2014 Wild Card Weekend

So that happened.

When you pick the results straight up and then go 1-3, I would say there's bound to be some disappointment.  Especially when San Diego and San Francisco are among the teams moving on.  Also, what's up New Orleans? You couldn't do a damn thing on the road (and the first half was similarly vomit-inducing), and now you're world-beaters.

Blegh.

I didn't even watch a second of the SF/GB game, as I've been battling insomnia and the rampant concern that the sky is falling onto my head.

My issues aside, let's take a quick look at these four games and see what, if anything, we can learn from them.

The first game was obviously the best.  KC went into Indy and a shootout ensued.  This despite the fact that Alex Smith was one of the quarterbacks and Indy has been without their best WR, Reggie Wayne, since Week 7. This is one reason the playoffs are so damn frustrating and unpredictable.  Crazy nonsense like this happens and you might as well go along for the ride, because once the games start, the predictions are moot.  I certainly wasn't expecting Indy to go down 28 and then come back to win.

And yet, here we are.

As it turns out, that was the highest scoring game, despite having the lowest margin of victory.

In Cincinnati, the Bengals performed about as well as expected in losing to a San Diego team that probably shouldn't even be here.  In fact, if KC kicker Ryan Succop had made a not-terribly-difficult FG last week, it would have been Pittsburgh in the position that San Diego was in: sitting cozily in a leather recliner, just waiting to throw the ball that dumped Cincinnati into the dunk tank.  Looking back on it, I can't really point to a moment that I thought San Diego wasn't going to win the game.  Even when Dalton was keeping it clean, I wondered aloud when the inevitable INT's were coming.

And what do you know, two of them came in the second half!  Luckily for the Chargers, they were in a position to capitalize...sort of.  They ended up being more lucky than good, really, as their performance after turning Cincy over was pretty abhorrent.  They gave up easy 4th down conversions in order to punt (after letting the play clock run to 0, of course) and ran in an unnecessary TD to give the Bengals the ball back after they had used all their timeouts.

One might ask if the above really means anything.  The answer is no, this week.  Next week, they need to tighten it up.  We'll see if Ryan Mathews is available.  If not, it's up to Ronnie Brown and Danny Woodhead to run the ball.

The Saints did the improbable and unlikely, going into Philly and pulling out a late win.  As the sixth seed, they are the road warriors; they cannot host a game throughout the playoffs because they finished below all the other NFC teams.  So far, that's not a bad thing.  Next week they head to Seattle, where they utterly failed to show up from the word "go" just a few weeks ago. Suffice it to say that Drew Brees has to play well on every possession he gets.

San Francisco also pulled out a late win on the road.  Since I didn't see the game, I can't really say much more than that.

I'm guessing Aaron Rodgers goofed somehow.  Either that, or Green Bay's suspect defense got gashed (as usual).  In any case, I am starting to wonder about the legitimacy of Rodgers' "elite QB" status.  At the moment, it's not looking like an accurate descriptor, seeing as they finished 8-7-1 (thanks to him getting injured, to be fair) and losing another playoff game at home to a team with little offense.  When I say little offense, I mean that SF is entirely inconsistent in their passing attack.  Kaepernick can barely throw the ball down the field.  And yet, he slices through GB's defense.  Hot knives scare the shit out of butter.  Et cetera.

What's on tap for next week?  Glad you asked.  Indianapolis heads to New England.  San Diego, as the sixth seed in the AFC, gets the unenviable task of breaking the tie with Denver, as the two teams meet for the third time this season.  San Francisco heads to Carolina, while the Saints, as the aforementioned sixth seed in the NFC, head to Seattle.  To say that it's tough sledding for the teams that won this weekend is understating it just a bit.

That said, I would wager that Indianapolis has the best chance of pulling the upset.  Then again, it might be San Francisco.

In any event, I'm not betting on the Saints.  Maybe that will do them well.