NFC Playoff Preview: Team Trump Elimination Day Edition

Well, yesterday’s games were pretty interesting: a well-coached AFC East team with an excellent defense held back by a shaky QB, and come to think of it there was also a game involving the Buffalo Bills.

On the Pats, I’ll do a separate post about the macro questions. But yesterday’s game certainly felt like the end of a dynasty even of it’s very likely Belichick will have the team back in solid shape next year. After the dropped pick-6, after the surrender punt — any fan who’s been watching this for a while had to be conditioned to expect the Pats to march right down the field and make them pay, but they never did. Brady’s decline has become serious, and the skill position talent has been emaciated. Vrabel bet that New England couldn’t move the ball on his defense when it mattered, and whatever you thought of the bet at the time his assumption turned out to be correct. It will be interesting to see what happens from here.

The Bills/Texans game was an object lesson in how many things you can get wrong if you find an elite QB and find a few elite pieces to put around him. O’Brien had one of his weirdly ineffective gameplans and it felt like they were getting beat worse than the 16-0 score indicated. But — and as a Seahawks fan I feel like I’ve seen this game 20 times in the last 2 years — having Watson and Hopkins on your side allows you to overcome a lot of other issues. The Bills, meanwhile, suffered another crushing playoff loss, and the larger story is similarly sad — they’re a lesson in how much you can get right and still be nothing more than riding an easy schedule to being first round cannon fodder if you get the QB wrong. In a way it would have been better had Allen been a total bust; he’s been just good enough to convince coaches that his freakish athleticism will eventually allow him to overcome all the Hail Marys to double-covered fullbacks in tie games and overthrown swing passes and random laterals to nobody, but it won’t. Even if they avoid the massive blunder of extending him, they’re likely to stick with him for four years of wasting a potentially championship-caliber defense, with the division’s two-decade ruler looking more vulnerable than ever. So, yeah, don’t write off the Pats yet is what I’m saying.

Vikings (+8) over SAINTS This, needless to say, isn’t an anti-Saints pick — Brees is an immortal considerably closer than Brady to his peak form, Thomas was the most valuable non-QB offensive player in the league this year, Payton has about as good a case as the best non-Belichick coach in the league as anybody, and they finally have a solid defense to match their always-potent attack. If they had been able to beat the Niners and get the top seed I’d bet on them to make it to the Super Bowl Rather, this is a pro-Vikings pick. Cousins isn’t quite consistent enough to be a first-tier QB but he’s a very good QB who had a very good year, and he’s surrounded by a lot of talent. The Saints are better and I’ll be surprised if they lose outright, but 8 points is a lot for an excellent team to be giving up to a very good one, especially given the injuries to the Saints defense.

EAGLES (PK) over Seahawks The injury-ravaged Eagles should be a good matchup for Seattle. One could go through this at some length, but the short version is that 1)the Seahawks have a Hall of Fame QB and some tall, fast receivers and 2)the Philadelphia corners are total dogshit. A Belichick-style gameplan focused ruthlessly on exploiting matchups should allow Seattle to throw the Eagles into oblivion. The problem is that especially since Schottenheimer was hired the Seahawks have been monomanically obsessed with ESTABLISHING THE RUN irrespective of the matchups or available talent, going through long, unecessary stretches of offensive ineffectiveness before turning to Wilson to bail them out. If they do that here, Wentz — who did a hell of a job moving the ball throwing to a bunch of air conditioning repairmen to steal the division from Dallas down the stretch — will put up enough points to keep the game competitive if Seattle decides they need to throw out some three-and-outs to start the game. And while Carroll is a hell of a Tuesday-Saturday coach, in a close game I’d much rather have Pederson on the sideline.