NFL Wildcard Weekend January 3rd-Janauray 4th, 2009

[Perdogg]

Atlanta at Arizona (pk) Saturday January 3rd, 2009 NBC 4:30pm EST

Indianapolis at San Diego (+1) Saturday January 3rd, 2009 NBC 8:00pm EST

Baltimore at Miami (+3) Sunday January 4th, 2009 CBS, 1pm EST

Philadelphia at Minnesota (+3) Sunday January 4th, 2009 FOX, 4pm EST

[Jim W N]

Girls from the frat house? Doesn’t sound too promising...

[cleveland gop]

SAT JAN 11th

BAL@TEN{4:30et CBS}——The over/under in this game will be about 20. Since I’m picking the Ravens to go to the Super Bowl, I’m predicting they win. How??
Joe Flacco must play better than he did today in order to try to control the ball and keeping rested RB’s Chris Johnson and OSU hater LenDale White on the sidelines. If LeRon McClain and Willis McGahee can be the Ravens version of Smash and Dash, 1 or at most 2 scores might be enough to win.
Harass the hell out of Kerry Collins always helps too. This Ravens team and D Is as good and better than their SB team back in 2000. What’s to think things will be different?

Figure Tennessee being around a 5 point favorite, Ravens win the war though 13-10.

ARZ@CAR{8:15pm ET FOX}-—West coast teams are something like 3-15 playing at east coast cities. Sorry Kurt Warner. Your MVP type season ends here. That 86 yards running the ball yesterday will be a distant memory come Saturday Night.
Ball control should be dominated by the Panthers. Deangelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart should have a field day against a suspect run defense. And Antrelle Rolle, have fun trying to check Steve Smith all night.

Carolina is at least a touchdown favorite. And they will cover that too in an most impressive 34-17 victory.

SUN JAN 11th

PHI@NYG{1:00 pm et FOX}-—The backyard brawl is renewed. Something deep deep inside tells me I smell a major upset here. Let me say this. As long as Brian Westbrook has a green jersey on, that team has a chance to win. And let’s not overlook the big days Brian Celek and Jason Avant had. They came up huge, countering a quiet day from Brian Westbrook, until that TD late in the game.
Defensively, this team is about as good as the Ravens is right now, which in Mid January is not a bad place to be.

As for the G-Men, it would help greatly to have a big, physical receiver to match up with equally big and physical DB’s. Someone like Plexico Burress, for instance. Oops, that’s not going to happen. So now the game rests on Eli and Brandon’s wide shoulders. Now I don’t know if the young for the most part group of receivers can be effective enough. Maybe a wily vet, Amani Toomer, can save the day. I see similarities in the G’s D too so there won’t be a lot of points scored here.

Figure the G-Men to be a 5 point favorite. The Andy Reid/Donovan McNabb lovefest lives for another week. IGGLES 20 G-MEN 16

And finally we have.....
SD@PIT{4:45pm et CBS}-—This is probably the easiest of the 4 games on the slate to pick. I just don’t see the reasons to pick SD here. LT is not gping to be a factor, Darren Sproles, love him but I don’t see the same success he had yesterday. And Philip Rivers will be on his back plenty to boot.

Stillers win this game primarily on the ground and a swarming harassing defense, lookie here, just like the Ravens!!!

Pittspuke a 8-10 point favorite, back it up by winning 24-10.

HAVE AT IT BOYS!!!

[07Jack]

It will be a tough game.
Division rivalry, smack mouth football.
It's gonna be tough for the Eagles (or any team) to go into the Meadowlands and come out a winner.

But let me say this: Many Eagle fans are from the farmlands or Pinelands of Southern NJ.
The demographics of NJ are bizarre and not widely known.
I know you and most Freepers would be with us if you knew the contrasts between the Giant & Eagles fan bases.
GO BIRDS! WE LIVE ANOTHER WEEK!!!

[SC Swamp Fox]

So you are picking both 6 seeds to beat the #1 team in each conference....

I hope you are right, I want Carolina to play Philly at home, but I'll stick with my prediction of 4 home victories next week.

[Dr. Sivana]

West coast teams are something like 3-15 playing at east coast cities.

That is an arbitrary and meaningless stat. Carolina, climatewise, has more in common with Tennessee and Atlanta than it does with Foxboro, East Rutherford and Philadelphia. The Cardinals already played once in Carolina, and were beaten by a respectable five points. The Chargers blew away the "east coast" Tampa Bay Buccaneers. You may as well come out with a statistic that claims that the Cardinals don't play well against teams that were established between 1960 and 1972.

I'm not saying that the Cardinals will win. They are clearly an underdog with their weak running game. I am saying that the Carolina Panthers being "on the east coast" will not be a factor.

[cleveland gop]

When you see the Eagles and Ravens play defense, they’re mirror images of one another. I’m being completely serious giving both teams a chance to move on.

If you checked out the early lines guess which two games are the closest.....

BAL@TEN{-3}
ARZ@CAR{-9.5}

PHI@NYG{-4.5}
SD@PIT{-6}

VERY . VERY Imteresting, dont you think???

[cleveland gop]

I know I made it sound like that was the biggest factor, which of course it isn’t.

In the end, for Arizona to keep in the game they have to run the ball better than they did yesterday. They at best are inconsistent at that.

I just think that Carolina has too many weapons not to make this an fairly easy win. They had not established the dual RB game in that first meeting.

We’ll see what happens though.

[codercpc]

Good Game yesterday, the better team won.

Good luck next week.

[07Jack]

Thanks man, it was a hard fought game.
I think we’re gonna need that luck.

[blackie]

A sad tale, if I ever heard one. >:-}

[blackie]

Them’s the breaks. >:-}

[Dysart]

Heads up, Pacrat is sent Paccin'

Cowboys cut Adam Jones

[Dr. Sivana]

I just think that Carolina has too many weapons not to make this an fairly easy win. They had not established the dual RB game in that first meeting.

Now I wish I called for Arizona to win outright. This has been a crazy season.

[Boston Blackie]

I love it.

Brady
Farve
P.Manning
Romo/TO All watching from home.

Nope, no whining. /snigger.

Poor Jake, and on his birthday.

[SC Swamp Fox]

Poor Jake, and on his birthday.

He'll have nightmares about that game for years. They were absolutely humiliated. It's a good thing I stocked up on beer.

I'll be pullin' for the Cardinals next week.