The Wildcard’s NFL Predictions - Week 15
Last Week: 8-8
Season: 135-71
Denver Broncos (4-9) at Indianapolis Colts (3-10)
Friday 2.25pm NZT
Okay, alright, here we go! Only three weeks left in the NFL regular season and everything’s on the line as the weather packs in and the presents are packed up under the tree and we’re kicking things off this week with… we’re kicking… with… oh, sweet Jesus, no… on live television! This has gotta be illegal…
Wildcard’s Pick: Colts by 3
Chicago Bears (4-9) at Detroit Lions (7-6)
Sunday 10.30pm NZT
Mate, we got some curious results in the NFC last week, didn’t we? Enough to shake up that playoff picture completely. First off the Falcons were able to narrowly hold on against the Saints to turn the NFC South into a very active volcanic event, particularly with the Panthers getting an impressive win over the Vikings. Hey and with Minnesota losing it allowed the Lions and the Packers to take a step back into things in the NFC North. The Seahawks going down to the Jaguars makes the wildcard race very interesting, especially with the Cowboys also winning, while the Eagles may have done the business against the Rams, keeping that LAR playoff quest very much still in doubt despite their nine wins, but losing Carson Wentz might just change everything despite a guaranteed playoff spot in Philly.
It all would’ve been much simpler with wins for the Saints, Seahawks and Vikings. Instead we’ve got two divisions still very much up for grabs and suddenly neither of the runners up look nearly as assured of wildcard places. The Seahawks and Falcons have eight wins, the Lions, Packers and Cowboys have seven wins. All right now competing for one place. The Panthers look ever so slightly better off with nine wins for that first wildcard slot… except if they beat the Saints this week then they go into first and it’s New Orleans needing to snap the slide to hold onto a playoff spot.
Hey and the longest active winning streak in the NFC as we speak? It’s a three way tie between the Packers, Cowboys and 49ers… with two wins. They’re all beatable, they’ve all been beaten recently. Absolute foot-stompin’, leg-slappin’ madness and that’s just one conference! Gotta love it.
I noticed Mitch Trubisky had a sweet one last week. 25/32 for 271 yards and a TD pass in a 33-7 win over Cincinnati. Chuck in 147 yards and two TDs on the ground for Jordan Howard and that was as impressive as I’ve seen the Chicago Bears all season. Told you they were on the way back up. I only wished I’d picked them last week – you know you’ve buggered up the pick when Andy Dalton’s getting benched for AJ McCarron.
Also take note that this game is on a Sunday in New Zealand time. Bonus weekend football!
Wildcard’s Pick: Lions by 7
Los Angeles Chargers (7-6) at Kansas City Chiefs (7-6)
Sunday 2.25pm NZT
Another Saturday night game in the States, this time one between not only one but two playoff hopefuls – another reason to be grateful for the gifts we’ve been bestowed this festive season. Hark the herald commissioner sings!
Imagine like a month into the season pinpointing this game as a division showdown while KCC were 5-0 and the Chargers were trying to recover from a 0-4 start. Utter madness, yet their seasons have taken opposite swings ever since. Like Freaky Friday or something, inhabiting each other’s franchises… which would almost make sense if we weren’t used to the Chargers coming back from dumb starts to their seasons and the Chiefs blowing things up late on in theirs. Usually not to either of these extents but, hey, makes for a bloody good game on Sunday.
The only team to ever make the playoffs after starting 0-4? The Chargers back in 1992.
Some people are worried that LAC will bottle it now that they seem to be favourites for the division. Those people don’t have enough trust in Philip Rivers though. Per the LA Times, check out what the carpooling maestro has been doing over this month of victories…
LA Times: “No amount of pressure seems to faze Rivers, who is on a remarkable four-game streak in which he has completed 96 of 139 passes for 1,348 yards, with eight touchdowns and no interceptions, for a quarterback rating of 119.2. According to Pro Football Focus, Rivers was particularly strong when the Redskins blitzed Sunday, completing eight of 11 passes for 183 yards and two touchdowns.”
