ARI @ NO 4:30pm ET
Week 12 was the high-water mark for the Saints. They had come off a 38-17 win against the Patriots. In that game, Tom Brady threw two interceptions and no touchdowns. The Patriots never converted good field position into points (Welker had a forty-one yard punt return; zero points) and their two touchdowns came at the end of eighty and eighty-one yard drives. Drew Brees threw as many incompletions as touchdowns (five). I can't imagine there were many people the following Tuesday who really expected a non-Saints team to represent the NFC in February.
That would have been pretty reasonable, on the whole. The New Orleans story up until that point was an explosive, unpredictable offense based on the zany principles Sean Payton cooked up. That offense was complemented by an unforgiving, turnover-forcing pass defense, led by Darren Sharper's remarkable ability to return interceptions for touchdowns. The challenge for opponents, essentially, had been being content to be run-heavy even while the Saints offense could respond, seemingly automatically, with a touchdown drive where Drew Brees (with the assistance of a two yard run by Pierre Thomas) goes 4/4 for 74 yards.
Then the Washington game happened: a game the Saints could have lost if Washington had had a kicker worth anything. Let's put this in perspective: the Saints never sacked Jason Campbell. Our man JC threw only one interception. Drew Brees was forced to throw the ball forty-nine times. Early on, the Saints tried running on third and short and failed; then they switched to passes that nfl.com lists as "short middle," and Washington figured that out. This was the game that the Saints' weakness was revealed: drop enough men into coverage, and they can't do a thing. (Here's another wrinkle: this game could well have been lopsided in favor of Washington if not for the Brees interception that Meachem stripped to return for a touchdown and if not for a bizarre muffed punt by Washington.)
So the Saints had a weakness, but the news didn't spread quickly enough. They barely beat Atlanta in a game that saw Brees have a fantastically efficient day (to the tune of 31/40, 3TD). Would this game have gone differently had Atlanta played more like Washington defensively? Maybe. Then the loss to Dallas, and the Saints looked just mortal.
I think this result was prefigured by the Saints-Eagles game in Week 2, which featured Kevin Kolb at quarterback racking up 391 yards. Why this wasn't a cause for concern: the Saints still won by twenty-six. Also, Kolb threw three interceptions, one of which was returned for a touchdown. So were the Saints in this game bad at giving up yardage compared to how good they were at keeping it from it becoming points? Yes, essentially: both touchdowns were due to big plays (DeSean Jackson catch, Ellis Hobbs punt return), though there were two field goal drives of over sixty yards. Forcing turnovers help that.
But this is Kevin Kolb. And, indeed, this defensive hiccup came back later in the season. Over the whole season, the Saints gave up 31.01 yards per drive, good for twenty-second in the league (Kansas City: better. Seattle: better). Their defense was, indeed, buoyed by their ability to produce turnovers (third in turnovers per drive, with 13.9%). (Both of those statistics, by the way, are thanks to http://footballoutsiders.com.) That fell apart in their Dallas loss (no turnovers, and 439 net yards, 43.9 yards/drive) and their Tampa Bay loss (two interceptions for a swing of at least ten points, but 439 net yards, 48.8 yards/drive, and Tampa Bay, everyone: Tampa Bay and a rookic quarterback in one of his first starts). That's what I see here: New Orleans can't force turnovers as once they could, particularly not against playoff teams. And that will come back to bite them against Kurt Warner.
I come to the Cardinals, and I have little to say that hasn't already been said: we saw what they could do against a thought-fantastic pass defense last week, and I shudder to think what they might do against a once-fantastic one. Now, of course, last week was a statistical anomaly: the Cardinals caught their fair share of breaks, in which a defensive back chose to play inside instead of outside technique, or shaded his coverage to the left instead of to the right, or whatever. So I don't think that they'll put up another forty-plus offensive points, even against a defense that I think is worse than Green Bay's. (It certainly doesn't have the linebackers.) The last thing you want to give Kurt Warner is time to throw, and the Saints will have little choice but to do just that. The Cardinals don't operate well when they're just dropping men in coverage, as we saw last week; if Aaron Rodgers can read you, I bet Kurt Warner can too. So it'll be an exciting, high-scoring game, but I'll pick the upset here. Arizona by ten.
