{"id":76,"date":"2008-01-04T13:56:23","date_gmt":"2008-01-04T18:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=76"},"modified":"2008-01-04T14:07:22","modified_gmt":"2008-01-04T19:07:22","slug":"saturdays-wild-card-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/?p=76","title":{"rendered":"Saturday’s Wild Card Games"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jaguars at Steelers <\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n

This is by far the best game of Wild Card Weekend.\u00a0 Not only are both teams really good, but they’re also so evenly matched that picking a winner is almost impossible.\u00a0 The Jags did go into Pittsburgh just a few weeks ago and win 29-22, but winning in a place like Heinz Field in the playoffs is really tough.\"roethlisberger\"<\/p>\n

The Steelers have some injury concerns coming into this one.\u00a0 Running back Willie Parker, who was leading the NFL in rushing through 14 games, is done for the year and Najeh Davenport takes over his role.\u00a0 Due in part to Parker’s absence, Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette<\/em> thinks the Steelers will rely on Ben Roethlisberger<\/a>, and come out throwing the ball early and often.\u00a0 The run-heavy Steeler offense has done this before in the playoffs, as Bouchette points out, going to the air in 2005 to beat the Colts and Broncos en route to Super Bowl XL.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If the Steelers are planning on leaning on the passing game, there may be one fatal flaw to the plan: the left tackle situation.\u00a0 Starter Marvel Smith went down with an injury a few weeks ago and his replacement, Max Starks, was injured last week and is also unavailable for Saturday’s game.\u00a0 So the job of protecting Roethlisberger’s blind-side falls to Trai Essex, who has spent almost his whole career on the practice squad.\u00a0 If Essex ends up doing his best Winston Justice<\/a> impression, the Steelers will move veteran guard Alan Faneca<\/a> over to the left tackle spot.\u00a0 This has to be a major point of concern\u00a0for the Steeler\u00a0coaching staff coming into the game.\u00a0\u00a0Jags All-Pro\u00a0DT Marcus Stroud is injured, but they still have a formidable defensive line that can eat up sub-par blockers.\u00a0\u00a0If\u00a0Faneca is moved over to tackle, that leaves a backup guard to handle blocking\u00a0John Henderson and Grady Jackson on the\u00a0interior of the Jacksonville D-line.<\/p>\n

I really\u00a0have no idea who’s going to win this game.\u00a0\u00a0Logic probably points to Jacksonville.\u00a0 They\u00a0won in Pittsburgh a few weeks ago and now the Steelers have\u00a0more injury\u00a0problems.\u00a0 Also, the Steelers\u00a0only beat one playoff team all year (Seattle in early October).\u00a0 They will have to stop Fred Taylor (who has killed them throughout his career) and Maurice Jones-Drew and force David Garrard to beat them.\u00a0\u00a0Garrard is still inexperienced and it will tough\u00a0for him in a hostile, playoff atmosphere to put the team on his shoulders.\u00a0 If he does, he will solidify himself as a franchise quarterback.\u00a0 But for the\u00a0Steelers, Roethlisberger has already done that.<\/p>\n

The Pick:<\/strong>\u00a0Steelers 14, Jags 13<\/p>\n

Redskins at Seahawks<\/font><\/strong>\"taylor\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’ve been saying all year that the Redskins stink.\u00a0 I couldn’t believe the Eagles lost to them in Week 2 and I wasn’t surprised in the least when\u00a0a 3-5 Eagles team\u00a0(a week after getting plastered at home by Dallas) went to Washington and\u00a0beat them\u00a0in Week 10.\u00a0 I stand by that.\u00a0 They were not a good team.\u00a0 But now they have two giant ‘X-Factors’ working in their favor:\u00a0 Sean Taylor and Todd Collins.\u00a0 Yup, a dead guy and a quarterback that hadn’t started an NFL game since 1997.\u00a0 Makes sense, right?<\/p>\n

Now, I’m not a huge believer in these ‘Tragedy strikes, Team starts winning’ stories.\u00a0 For every team that “Won One for the Gipper”, you could point to another team where people were saying, “Well, they’re losing because they’re emotionally worn down”, or something like that.\u00a0 But there\u00a0are these facts:\u00a0 Prior to Taylor’s funeral on December 3rd, the Skins had lost 5 of 6 games, with the one win being in\u00a0overtime against\u00a0the\u00a04-12 Jets.\u00a0 Since December 3rd, they have won four straight,\u00a0including road wins over the Giants and Vikings.<\/p>\n

Now, if\u00a0you’re not a\u00a0believer in the ‘inspirational’ explanation for that turnaround, there is another (probably better)\u00a0explanation:\u00a0\u00a0Collins taking over at quarterback at the start of this four-game winning streak.\u00a0 After\u00a0an injury to starter Jason Campbell, Collins came out of nowhere to win NFC Offensive Player of the Month honors for December.\u00a0\"collins\" His\u00a0quarterback rating of 106.4 is almost 30 points higher than Campbell’s and the\u00a0team went from averaging 19 points\/game with Campbell, to 26 with Collins\u00a0under center.\u00a0 I watched the Skins win over Dallas last weekend and Collins was\u00a0really impressive.\u00a0 Troy Aikman, commentating for the\u00a0game, was constantly showing replays of Collins releasing the ball long before a receiver was open, only to have the ball drop right in their hands just as they broke into a seam.\u00a0 I’m not saying he looked like Tom Brady, but he was\u00a0doing things you don’t see from\u00a0Campbell.\u00a0 Basically, I think Collins gives the Skins a shot in this game.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile,\u00a0the Seahawks will also count on a big game from their quarterback, Matt Hasselbeck.\u00a0 Les Carpenter, of\u00a0the Washington Post, <\/em>writes that the Seahawks season turned around when\u00a0Mike Holmgren decided to abandon a balanced offense<\/a> and start throwing the ball more and more.\u00a0 With the\u00a0team at 4-4 and Shaun Alexander showing that he’s\u00a0past his prime, Holmgren decided to put the offense on Hasselbeck’s shoulders and his team went 6-2 in the second half of the season.<\/p>\n

Like the Jags-Steelers, home-field advantage will play a key role in this game.\u00a0 Seattle is a surprisingly tough place to play, with the stadium being considered one of the loudest in the league.\u00a0\u00a0The Redskins have those ‘X-Factors’ working in their favor and they’re a popular upset pick in this game, but I think the difference will ultimately be the coaching.\u00a0 I don’t think Joe Gibbs can be\u00a0trusted anymore and I expect Holmgren to out-maneuver him.<\/p>\n

The Pick<\/strong>: Seahawks 27, Redskins 23\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jaguars at Steelers This is by far the best game of Wild Card Weekend.\u00a0 Not only are both teams really good, but they’re also so evenly matched that picking a winner is almost impossible.\u00a0 The Jags did go into Pittsburgh … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[161,163,157,35,164,165,33,158,160,89,159,162],"class_list":["post-76","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nfl","tag-ben-roethlisberger","tag-david-garrard","tag-jaguars","tag-joe-gibbs","tag-matt-hasselbeck","tag-mike-holmgren","tag-redskins","tag-seahawks","tag-sean-taylor","tag-steelers","tag-todd-collins","tag-willie-parker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/broadstreetbelievers.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}