And ever since Denzel Perryman came back they’ve been beastly against the rush, so don’t expect that brief Kareem Hunt resurgence to continue. Fair play to the Chiefs for righting the ship themselves with a win last week. But I really don’t think they solved many problems there – all they did was beat an equally flawed Raiders team.
Wildcard’s Pick: Chargers by 5
Baltimore Ravens (7-6) at Cleveland Browns (0-14)
Monday 7.00am NZT
His name is Josh Gordon. You may have heard of him already.
For real though, the guy misses that much time and he comes back in and picks right up where he left off? He was one of the best receivers in the game while catching passes from Brandon Weedle and after getting suspended for two years he’s still one of the best catching passes from DeShone Kizer – 154 yards with a badass score in there in his two games back. Fair play to the lad. Although… this Ravens secondary will be as tough a test as he could hope for.
Still wasn’t enough though. 21-7 up against the Rodgers-less Packers going into the fourth quarter and they still lost. Because of course they did, this is the Browns we’re talking about. Blew a good show from Isaiah Crowell too, those are too rare to be wasting (121 yds at 6.4 y/c). Silly old Browns, this was their chance to dodge the 0-for. Three more games left to save it and week 17 is in Pittsburgh. The Bears will be a possibility next week but the Ravens, mate… Cleveland will be lucky to get 200 yards of offence the season they’ve been having.
Shout out to Kenny Britt. He spent the first thirteen weeks getting beaten and playing poorly after signing a decent sized contract in the offseason only to get waived from a winless team. Now he’s gonna sign with the Patriots. And you just know he’ll go for 150 yards in a playoff game, they always do.
Wildcard’s Pick: Ravens by 10
Philadelphia Eagles (11-2) at New York Giants (2-11)
Monday 7.00am NZT
Oh God, man, no. That suuuucks. You knew it looked bad when it happened but once the news leaked that Carson Wentz had done his ACL then you knew things had just drastically changed and not for the good. This blows the conference wide open with a team that’s still likely to push for a first round bye with Nick Foles now gonna have to host a playoff game without their MVP candidate. Yeah… and it also means that Tom Brady’s gonna win that award too, by the way. I’d been calling for him anyway but you never wanna see a player hurt like that. Injuries are the worst part of sport.
It’d be rude to rub it in for all the Philly fans out there and it’d be disrespectful to anyone not a Giants fan were I to go into any detail on those chaps so I’ll leave this one there if you don’t mind. Chin up Philly. Nick Foles will carry the load until the playoffs, at least.
Wildcard’s Pick: Eagles by 7
Cincinnati Bengals (5-8) at Minnesota Vikings (10-3)
Monday 7.00am NZT
Wildcard’s Pick: Vikings by 14
Arizona Cardinals (6-7) at Washington R*dskins (5-8)
Monday 7.00am NZT
Lookie here, two teams with nothing left to play for but still sitting around that 50% mark and nobody’s really gonna be eyeing this one up for much screen time come Monday morning yet you just know they’ll probably chuck on a classic for the fans that still care. You know what though? I reckon I can live with missing it all the same.
These were two teams that showed plenty of promise before the campaign kicked off but never really got it going. The Cardinals surprised me by being as bad as they have been. Never thought they’d make the playoffs but I did think they might at least be able to challenge. Tough division to be playing in though – they lost 33-0 and 32-16 to the Rams and have also dropped one to Seattle with a trip to Washington State to finish things off. Injuries to two of their three best offensive skill players will ruin most seasons as well. In fact most seasons only need one to wave the white flag. Having said that though, for the most part they’ve beaten bad teams and lost to good ones. Just beat the Titans as well, who are somewhere in between. As for the R*dskins? They’re exactly where they should be – playing for 8-8 at best. One of the more overrated teams preseason simply because of the hombre Kirk Cousins. Let’s see how they go next year when (/if) he leaves!
