New
England @ Denver (-5 ½)
The Patriots-Broncos tilt on November 24 was one of the
more entertaining games of the year. Denver went up 17 – 0 in the
first quarter, which featured a 60-yard fumble return, and entered
the second half ahead 24 – 0. That's right. The Broncos were
winning that game 24 – 0 before they lost in OT, 34 – 31.
As I mentioned last week, teams that can throw the ball
down the field present a problem for Denver, and one thing you have
to give the Patriots credit for is that they are a team (with or
without gangster-killers), who can throw the ball down the field.
Denver's loss of cornerback Chris Harris to a knee injury does not
help the Bronco pass defense, which is not much better than mud and
sticks and twigs to begin with. Even Gisele Bundchen understands the
significance of Harris' departure.
The Broncos win the yards/pass contest against the
Broncos by a 7.3 to 5.6 score. They (slightly) lose the defensive
yards/pass battle by 5.3 to 5.1. They have been a much better team
over the course of the season, they still are, and they probably
squeak by in Denver. Considering Harris, however, and considering
the history of the Brady – Manning wars, you CANNOT take Denver and
lay these points.
If nothing else impresses you, consider this. Brady is
18 - 7 in playoff games. Peyton is 10 – 11.
Take the points. I still make Peyton a very slight
favorite to win the game, but a Patriot victory would not be a
surprise.
San
Francisco @ Seattle (-3 ½)
These two met twice in 2013, with the Seahawks crushing
the 49ers 29 – 3 on September 15 and San Fran winning 19 – 17 on
December 8 on a field goal with 0:26 on the clock. Seattle wins the
yard/pass battle 6.6 to 6.2 as well as the defensive yards/pass
contest 3.9 to 4.5.
In other news, Seattle has given up fewer points this
year than any other team. Also, before I looked at the numbers, I
assumed San Fran had had a better second half of the season than
Seattle. In fact, both teams went 6 – 2 over the last eight.
Seattle outscored their opponents by 106 points over that stretch,
while the 49ers outscored theirs by 61. And did I mention that the
Seahawks have the best pass defense in the league?
It's not that San Fran is weak or has a lot of warts and
nicks and cuts. San Francisco belongs here, in the Conference
Championship. But Seattle is superior on both sides of the ball,
especially in Seattle. I'm betting the Seahawks, minus the points.
A
Note on the Games So Far
It
is natural in the playoffs for players to get excited, to feel the
pressure, to dread getting beaten, and that usually means there will
be a bit more holding on the line of scrimmage. In addition, as
receivers invade the defensive secondary, there may be more frequent
collisions, and some hard feelings may result.
It
is the job of the officials to maintain order in the game, and if
that means throwing a few flags in the first quarter in order to set
the proper tone, so be it. I'm disappointed because the refs have
not done so. As they say in the broadcast booth, “The refs are
letting them play today!”
In
fact, the refs are not letting them play, they are letting them
cheat. The game is less fun to watch when every receiver gets
his jersey grabbed by a defensive player, defensive linemen routinely
get tackled on their way to the QB, and nothing is called. (Or the
occasional penalty flag is thrown, seemingly at random.) These are
intentional violations of the rules. They are not accidental
penalties, like jumping offside or colliding with a receiver when a
pass is in the air. Holding a wide receiver's arm is always
volitional. It's cheating,
everyone knows it's cheating, and the only hope of the player who
does it is that he will get away with it because the refs do not
notice, or allow it to happen.
Cheating
should not be allowed. There are just so many reasons to banish it.
First, it rewards less-skilled players whose primary ability is their
knowledge of how to cheat without being detected---this effectively
punishes the best athletes by narrowing the gap between true
superstars and those who are merely adequate. It also cheats the
fans, like me, who just want to see the best athletes doing amazing
athletic things. That's a big reason I watch football, and if the
speed, and the moves, and the smarts of a great receiver can be
thwarted by a defensive player who doesn't have the ability to cover
him but is allowed to cheat---well, all football fans are losers.
And finally, of course (you knew this was coming), there's the kids.
Professional sports are supposed to be a meritocracy, and that's
basically the lesson we want children to take from it: be the best,
work hard, and you will succeed. The NFL is now presenting kids with
an alternative path to success: figure out how to cheat and not get
caught. We all know this alternate path is there, and it always has
been, but the difference is that cheating is being legitimized. If
that's how you need to win, well, just win, baby You
can still be a hero, even if you cheat. Kids get cynical soon
enough. We don't need to be teaching them there is no intrinsic
value in honesty and sportsmanship.
All of which brings me to the San Francisco @ Carolina
game and the embarrassing spectacle of wide receiver Anquan Boldin
(SF) and safety Mike Mitchell (Caro), trying to figure out their
respective gender identities on national TV in front of 30 million
fans.
The entire first half of the game (and parts of the
second) was dominated by these two jabbering at each other, bumping
helmets, and delaying the game with a “qui-es-muy-macho”
narcissistic psycho-drama that had nothing to do with the football
game and everything to do with their own insecurities. Their
behavior should not be confused with that of traditional, aggressive
male athletes. Reggie White would get in your face if you tried to
back him down, as would Lawrence Taylor, Brian Urlacher, Troy
Polamalu, and thousands of others. Football is a violent sport and
tough guys play it. The prancing, drag-queenish quality of
Mitchell's and Boldin's pas-de-deux, however, was something else
entirely.
It was embarrassing to watch. I am aware that Boldin
and Mitchell are both young men and that young men are not always
certain who they are and whether their primary sexual attraction is
to boys or girls, BUT I DON'T CARE. I just wanted to watch a
football game.
And again, the refs did nothing about it. Yes, there
were a few flags thrown, at random moments, but that sort of
intermittent reinforcement actually encourages players to cheat, act
out their fantasies, and otherwise ruin the game. Both Mitchell and
Boldin needed to be ejected from the game. Harsh justice, certainly,
but that which gets tolerated (and rewarded) gets repeated, and the
Mitchell/Boldin show should never be repeated.
BONUS---Scoring and Not Scoring
Over the last thirty years, the top scoring offense has
made it to the Superbowl fifteen times. (That's almost half the
time.) The best scoring defense has made it ten times. (You do the
math.)
This
year, Denver's top scoring offense (606 points) might
wing up playing Seattle's league-leading defense (231 points allowed)
in the Superbowl. The last time that happened was the 1990-1 season
when the New York Giants (best D) beat the Buffalo Bills (best O) in
the game that established Bill Parcells as a certified genius and
Scott “Wide Right” Norwood as Buffalo's answer to Bill Buckner.
As luck would have it, this odd duck, statistically
speaking, turned up the previous season when the 49ers (top-scoring)
won the Superbowl against the Denver Broncos (stingiest defense).
The one other time this happened in the past thirty was
in the 1984-5 season when the high-scoring Miami Dolphins fell to the
league-best scoring defense of San Francisco.
You
may be wondering whether any team has had both
the highest-scoring offense and the stingiest defense, and in the
past thirty years, there have been two teams to achieve this: the
1996-7 Green Bay Packers and the 1985-6 Chicago Bears. Both won the
Superbowl in blowouts. The New England Patriots were, in each case,
the victims.
Copyright2014MichaelKubacki
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