Methodological Precis.
Most of
you have been here before so you know how I do this. I look at all the playoff teams in terms of
their offensive yards/pass, with a negative adjustment for the number of
interceptions they have thrown. I also
calculate the same yards/pass number for the team’s defense, though I don’t care nearly as much about that number. Point differential over the season is also
something I glance at. The basic theory
is that offense, especially the ability to make a big play, is what wins
Superbowls. We all remember a few
Superbowl winners who had the league’s best defense (e.g., the 2000 Baltimore
Ravens), but they are very rare.
As a
general rule, an adjusted yards/pass (“AYP”) over 7 makes you a very serious
Superbowl contender, while an AYP under 6 will guarantee you an early tee time.
Once I
have all these numbers, I categorize the teams as Contenders, Pretenders, or
Could-Get-Lucky. This year, since there
are more teams, I’ve added another category: Need-A-Miracle-But-They-Don’t-Suck.
Finally,
I look at all the games and the lines and tell you which side to bet.
Who’s Who
The Pretenders---Chicago, Cleveland and Washington don’t
belong with the rest of these guys. None
will win a game.
Need-A-Miracle-But-They-Don’t-Suck---Seattle,
Baltimore and Pittsburgh are not good enough to win the tournament, but all of
them are favored in the first round, and they all might win. The only one I would consider betting on is
Pittsburgh, and that is because they are playing the Brownies. Then there’s Indianapolis, who is not favored
in the first round, and they probably won’t get past the first round, but they
have some nice wins.
Could Get Lucky---These are all teams that can
potentially beat anybody, and have something wonderful about them, but are not
as well-rounded and dangerous as the top-flight squads. These are the Rams, Tampa Bay, and Tennessee.
Contenders---The top four seeds are Green Bay, New
Orleans, Kansas City and Buffalo. We can
quibble about this or that aspect of this or that team, but I would be shocked
if none of them made it to the Superbowl, and there’s about a 90% chance one of
them will win it.
The Games
Indy at Buffalo (-6)
In the
AFC, Indianapolis has the 4th best AYP and the 5th best
defensive AYP, and they are 3 – 3 against playoff teams. Souls they beat Buffalo, they will get KC in
KC in Round 2. After that, it gets easy.
Buffalo
has only the third best AYP and the third best defensive AYP in the AFC. However, they have won their last six games
by at least ten points, and their last three games by 29, 29, and 30. Their only home loss was to KC in October.
I lay
the six points here. Indy can score, and
may do so, but Buffalo should score a lot and have a relatively easy time.
Rams at Seattle (-3.5)
These
guys, from the NFC West, traded home victories with each other, and were
privileged to play all the stalwarts of the NFC Least. Seattle went 3 – 1 against the Least, without
beating any of them by more than a TD.
The Rams took four victories and outscored the Least by a total of 50
points. That’s the way you are supposed
to do it.
Seattle
has the fourth best AYP and the Rams the fifth, but the Rams have something
Seattle doesn’t---a real defense that gave up the fewest points (296) in the
league this year.
I don’t
want to oversell the Rams. They did lose
to the Jets three weeks ago. But this
shapes up as a potentially ugly defensive battle and if that is the case, the
Rams will probably cover and might win outright.
Take
the points.
Tampa Bay (-8) at Washington
Of
course, TB will win this game, and everybody knows it. (The line opened at 3 or 4 and now it’s
8.) Washington has the worst AYP of any
team in either conference and Tampa’s QB is named Tom Brady.
The one
real thing about the Redskins, however, is their defense. It’s not that far behind the top three---the Rams,
Pittsburgh, and Baltimore. The Detroit
Lions, on November 15, was the last team to score more than 17 points against
them.
So I’m
passing this contest. There is very
little chance the Skins beat Brady, but there is a good chance they keep it
close.
Baltimore (-3.5) at Tennessee
Baltimore
has a better pass defense than Tennessee.
The Ravens had a rough patch in the middle of the season where they lost
three in a row, including a home game with Tennessee, but ended the season by
beating up on five relatively weak teams.
(Remember---this is a good thing.
The best teams tend to pound the weaklings.)
However,
Tennessee has a 7.2 AYP, as opposed to the Ravens’ 5.8. If AYP means anything in the playoffs, a team
with a significantly better AYP should win the game. Plus they are at home. Plus they are getting points.
I bet
the Titans here.
Chicago at New Orleans (-10.5)
This is
another one of those games where the wise guys are betting it like the game has
been played already. The Saints opened
as 9-point favorites and they’re now up to 10.5.
There
are obvious reasons for this. New
Orleans’ AYP is 6.8, behind only Green Bay in the Conference, while Chicago’s
is 5.1. The Saints outscored their
opponents by 9 points per game; the Bears didn’t outscore their opponents at
all. At one point, Chicago lost six in a
row, and the only good team they beat all year was Tampa, by a single point on
October 6.
So New
Orleans wins this game. But a
double-digit line in a playoff game?
This is a situation where the Saints could be up 28-3 at halftime but then
Chicago will be allowed to come back a bit and cover the spread while never
being in any danger of winning.
I pass.
Cleveland at Pittsburgh (-4.5)
Every
year, one team limps into the playoffs having scored fewer points than its
opponents. This year, that team is the
Cleveland Browns. They are now playing
in Pittsburgh in the opening round of the playoffs. The last time they played in Pittsburgh was
on October 18, when they lost to the Steelers 38-7. It may have been their worst loss of the
season, unless that distinction belongs to the opening-day 38-6 trouncing by
the Ravens or their loss to the Jets on December 27.
The
Steelers went 12-4, defeated its foes by an average of 6.5 points per game, and
lost only one game at home this year.
After starting the season 11-0, they lost four of their last five, but
perhaps some of that can be attributed to coasting. They also may have the best pass defense in
the AFC.
Neither
of these teams are likely to get past the second round, but somebody has to win
on Sunday. Cleveland’s AYP is a respectable
6.6, while Pittsburgh’s is 5.5, the worst in the AFC.
An
underdog with a higher AYP is often a compelling choice in these games. This one is less compelling, but though I
have reservations, I will take Cleveland plus the points.
Copyright2021MichaelKubacki
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