NFL Divisional Weekend

Sort of a Tortoise vs. the Hare type matchup as the Saints like to put the pedal to the metal and the Niners look to methodically keep the pace to a crawl and let their running game and their defense lead them to victory. From a situational standpoint, the Niners as a home dog is something I normally would be salivating over and would typically find myself jumping on the points and taking a strong stab on the ML. However, I am not salivating. And I haven’t played the home team in any capacity to this point. San Fran excels on the defensive side of the ball especially in the running game and causing turnovers as they led the NFL in both of those categories this year. The Saints don’t need to have an established run game to win and they are actually one of the better teams at protecting the football. NO has played 5 games this season against teams in the top 10 defense vs. the run. In these games, the Saints backfield rushed 128 times for 584 yards, or an average of 4.56 yards per carry. Not too bad. In these games, Bress has completed 69.9% of his passes, averaged 336 yards per game and threw 17 touchdowns against 4 interceptions. SF is # 1 in takeaways, but the Saints rank 7^th in the league in turnovers. The Saints have played six games against teams in the top 10 in takeaways and combined Brees has thrown 4 interceptions and they team has fumbled twice. In total, the Saints have had six turnovers in six games. Not too bad.

The 49ers weakness on defense is the Saints strength on offense. SF ranks 16^th in the league against the pass and the Saints are # 1 in passing offense. SF has played four games against teams in the top 10 in passing offense. In these games, the opposing QB has completed 61% of their passes, averaged 341 yards through the air and thrown 8 touchdowns vs. 3 interceptions. Harbaugh likes to put pressure on the QB and SF has had success this year, ranking 7^th in the league in sacks. But against a QB like Brees, too much pressure might backfire. In three games this year vs. teams in the top 10 in sacks, Brees has completed 71% of his passes, averaged 381 yards passing and thrown 12 touchdowns against 2 interceptions. He has been sacked only twice in these games, mostly because the Saints offensive line is very solid against opposing pass rush.

While the Saints don’t have league leading sacks to show for it, they do implement scheme blitzes to pressure the QB, and we are likely to see that throughout the game on Saturday. Alex Smith is rattled easily by pressure and if the Saints can break through early and cause some havoc in the backfield, they could benefit with solid field position and/or turnovers. In eight games this year vs. the league’s top 10 teams in sacks, Smith has completed 58% of his passes, averaged 202 yards through the air and thrown 8 touchdowns vs. 5 interceptions. He has been sacked 32 times in these games, an average of four per game.

This game comes down to can SF control the clock and keep the high octane Saints offense off the field. And even if they do that, can the offense muster enough points to win this game. The Niners run defense has been exceptional, but the Saints go 3-4 deep at RB, so they shouldn’t tire against the SF front. Even if the ground game struggles, Brees is likely to find his RBs in the face of pressure which should help in moving the chains. For as good as Alex Smith has been, I don’t know that the Niner offense is ready to win this game. SF has played six games against teams in the top 10 in total defense and averaged 19 points per game. That’s not too bad relative to who they played, but none of those teams were the Saints. They scored 57 points in two of those games vs. Seattle and Philly. Taking those out of the equation and SF has averaged 14 points vs. the Ravens, Steelers, Bengals and Browns. Now that’s not too good and they will need more against the Saints. NO has played five games against teams in the top 10 in scoring offense this year. In these games, the Saints are 5-0 and outscored their opponent on average 39-19. SF comes in ranked 11^th in points scored at 23 a game and their defense has the potential to keep the Saints somewhat in check, but the offense will be relied upon to take care of the ball and keep their defense off the field. The Saints can pressure Smith, which should lead to loss of yards on sacks, third and long situations and even turnovers. The Saints have only allowed two teams to go over 30 this year and the Niners have only done that twice themselves. I just don’t see Brees getting denied the endzone less than three times, so SF, in my opinion, will need to put up 30+ to win this game. No disrespect to what Harbaugh and SF have done this year and while I recognize this game is outdoors and SF has been dominant at home this year, they are welcoming a buzzsaw on Saturday, lead by a guy who seems to untouchable at the moment.

