34-35 on the year and I am running out of games, so these picks are crucial to my mission of climbing above .500 on the season. Can it be done?! The drama is killing me and I’m sure it is killing you as well.
One thing to remember, no matter the result this weekend, we are all winners. All 4 of these possible super bowl matchups are stellar…we just hope to have some extra money in our pockets come the time of Super Bowl Sunday.
Here we go! Let’s go back to front…
·Bills (+3) @ Kansas City
oI don’t love the Bills performance offensively in the last game they played, scoring just 10 points on offense vs Baltimore, but let’s do 3 things here to settle us back down from overreacting to that. 1) It was a weather game, both offenses struggled. 2) Baltimore’s defense was really performing well on the back half of the season, that obviously carried over into the divisional round. 3) Playoff games are usually played pretty tight, and one week does not determine what happens in the next. Each game is its own saga. The trend I’m worried about is the Chiefs inability to blow teams out. They haven’t won by more than 6 since week 8. Every week they’re in a close game. The Bills have won 8 straight games and if you look even closer @ that…their last loss was in week 10 to the Cardinals, where they lost by just 2. That was the Hail Murray game…their last loss prior to that, was to non-other than the Kansas City Chiefs. This is a narrow window I’m playing with here given the line is 3, but I like the Bills +3, even though I think KC wins the game. But this is where betting and picking winners are different, I’m looking for value, not trying to lay a perfect prediction. Bills as 3 point underdogs is where the value lies in this one.
·Packers (-3.5) vs Bucs
oFun fact: Did you know the Bucs averaged more yards per rush than they averaged yards per pass in the first half of last weeks game vs New Orleans?! That isn’t going to cut it in this one. So let’s look @ this piece by piece…The Bucs have the better defense of the 2, by a decent margin. But the Packers, as of late, have the better offense, and this margin is a bit more significant, especially when you consider the Packers are @ home, and this is A-Rod’s biggest game ever played at Lambeau Field, where’s he’s played his entire career. The oddity in predicting where success will come from for the Packers is that look back @ week 6. Todd Bowles and that Bucs defense blitzed Rodgers like crazy, and it worked to perfection, it was the worst game the presumptive MVP played all year long. The irony of that is that few QB’s in the league were been better against an opposing blitz than Aaron Rodgers, he ranked 3rd in the league vs defenses that sent extra rushers his way. The Bucs blitzed the 3rd most times over the course of the season, and were most successful against Rodgers. Picking GB here means you are willing to look at week 6 as a complete anomaly in a season worth of quality statistical information. I am willing to do that. Packers -3.5.
photo: getty images