Wildcard’s Pick: R*dskins by 6
Green Bay Packers (7-6) at Carolina Panthers (9-4)
Monday 7.00am NZT
Well, they did it. The Packers needed overtime to get past the winless Browns but here they are at 7-6 and just in time for the medically cleared return of Aaron Rodgers, who of course has been lighting it up for two weeks at practice already. This is not what I wanted to be writing… but as always if somebody has to beat ya, may as well be Aaron Rodgers.
Rodgo: “Hopefully, it gives a lift to some of the guys, but I'm not coming back to save this tea. I'm coming back to play quarterback the way I know how to play it. Hopefully, we all raise the level of our play collectively and find a way to win these three games.”
Which makes this a nice time to say: hey, nice work Brett. Young fella Hundley arguably got better with every subsequent start other than the 3 INT shutout loss against Baltimore. Only threw 84 yards in the win over Tampa Bay but he also rushed for 66 in that game and most importantly they won. Then last week he had his best with a 35/46 COMP, 265 YDS, 3 TD, 0 INT performance in the comeback in Cleveland. The overall figures of 63.9% passing for 8 TD & 8 INT isn’t all that much better than what I’d have expected of him, though that’s a harsh metric. What really matters is that he was able to win this team three games while Rodgers was injured and now he comes back knowing that if they can run the table they might just make the playoffs.
Easier said than done with the Vikings next week and then away to the Lions the week after. Not to mention the Panthers this time around. Umm, dunno if you saw this but Carolina played pretty flippin’ well to beat the Vikes. They were able to take away enough of the rhythmic stuff on offence to where they forced a couple mistakes out of Case Keenum – who was getting belted all game - and then, as things began to get nervous, Cam Newton busted a big old run down the field to get all that momentum back after a 52-yard Adam Thielen score and a Newton pick that led to a game-tying field goal. The little juke step he throws in there to get through was magical.
That, my friend, is what I expect to see from the Panthers most weeks and yet it tends not to be what they do at all. I’m fully prepared to pick them to win this only for Aaron Rodgers to do something crazy and Cam Newton to do something silly and… yeah, that story again. But I’ll back them anyway because I never learn.
Wildcard’s Pick: Panthers by 3
New York Jets (5-8) at New Orleans Saints (9-4)
Monday 7.00am NZT
Whatever happened to the Old York Jets and Old Orleans Saints, amirite!? Nah but seriously folks… Saints are gonna coast here. The Jets lost to the Broncos so that’s all the respect they’d been carefully acquiring gone out the window.
Wildcard’s Pick: Saints by 20
Miami Dolphins (6-7) at Buffalo Bills (7-6)
Monday 7.00am NZT
So… how about that weather in Buffalo last week? Probably won’t be any better this week either. I mean I’ve seen some snowy games of football before but this was a blizzard of horror film proportions. I don’t feel sorry for the players or the broadcasters who are the ones who make all the noise about that stuff, I just respect the fans that turned up and froze their arses off to watch the Bills beat the Colts. Haha, like… what are you doing with your life to decide that’s a good way to spend a Sunday? Neither of those teams are even good! Man, huge respect for those nutters. This kind of illogical life planning is what makes sports so beautiful.
At least if you do have to play in conditions reminiscent of those north of The Wall on Game of Thrones then you can do a lot worse than lean on LeSean McCoy. Man’s got ice skates instead of cleats or something because he was making cuts on that goddamn tundra. He was the only one too… McCoy had 156 yards rushing and Nathan Peterman, Joe Webb and Jacoby Brissett had 161 yards on 18/38 passing combined. The Bills only made seven completions while their punter was in action six times. It was definitely a fun watch, that’s for sure.
Shout out to the Dolphins for beating the Patriots as well. Dunn how it happened because I didn’t watch it but it was such a pleasant surprise to come home to.
