costly to the Steelers as injuries continue to mount. Tampa Bay losing three out of their last four didn't bode well for their coach as he didn't sound to happy about their chances against the Giants in an after game interview.  Speaking of the Giants, they probably played their best game this season in losing effort to the Patriots.  The Patriots, whom I predicted would not rest their key players, fought a very determined Giants team before winning and as a result set all the records that will stand for many years to come. But the victory didn't come easily for New England and they had to rally in the second half to complete a spectacular, well deserved undefeated season. Tennessee edged the Colts and with their win got the last wild card in the AFC edging out  the Browns, inspite of Cleveland's win over the hapless 49ers. Houston finished the season winning again at home beating Jacksonville and the Atlanta Falcons overcome a very dismal season and upset the Seahawks at home. The rest of the games played on Sunday were of no consequence one way or the other, they all knew they would be watching the playoffs at home.

This last week of the regular season was, as I said in my last Picks and Pans, would be a hard week to predict the scores and it was. Most of the teams in contention did rest their players to one extent or the other and it effected some of the scores as predicted. But I did come up with a 10-6 finish. For the year I finished with 154 right and 81 wrong which comes out to about an average of 10.5 wins for each week I predicted scores.

My picks for the first round of the playoffs are:

Note: From now on I will put the Vegas line in each prediction and will update it daily if required.

ON SATURDAY

SEATTLE -3.5 (40) OVER WASHINGTON

Washington is coming off a win against the Cowboys at home, but don't look for reasons in that game that Washington is suddenly a power house team. Remember the Coweboys didn't play their front line players when the game was on the line and Washngton had to win to even be in the playoffs. Seattle is 7-1 at home and the Skins are only 4-4 on the road. Washington top quarterback is doubtful and even if he did play, how effective would he be? The quarterback position is in Seattle favor as are the wide receivers. Seattle defense has proven it can stop the run and the pass consistently and if Seattle can stop Portis effectively, they should be able to beat the  Redskins. On the other hand, Seattle running game has been showing some life and  have three backs who can and will carry the ball against the Redskins effectively. Statistically the Seahaws shoud be and are the favorite as they lead in every key statistic both offensively and defensively. Although this will be a close game the Hawks should win by lets say 24-17.

JACKSONVILLE -2 (39) OVER PITTSBURGH

Jacksonville won the previous game in Pittsburgh and will win this game as well. Willie Parker, who is one of the top running backs in the league is out and that makes the Steelers a little too much one dimensionally to be able to win this game. I'm not sure if Roethisberger or Polamalu will play, both were doubtful last week, but since the Steelers were resting their front line players, only time will tell. The Jaguars will run the ball and run run it effectively against one of the top defenses, but has been decimated by injuries late in the season. Depending on the weather this game could be low scoring and close and don't look for the Steelers to go down easily. Jacksonville to win 17-14

SUNDAY GAMES

NEW YORK GIANTS +3 EVEN (391/2) OVER TAMPA BAY

The Giants proved they can play with the best in last weeks game with the New England Patriots and will go into Tampa Bay with all the confidence in the world. Remember the Patriots played Brady and most of their offensive starters the whole game and only pulled out the game late in the fourth quarter. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have lost three out of the last four games and have seemed to have lost momentum along the way. With Galloway doubtful the Giants have the edge in both receivers and the quarterback position. The Giants are 7-1 on the road this year and will continue to play well. The Giants have the better overall defense and offense statisteic wise so look for the Giants to combine their running and passing game for the win, lets say 24-17.

SAN DIEGO -9 (40) OVER TENNESSEE

The difference in this game, LaDainian Tomlinson! Although Rivers is not that impressive or consistence at quarterback, all he has to do is hand the ball off to Tomlinson to win this game. Well almost! The Chargers have a six game winning streak and the Titans have limped into the playoffs with a sluggish win over the Colts, who rested Manning for most of the game. The Titans offense have struggled all season and have given up almost as many points on defense as they have scored. Look for LaDianian Tomlinson to score a couple times and put the Titans away 34-14.

What is Parity? In the NFL it means every team at the beginning of the season has an equal chance too win the Super Bowl.