Leans : New Orleans -3.5 / OVER 47.5

Denver @ New England:

I compared last week’s Denver-Pittsburgh game to David vs. Goliath and the biblical reference rang true. If that was accurate, this week’s trip to NE is more like David vs. three Goliath’s though David has grown a little stronger and seems to be brewing with confidence. What did Denver do well last weekend? Honestly, only a few things. They put a ton of pressure on Ben, which lead to 5 sacks and really took the big play capability out of his hands. Overall the defense played well. Tebow was real good. I can’t say great as he only completed 47% of his passes and the Broncos were 3-10 on third down conversions. But Tebow was real good and he helped lead the Broncos to the victory. The team played inspired, which likely was a combination of having impactful plays lead to scores and then maintaining a high level with the fan support. Each of these individually carried strong weight toward the outcome of the game and collectively was too much for the Steelers. Now they head to NE, which even before kickoff they lose the in person fan support and now must maintain the same level of play on the road. No problem. Denver has won on the road this year and Tebow actually has better numbers away from Mile High. Let’s assume for a moment Tebow plays at the same level, which will help the Broncos cause, but won’t be enough. The defense will need to make plays and equally as important limit the plays of the high octane NE offense.

When these two teams met in Denver back on December 18^th, the Broncos defense was non-existent. Brady and the Pats had 451 yards of total offense, 26 first downs, held the ball for 33+ minutes, ran the ball well, were efficient through the air and didn’t turn the ball over. The Broncos managed to sack Brady twice, which had no bearing on slowing down the NE offense. However, the Broncos do get after the QB and have potential to have a greater impact on the game then they did on 12/18. NE has played five games against teams who rank in the top 10 in sacks. In these games, Brady completed 65% of his passes, averaged 358 yards through the air, thrown for 12 touchdowns vs. 3 interceptions and NE averaged 32 points per game. In these games, Brady was sacked 11 times, an average of 2.2 per game. Denver’s defense will need to get to Brady or cause some turnovers. In games this year where Brady threw 2+ interceptions or got sacked 3+ times, his numbers decline sharply and more importantly so does his team’s success. In these situations of 2+ interceptions or 3+ sacks, Brady has completed 63% of his passes, averaged 301 yards through the air, thrown for 17 touchdowns vs. 10 interceptions and NE averaged 28 points per game. Brady was sacked 23 times in these games for an average of 2.8 per game. NE, in these games, was 5-3 SU and against a DD spread were only 2-6 ATS. So the defense, if they can get to Brady and force turnovers can have a significant impact on the outcome. Brady has had seven games this year where his QB rating was under his season average of 105.6. The results of those games – three losses, a 3pt win, a 4pt win, a 9pt win and a 12 pt win. Looking at those games against an assumed spread of 13.5, which is what Denver is getting on Saturday, the Patriots are 0-7 ATS.

In order for the Broncos to win the game outright, Tebow will need to be just as good if not better, the defense will need to be better and force turnovers and the running game will need to be better. Seems like a tall order. To cover, I see a lot of the same. Certainly, the defense will need to get after Brady and make plays and Tebow and the offense will need to limit their mistakes and show improved production from last week. In my opinion, seems like a tall order.

I found two situational stats, which are in play for Saturday, to hold onto while thinking about this game. Over the last two years, Brady has been dominant in night games and in cold weather games (for argument sake, cold is less than 40 degrees). The weather is calling for a high of 30 and low of around 10, so we should have cold conditions. And as we all know the game is being played at night.

