The NFL post-season is upon us once more. The Ravens won't be a part of the playoffs this time around, but I hope that Ravens Nation has accepted that fact and is looking forward to the upcoming draft and free agent acquisitions that the Ravens can use to strengthen their roster for next season. Let us put aside for the next month our hopes and worries about the Ravens, and let us, as football fans, simply kick back and enjoy the bone-crushing hits, toe-tapping touchdown passes, heart-stopping last second field goals that made us fall in love with this sport in first place!
The playoffs hold special significance for me as a blogger because they give me a chance to take more a in-depth look at a smaller number of games. My success rate prediction playoff games is dramatically higher (my all-time record is 20-2) than that of my regular season predictions (I get about 67-70% of those correct on any given year) because I have the benefit of an entire season's worth of statistics with which to work. A bigger sample size of any particular statistical category tends to be more useful when making predictions, but that's no secret. The real tricks are determining which statistics are relevant and learning to totally ignore those which are not. Those abilities are what have set Purple Nightmare apart from the rest of the world of NFL predictions for the last 2 years. Thus far, I've frequently picked against Las Vegas oddsmakers and only got one game wrong in each of the last two post-seasons. Let's see if this season will yield the same success.
NFL WILDCARD PREDICTIONS: SATURDAY
CHIEFS AT COLTS
The Colts are a great example of why one needs to be particularly discerning when selecting which statistics to utilizes for predictive analysis. The Colts had essentially two phases to their 2013 regular season: Phase #1 with Reggie Wayne, and Phase #2 without Reggie Wayne. Wayne was unquestionably the best receiving weapon on the Colts' roster, and his season-ending injury during the Colts' win over the Broncos means that we must only utilize statistics recorded after Indianapolis' bye week.
Unfortunately for our statistical analysis, predicting this game will require far less research than most other playoffs games because the Colts and Chiefs just played one another in Kansas City a few weeks ago...and the Colts won big time. This game is less about how the Colts have done recently, and more about how the Chiefs have performed when facing actual playoff teams.
The Kansas City Chiefs have, during the last 7 weeks, only beaten two of the worst teams in the league, the Redskins and Raiders. Other than the Raiders and Redskins, the Chiefs have only faced playoff teams since their bye week and lost to each one of them. That isn't to say that the Chiefs have looked awful during that time period. Kansas City even should have, in the opinion of many, beaten or at least had the chance to beat the Chargers last week but did not do so because of glaring officiating errors. What made the Chief's overtime loss to the Chargers so impressive was the fact that the Chiefs sat most of their key players while San Diego played its starters.
It could be that the Chiefs will come out with a strong effort against the Colts after having sat their starters for the final week of the regular season, and it could be that the Chiefs are much better than many of us expected given how well their second string played against the Chargers in San Diego. I, however, believe the close game against the Chargers had more to do with the Chargers' preparatory apathy towards a game in which they assumed they'd be facing weak players, than the actual strength of the Chiefs.
The Colts appeared to have had the Chiefs figured out in their recent meeting in Kansas City. The Chiefs defense appeared to be extremely strong earlier in the season, but has surrendered an startling amount of points since they began facing serious teams. The Chiefs have, in fact, allowed an average of 27 points per game in their last seven games. Yes, it's true that the Chiefs have suffered through injuries to some of their defensive stars, but some of those injured players such as Tamba Hali remain questionable leading up to tomorrow's game. I'm sure Tamba Hai and Justin Houston will play, but their play won't be enough to give the Chiefs their first win over a team with a winning record this season...on the road...against a team that beat them 23-7 only a few weeks ago. I'd like to be able to work in more statistics to this one, but the most important stats are the most obvious ones: the Chiefs are 0-5 against playoff teams since their bye week, and the Chiefs already lost to the Colts recently.
The absence of Reggie Wayne may have actually been a blessing in disguise for Indianapolis. The future hall-of-famer's knee injury has forced the Colts to figure out how to utilize younger receiving weapons and their rushing attack to score. It's not that Andrew Luck and company are unbeatable. They've lost 2 games at home this season, and have looked uneven at times. The Colts have, nevertheless, taken down almost all of the league's most elite teams including the Broncos, Chiefs, Seahawks, and 49ers. They beat the Chiefs in Arrowhead Stadium, and they'll beat them in Lucas Oil too. The Chiefs will be more well rested, however, so this one should be more competitive.
PREDICTION: COLTS 27-21.
SAINTS AT EAGLES
I'm sorry to say that this game also doesn't warrant a ton of different types of statistical analysis. The Saints have, at times, appears to be a dominant team this season. They have, however, not looked dominant on the road. The Saints have only won 3 road games this season, and not a single one came against a playoff team. The Saints have, in fact, only won one road game since their Week 7 bye and that road game was against the lowly Atlanta Falcons--and the Saints only BARELY won. Since then, the Saints have faced the Seahawks, Rams, and Panthers on the road, and they've given up an average of 26 points per game in each of those three contests while only scoring an average of 12 points per game. Hell, even if we include the Saints' road win against the Falcons in our statistics of their road wins after the bye week, the Saints still only scored an average 13.25 points per game while still allowing 22.75 points per game.
The Saints as an organization have never won a road playoff game and this weekend won't break that trend. Weather conditions in Philadelphia should be fairly poor for a dome team such as the Saints. Such weather could only favor an Eagles offense that appears to play incredibly well when conditions are sloppy. Lesean McCoy is having a career year, and Nick Foles has played efficiently and with few errors. The Eagles don't have an amazing defense, but the Saints offense is simply to poor on the road to keep up with Chip Kelly's scoring machine. The Eagles have scored an average of 33.25 points per game in the second half of the regular season while allowing an average of 21.375 points per game. The moral of this story? Forget how the Saints perform at home because it means nothing regarding how they'll do on the road and especially the road in the playoffs.
PREDICTION: EAGLES 31-23.
I'm excited to watch the first round of NFL playoff games, but I must admit that I'm much more excited about what Sunday has in store for viewers. No, I don't believe the Chargers are going to win in Cincinnati, but I'm thoroughly excited about seeing the 49ers take on the Packers what is shaping up to be one of the coldest playoff games on record.
GET READY FOR THE PLAYOFFS, FOOTBALL FANS!!!
AS ALWAYS
GO RAVENS (NEXT YEAR)!!!
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