Sounds simple doesn't it? Ya right! Tell that to the Miami Dolphins.

What is the cause of Parity, if such a beast exist? Could it be the salary cap? A lack of talent? Free agencies? Could coaching changes by good teams cause them to become mediocre after a good season? Or is it a combination of all the above, or none of the above?

I think its time we forget the notion of parity in the NFL and I will point out why.

To start out, look at New England, as of today they have a 15 game win streak, and don't forget the Miami Dolphins, who are 1-14. No parity there!  True, winning streaks out pace losing streaks by only a slim margin. There have been 28 streaks of at least four victories or four losses in 2007, 15 winning and 13 losing. But look at some of the winning streaks, the Patriots lead with 15 straight and Dallas has had streaks of five and seven games. The Colts have had streaks of seven and six games and Green Bay has had two streaks of four and six games. San Diego is finishing the season with five in a row. Long losing streaks by teams such as the Ravens (9) and San Francisco (8) should dispel any notion of parity in the win/lost category. There are just teams that win and teams that don't and overall they are the same teams year after year.

The NFL salary cap is define as the maximum amount that a team may spend on player compensation. The cap is calculated by the curent Collective Bargaining Agreement or CBA and is set to be 59.5% of the total projected league revenue. This number divided by the number of teams determines the amount of the cap, thus $102 million per team. (2006 figures)

Lets now look at the salary cap. One would have to think this would lead to parity. (remember there will be a difference between my figures and the real figures due to my figures are based on the 2006 season, but the difference overall is minor) But the salary cap doesn't cause players to move to teams who need them to fill holes, and not necessarity to teams who can afford them. Make sense? (I will explain this in depth later on when I examining the coaching staffs) Look at it this way, the 49ers picked up a couple free agents and expected great things and a winning season, didn't happen. Seattle on the other hand picked up a couple free agents to shore up their defensive back field and, well the rest is history. Seattle has one of the best pass defenses in the NFC and the reason was the addition of free agents. I could go on team by team, but you get the idea by these two examples.

The salary cap for the NFL is $102 million per team, at least was in 2006. The 2007 salary for every player is not available, (although the cap for the 2007 season is around $109 million) so all figures used here are 2006 figures. Just before the season started every team was under the cap except the Colts and the Redskins which are a few million over. In fact one of the better teams in the NFL, the Green Bay Packers are under the cap the most at $35 million, which means they have a total salary of around $67 million. Go figure! Here are some of the other good teams and the cap, Cowboys $22.6 million under and the Patriots, $16.9 million under. Some of the not so lucky teams such as Miami are under the cap by $6.3 million, which means the Dolphins have a total salary of $95.7 million, almost $30 million more paid in salary than the Packers and $10 million more than the Patriots. So much for money buying championships. The Ravens are $10.6 million under the salary cap and are in the same boat as the Dolphins. So spending money or free agents are not going to guarantee any team success on the field. That should also dispel any notion the salary cap is the cause of parity.

So what does this all show? It shows that spending money doesn't necessaily create a good team or a good record. By the way, Seattle is $17.3 million under the cap. If the talent is needed and is out there, there is plenty of money to go out and get it. I think the problem is the lack of talent available out there on the free market and ownership who are too tight to spend up to the cap level. Why would they? When teams can't sell out and are being blacked out because the fans aren't going to the games. It creates a vicious cycle that takes years and sometimes new ownership to break that cycle and the only ones to suiffer are the fans. High draft picks for bad teams don't guarantee winning seasons, Reggie Bush, Ricky Williams and Matt Leinart are a good example of that.

Well what does lead to a good record? Coaching leads to a good record. Coaches who can get the most out of a player will win the most games. Coaches such as Belichick is the best of the coaches today and John Madden of years passed are prime examples ot this. Yes I know there are other fine coaches out there, but I personally think these two are/or were the best. A top notch front office can also lead to getting the players needed to fill holes in any team, but that won't guarantee success. Team players are the answer and they are the hardest to find. One of the better pick ups was free agent Terrell Owens of the Dallas Cowboys (team player? depend if you like him or not)  but will he help Dallas win the Superbowl, time and most likely the Patriots will tell if they can.