BAL @ IND 8:15pm ET
This game happened during the regular season, much like the whole damn wildcard round. That game was all manners of anomaly: Peyton Manning made bad reads and forced throws, the Ravens tried to run Ray Rice out of passing sets, nfl.com tries to get me to click "WATCH HIGHLIGHT" on each of the game's six field goals.
It's tough to draw inferences directly from that game, and it's probably not a great idea. The Ravens offense knows what it is now, and what it is is running Ray Rice. The Colts won't be able to stop him any better than the Patriots did; indeed, they'll do a worse job: the Patriots have about a 0.2 yard edge over the Colts in adjusted line yards, per FO. (Also, Rice's style doesn't match up well against the Colts: they can stop smaller backs much more effectively than larger backs.)
Strangely, the Colts would be predicted to do better defending passes to Rice; they're eleventh, versus the Patriots' twenty-sixth, against passes to running backs, though they give up comparable yardage. This, even though the Pats didn't give up a Rice catch last week. So I guess it's possible that Flacco loses this game, too, by throwing an interception into triple-coverage again.
Flacco's mechanics are not going to be the best this game, due to injuries. The Baltimore offensive line prevented Mathis and Freeney from getting a sack last time; they may well do it again, but giving Flacco time might simply not be worth it: the secret to this game for the Ravens is the ground game.
Let's be honest about what will happen when the Colts have the ball: Peyton Manning will complete passes frequently and drive down the field easily. The Ravens don't have the pass rush they did in the past, despite what happened last week. And the only way for a pass rush to be particularly effective against Manning is when it is very, very fast: the '05 Steelers beat the '05 Colts in the playoffs because Manning didn't have time to get to a hot read with any kind of accuracy (and because that rush could come quickly without sacrificing much in terms of coverage; the Steelers six-blitzed three or four times, but other than that got fast pressure with four man zone blitzes). So Manning will, in all likelihood, have almost as much time as he wants to scan the field. And the Ravens have such a depleted secondary (Frank Walker and Domonique Foxworth are starting) that receivers will be open.
Really, this reminds me of the Indianapolis-Miami game. Indy moves the ball at will, but only holds it for fifteen minutes. Miami gains about four yards a minute, takes eighteen plays to move fifty yards, whatever. Forty-five minutes of ball control, and a loss because Indianapolis can match Miami's pace. That's the thing with time-of-possession: if your offense is just as skilled as your opponent's, then it usually means diddly to get a high ToP. It doesn't mean diddly if:
- The reason you have a high time of possession is because you have more possessions, via turnovers. So your equally talented offense turns more possessions into more points.
- You have the offensive flexibility to stop running the ball all the time and start passing once the defense gets winded
- Your ball-control offense doesn't get a high time of possession by running a bunch of eleven play drives that end in punts because they go thirty-nine yards. Drive conversion into points is still the name of the game, and if your offense doesn't have a good selection of plays that can work as a guaranteed one or two yards, then it cannot run the ball more than half the time or it will fail to score points on that drive. If you fail to score points and end up behind in the score, then every second you run off is also one you needed to come back.
The Ravens obviously lack the second criterion. They might have the first. I think they have diverse Ray Rice plays to satisfy the third criterion, but the Colts are good against running backs. I really don't see this working out any better than it did for Miami.
I wish the Ravens could win this one, just because a Ravens-Jets AFC Championship would be literally unwatchable by anyone but me (and I like watching football alone or with Hannah or my parents, not with crowds). And I think there's a fine chance that they pull it off. I just think that's only a bigger chance than the no chance at all most people give them. I'll pick Colts by fourteen.
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