MNFLoser

This one and the NCAA championship both kind of bizarre disappointing matchups in terms of broad interest.  I'm more interested in the commercials and halftime show for the first time since the Rex Grossman Bears played road kill to the Colts and Prince rocked the halftime show like nobody ever has.

In watching both conference championships the big thing I would note is I thought both the Patriots and Vikings did not match the intensity of the Jaguars and Eagles.  In the case of the Vikings think it had to do with an emotional win and a road game for a franchise iffy on the road.  With the Patriots think like the Steelers before them were not ready for what the Jaguars brought.

The other item is the Eagles seemed to change their play calling mix about halfway through the Falcon game to run pass options that Foles is more comfortable with.  That continued into the Viking game with great success.  Mike Zimmer probably had fifteen pass plays similar to what the Vikings saw given RPO was only prominent in the second half of the Falcon game.  Now wondering if with 1.5 games of tape if Bill Belichek will have enough information to shut it down.  Often new players and scheme have success for a stretch due to teams not knowing how to scheme.  Neither the Falcons or Vikings defended RPO well so not a lot of tape on stopping the Foles/Eagles approach.  I had figured Zimmer could stop it given his track record against non HOF QBs and was wrong and lost money on that assumption.  Is there enough out there for the Pats who have rushed the QB well with 4 to stop it or no?

Zimmer and Belichick are on a collision course to meet in the bowl, and it could be one of the best of the decades with the two top coaches in the league going head to head.

Think it would be a lot like Patriots/Seahawks classic.  Brady going against a secondary hat doesn't give cheap first downs away.  Brees is probably the only other guy that can just straight up gun sling and he had to work really hard to score points.  Think Pats/Vikings would look a lot like VIkings/NO.

Philly still won in spite of Foles versus because of him.  They had 15 points, Foles had the lowest QBR of any QB to play last week worsting Ryan in a race to incompetence.  His best play was a pass off an Atlanta defenders knee that turned into 25 yards on the deflection.  Those two were basically playing the 5/6 game while Saints/Vikings was the NFC 1/2 game.

Thus far 7-2 in the postseason on bets.  Had all dogs in wild card round to go 4-0.  Then had Titans, Eagles, Jags, and Vikings in second round along with Saints TT under 22 to go 3-2.

What I have cooking this week:

Jags +9.5

Vikings -3

2-team tease Patriots -1.5 and Eagles +9.5

Eagles Team Total under 18.5

At least do some fact checking:

close vikings you got lucky vs saints because they lost to TB again

and no team ever won a superbowl who lost to TB hence why falcons lost it last year

In 2009 the Saints lost to TB and won the Superbowl.  Not sure of other times but, figured start with NFC South teams and it took one check of 2009 to prove this sweet, irrelevant factoid wrong.

Stop the Eagles offense?  Three crappy defenses in Falcons, Raiders, and Cowgirls all stopped the Eagles offense.  They have the worst QBR rated quarter back of any QB that attempted over 100 passes this year.  He can't complete a pass over five yards and against the best man to man pass D in the league he won't complete many 5 yarders.  Then they have a rushing attack averaging 3 yards per carry against the number one defense in football.  The high flying Saints rushing attack with a first ballot HOF QB and two better RBs couldn't run so not sure how a team that will crowd the line against a guy that can't complete a 10 yard pass will move the ball at all.

The defensive numbers are just terrible competition.  Again Eagles home record against teams that finished 13-43 on the road.   Against teams with a winning record they are 1-1 at home averaging 7.5 points per game.  In addition, they allowed over 20 points three times at home.  Vikings hadn't allowed more than 20 in any home game until the Saints put up 24 Sunday.  Think you can pass on the Eagles corners and don't think Foles can pass at all against any respectable D.  So think it ends up something like 21-10.

Eagles are 1-1 at home against teams with a winning record lost to Dallas and beat Atlanta.  Negative scoring differential and average 7.5 points per game. 

All the "differential" comes from one game.  Vikings in game 2 were blown out at Pittsburgh when Bradford thirty minutes before the game decided he couldn't go and Keenum was thrown in with little to no prep Vikings lost 26-9. 

The one other loss was a stretch of 4 out of 5 on the road when they won @ Washington,  home to Rams, @ Detroit, @ Atlanta, and then played their worst game of the year at Carolina and still were tied with two minutes left.  This isn't 4 of five on the road situation or a Sam Bradford game plan.

"Eagles Home Dominance"

Teams they beat this season at home were a combined 13-43 on the road and almost all those wins were with the number two QBR guy at the helm in Wentz.  Final QBR for those with enough attempts was 1- Wentz 75 2-Keenum 70

Foles w a QBR of 28 although not enough attempts comes in behind Kizer, Trubisky, Hundley, Savage, Brisset, CJ Beathard, Gabbert.  So with a dramatically better QB at the helm they beat a bunch of terrible teams that combined on average to win 1.8 games on the game this year.

Keenum had two game winning drives against NO under 2 minutes.  Probably more than Matt Ryan and Nick Foles combined this year he did in one game.

But, both teams are 14-3 so they usually win and odds go up when they score first.  Saints didn't score until 1 minute left in third and almost won because they are much better than average opponent.  Falcons scored first and lost to Philly.

Most games are against crap teams as you take the other side of this and Vikings were 7-3 when they were scored on first.

Just so that I'm clear Minnesota beat Atlanta once and New Orleans twice this year but, both teams are better?

Also, pretty sure Stephon Diggs wiped the smirk away.

The only thing that bothers me about doing anything large with the Jaguars is think the numbers are skewed.  AFC South QBs, the mess in Houston other than Watson weeks, whatever Indy was doing, and Mariotta.  These guys all suck.

Then they played AFC Central which has crap QBs except for Big Ben.  Blaine Gabbert, Garrapolo, Wilson, etc. all lit them up.  So worry the numbers are skewed as very few games against actual NFL QBs.  I'm taking them to cover as think both O-Line and D 7 are physical enough to keep it close but, not going large as do think their success is largely skewed.