Here is an example of coaching changes that caused teams to become stagnate after a couple good years. After the 2004-05 season which the Patroits won their 3rd Superbowl they lost both their offensive coordinator and their defensive coordinator and haven't been to the Superbowl since. The '85 Bears lost their defensive coordinator and they never make it back in spite of having Ditka, Payton and other great stars. San Diego got off to a slow start this year, and if you look at the coaching changes you may discover the reason. Offensive coach Cam Cameron, who was responsible for an offense who featured LaDainian Tomlinson is now head coach of Miami. Defensive coach Wade Phillips is now head coach of Dallas. Marty Schottenheimer getting fired after going 14-2 is unconscionable to me. But Norv Turner, in my opinion should be coach of the year for getting the Chargers a shot at the big show after having to start the season from scratch and with a completely new coaching staff to boot.

Parity in the NFL, I don't think there is such a beast, at least in the 2007-08 NFL there's not.

PLAYOFF TEAMS AND TEAMS THAT MAKE THE PLAYOFFS

As I watched and listened to the SNF game last night, I heard John Madden say something that made my ears perk up. He said, 'There are playoff teams and there are teams that make the playoffs.'

Wow, but this is so true! During my morning walk today I thought about John's comment and ran the teams in this year's playoffs, including some that may or may not get in, through my mind and came to the same conclusion. Here is what I think who are in fact the playoff teams and who are the teams who are just in the playoffs. Not necessarily in order of best to worst.

First of the AFC playoff teams are of course the New England Patriots, who are head and shoulders above all the rest and no one should dispute the fact the Patriots are the best of the best this year and a 14-0 record proves my point. Even if the Patriots lose a game in the next two weeks, they will still be the best team in the NFL in my opinion.

Second playoff team are the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts are a playoff team as shown week in and week out this season and winning 12 games each season for five years running proves it. Besides they must be considered a playoff team until someone dethrones them.

The third playoff team in the AFC are the Jacksonville Jaguars. Despite stumbling twice against the Colts, the Jaguars have the third best record in the AFC and with their win over the tough Pittsburgh Steelers in Pittsburgh proved they are a playoff team to contend with.

Bring up the rear of the AFC playoff teams, is the San Diego Chargers. Off to slow start this year the Chargers with their nine and five record will be a contender until one of the three the teams above beats them. The Chargers are a border line playoff team, but in my opinion has a chance to get to the big show.

Teams who made the playoffs but aren't playoff teams are Pittsburgh, Cleveland (who is tied with the Steelers for the AFC North) and Tennessee, who still has a shot at the playoffs, even if a long shot.

All the other AFC teams are also runs and can't be considered, because quite frankly they are not in the class of the playoff teams or of teams who made the playoffs.

The NFC playoff teams are lead by the Dallas Cowboys. In spite of their loss to the Eagles last night they still lead the NFC teams because of their win over the Green Bay Packers. There is some doubt whether the Cowboys are the best in the Conference of late, but until they play for the conference championship and that someone beats them, in my opinion they are the best.

Second is those Green Bay Packers lead by Brett Favre who has proven game after game this year, they belong with the other playoff teams and if some how the NFC championship game was to be played in a cold wintery Green Bay, I would give them the edge, but if the game was played today in Dallas, I will give the Cowboys the edge.

I hate to say this but Green Bay and Dallas are the only playoff teams in the NFC. The rest are teams who are just in the playoffs. Tampa Bay, Seattle, the New York Giants and the Minnesota Vikings are teams that with a bad break or two could have missed the playoffs all together. I mustn't leave out the New Orleans Saints or the Washington Redskins who still have a chance if the Minnesota Viking should stumble. But a break of two by any of the above-mentioned teams won't make any difference, even if the breaks goes in their favor, they are still teams that have just made the playoffs. To be honest with my readers, not a playoff team among them.  

The rest of the NFC teams are also runs and can't be considered because they don't deserve to be in the playoffs at all and/or aren't good enough to challenge the teams above them.

Yes John Madden is right. 'There are playoff teams and there are teams that make the playoff.'