Night:

67.5% completion

296 avg. passing yds per game

19 / 1 Touchdown: Interception ratio

Cold Weather:

63.7% completion

253 avg. passing yds per game

21 / 1 Touchdown: Interception ratio

Leans: New England / Denver UNDER first half, New England -13.5

I’ve been pouring over stats, situations, matchups, etc. for this game all week, almost to the point of nausea. It has far and above occupied the most capping attention from me, and while I look over everything, I’ve narrowed the outcome of who covers to be primarily determined by the performance on the ground of each team. Both Houston and Baltimore rank in the top 10 in rushing defense, in fact they rank in the top 5. The Ravens have played six games against top 10 rushing defenses. In these games, Ray Rice has rushed 114 times for 526 yards, an average of 4.6 yards per carry. Additionally, he has caught 25 balls out of the backfield for 213 yards, or an average of 8.5 yards per catch. In these six games, Rice has scored 5 touchdowns. Overall, these numbers are decent, but I really wasn’t overwhelmed with Rice’s numbers against the league’s top rushing defenses. Examining this more closely, of the average damage he did, much of it came in two games against the Bengals where he rushed 44 times for 295 yards, well over half of his total ground production in the six games. Eliminating the games against the Bengals, Rice has rushed 70 times for 231 yards, an average of 3.3 yards per carry. His receiving numbers improve slightly with 18 catches for 162 yards for an average of 9 yards per carry. However, what is glaringly shocking in all of this is that Rice score 4 touchdowns combined against the Bengals this year, meaning in the remaining four games against the league’s top 9 rushing defenses, he scored one touchdown. His numbers against the league’s top 9 rushing defenses are not good at all. In fact, they are brutal. So, I went a step further and looked into how the Ravens fare in games when Ray Rice is seemingly non-existent in the box score. Rice has failed to reach 130 combined yards, which is his season average seven times this year, a higher number than I would have expected. In these seven games, the Ravens are 3-4 SU, so basically in every game the Ravens lost, Ray Rice was held under his season average in total yards. Looking deeper at the wins, the Ravens won by 3 twice over Arizona and Pitt and by 10 over San Fran. Basically, against a line of 8.5 which they are laying on Sunday, the Ravens are 1-6 ATS, with the one win a narrow cover.

Now let’s examine Houston’s running game against the league’s top 10 defenses against the run. The Texans have played six games against teams ranked in the top for rushing defense. In these games, Houston has averaged 145 yards on the ground per game and 4.3 yards per carry. In only one of the six games did they fail to exceed 100 rushing yards and that was against… the Baltimore Ravens. The Texans record in these 6 games is 5-1 SU, with the lone loss being against… the Baltimore Ravens.

The Ravens are 8-0 at home and against an assumed line of 8.5, what they are laying vs. Houston, they are 5-3 ATS. In each of the three games where the Ravens won by less than 7 points, the one common denominator in all of them is that the opponent in each game rushed for more than 100 yards. The opponents were Arizona, Cleveland and Cincinnati, who rank 19^th, 24^th and 28^th respectively in rushing offense. The Houston Texans rank 2nd in the league in rushing yards per game.

Take the above two theories with a grain of salt as there are several intangibles in play that are not defined in historical stats. For example, a rookie QB on the road in the playoffs, a dominant home team whose fans haven’t seen a playoff game on their turf since 2006 and aging veterans on the Ravens who might be staring at their best, and last chance to get back to the Super Bowl. However, when you strip all of the emotional factors away, I think this game simply comes down to who has greater success on the ground, both offensively and defensively. The Ravens have shown that they can stop the rushing attack of the Texans as they did back on October 16^th en route to a convincing 29-16 win. And Rice has proven he can run on the Houston defense. Lots have changed since that game. Matt Schaub is out and the rookie TJ Yates is in. This is a clear downgrade for the Texans. Yates will need to make plays down the field whether Houston has success on the ground or not. On the other side, Joe Flacco will need to dynamically manage the game and he will be relied upon to get the offense going if Ray Rice struggles. Flacco has a bull’s eye on his back and most critics feel he isn’t consistent or good enough to lead this team to a Super Bowl win. He is set up nicely, with a home game against a third string rookie QB. If the Ravens get production out of the defense and Ray Rice, they will win this one going away as they did on October 16^th. If either falter, the Ravens will need Joe Flacco to not only lead them to an ATS cover, but to lead them to a berth in the next round.

Leans: Baltimore 1Q, Houston 1^st Half, Houston/Baltimore UNDER 1^st Q