Wildcard’s Pick: Bills by 6
Houston Texans (4-9) at Jacksonville Jaguars (9-4)
Monday 7.00am NZT
Tom Savage’s hands shaking uncontrollably after that hit… argh that was awful. Even more awful when they briefly let him back in there afterwards. I don’t wanna get on the bandwagon of complaining about player health all the time when players are paid well to do something that they chose to do for a living, dangers included, but please don’t tell me the NFL is taking this stuff seriously when this is happening. I didn’t think seizure when I saw it, I thought spasms. Probably shouldn’t be happening either way.
Question: was there ever a time when people could enjoy massive hits to the head? Like, people talk about how the game is becoming more aware of this stuff but what kind of sadist ever saw a man smashed in the skull and cheered? But these hits are so embedded into the game that nobody seems to want to deal with it as effectively as they should. The ‘Concussion Protocol’ has all the right intentions but, seriously, what a joke when it just seems like coaches get to pick and choose which injuries are serious. A backup receiver cops one? Yeah, never too safe. He won’t be returning. A quarterback? Nah he’s okay, just got shaken up a little.
At some point you’ve gotta start flagging any non-accidental contact to the head and start teaching actual tackling technique. Then watch the difference.
Okay back to the fun stuff, there’s no way the Texans can move the ball on the Jags so looks like we’re setting up for a tenth Blake Bortles win of the season. Good for you Bort. Enjoy it when you’re traded for Eli Manning after your playoff defeat.
Wildcard’s Pick: Jaguars by 10
Los Angeles Rams (9-4) at Seattle Seahawks (8-5)
Monday 10.05am NZT
Time for this bad boy, what do ya reckon?
Still got Dallas missing despite winning out although even if I change that one result to a Seahawks win in Cowboys Stadium then the Falcons are still sneaking through. Hence the Seahawks have some work to do if they’re gonna do this thing. Losing to the Jaguars did them exactly zero favours and now they host the free-scoring (at least against bad teams) Rams with a trip to Dallas afterwards. Nothing comes easy for them this year, does it? Except for Russell Wilson, that is.
That thing about the Rams being bullies? They’ve been kept to 20 points or less three times and lost the lot of them – Vikings, Seahawks and R*dskins. They’ve scored above that ten times and won nine, the one defeat being last week’s 43-35 loss to the Eagles in what, by the way, was a stanking marvellous game to watch. But most of the teams they’ve put points on have been kinda average. 51 against the Giants, 46 against the Colts, 41 in San Fran, 35 against both Dallas and Philly while still leaking big points at the other end and splitting the results, 33 points against Arizona and Houston, 32 again against Arizona. Only the Philly defence is much good from that lot. Dallas can do some things but they’re nothing special. And they lost the Philly game. Rather clear path to beating them then – it’s all about whether the Seahawks can slow them down.
Last time they played, the Hawks picked off Goff twice and kept Todd Gurley to 43 yards on 14 rushes. Defensive injuries make this a conversation but it’s also in Seattle and I kinda feel that the weaknesses the Jags were able to expose are not the same weaknesses the Rams are able to get at. Namely a secondary capable of making Russell Wilson’s life hell for three quarters and the weapons to expose the gaps in the Seahawks’ own backfield. Their defensive line is still monstrous.
Wild thing here is that both teams did each other a favour by losing. Did a few other teams favours too and, best of all, did the rest of us favours by making this a hugely crucial game.
Wildcard’s Pick: Seahawks by 3
Tennessee Titans (8-5) at San Francisco 49ers (3-10)
Monday 10.25pm NZT
Oh my man Jimmy G! First off, what a lucky bugger to have escaped the Patriots so that people can actually cheer for him now. Second off, the dude is really good. We’re still talking limited viewings against limited opposition but those 334 yards didn’t throw themselves against Houston. That’s back to back road wins now, something the Niners haven’t done since 2014. He’s just got such a smooth throwing motion too, it looks gorgeous when he flips a pass downfield and that’s always a great sign. And this lot are definitely playing better around him. Pick up the best wide receiver in the draft in a few months and see where they are going into the 2018 season – we already know that Kyle Shanahan knows a thing or two about coaching offence.
By the way, isn’t this way of doing things so much better than the tanking option? It means you have to pay the big bucks for your QB to re-sign him but you also get him in the established years of his career. Chuck him in there with a few weeks left to show everyone what you’ve got and start the building of that offence for next season and maybe win a few games in the process. That way you hit the offseason with confidence and belief (not the same thing). Everyone’s excited and motivated for 2018. The drop in draft order doesn’t matter either because the teams ahead are mostly looking for quarterbacks and you’ve already got one.
As for these damned Titans, any time they lose, as they did in only scoring 7 points against the Cardies last week, it’s just like: oh yeah, they’re the Titans. The Colts and Texans both pushed them so of course the Cardinals were gonna be in the game. Tennessee might be up there with eight wins but too many of them have been ugly victories. Eventually that catches up with you.
Add in that Derrick Henry only got 13 snaps in that game and Marcus Mariota just isn’t the kind of quarterback to loosen it up and that’s the problem. He should be, they need more than 159 yards from him against beatable teams, but whatever. Coaching takes a fair bit of blame. This offence is worth zero trust – they’ve gone from the third-best third down conversion rate in 2016 to the 24th best. I dunno, I’m struggling to see how they couldn’t take care of Blaine Gabbert and yet it also doesn’t really surprise me. That’s not a great impression.
Wildcard’s Pick: Titans by 2
New England Patriots (10-3) at Pittsburgh Steelers (11-2)
Monday 10.25pm NZT
With the Saints, Vikings, Eagles and Patriots all losing in the last two weeks, the longest active winning streak in the NFL belongs to… the Pittsburgh Steelers! They’re 11-2 with eight wins on the trot, having secured a playoff spot already as well as their division and now staring nicely towards a first round bye. Winning this one would go a significantly long way towards earning that thing as well. Just gotta do what the Dolphins did, right?
We’ll see about that. The Steelers can’t make Tom Brady play badly, only Tom Brady can do that. I wish I’d seen more of that game now, for gloating and also scouting purposes. Looks like Miami got the ball going on the ground with Kenyan Drake (bro, that guy can play!) while New England went nowhere. Add in the suspended Gronk and that’s that.
The Steelers are plain better than the Fins so that’s all good. Le’Veon Bell is better than Kenyan Drake, Big Ben is better than Jay Cutler, Antonio Brown is better than literally every other wide receiver on the planet. Done – if the Pats aren’t going mental on defence than the Steelers are scoring on them. Relying on that bad Brady game… that’s where this plan goes wonky. Especially without Ryan Shazier, hmm.
The other thing we’ve got here is the MVP decider between the two remaining favourites. If Tomy Brady didn’t win it last year then Carson Wentz can’t win it this year with 12 complete games played either. Which leaves Brady as the stand alone fave… followed by Antonio Brown. Calling it now and if he lays down a couple hundred yards then it’s game on for the last two weeks. Here we go then.
Wildcard’s Pick: Steelers by 4
Dallas Cowboys (7-6) at Oakland Raiders (6-7)
Monday 2.30pm NZT
Turns out Sean Lee makes a bit of difference to the Cowboys defence, who say that coming? Pops back in there after a few weeks on the sideline and makes 18 tackles, the most he’s made in a game all season and the most of any player last weekend. As already discussed going back a few weeks now I reckon the hill is one game too steep for the Cowboys to climb but all things being equal they’re good enough to win this one and Ezekiel Elliott will return after that. As long as there’s breath left in them then you never know… but I refuse to contemplate such things. No getting my hopes up here.
Wildcard’s Pick: Cowboys by 6
Atlanta Falcons (8-5) at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (4-9)
Tuesday 2.30pm NZT
The Falcons are right back in it. Take this one and they’ve got the Saints and Panthers to close, meaning it’s all in their hands. The Falcons are spreading their wings again, it’s almost like they’re 27-3 up in the Super Bowl all over again.
Wildcard’s Pick: Falcons by 14
The Wildcard is a staff writer for The Niche Cache. He writes all of his NFL prediction columns outside in driving snowstorms, so settle down on the Snow Bowl hype please.
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