LW 2-2 +.6 Season: 32-26 +6.4 stars
G.B.-7 (bth) (10-6, 10-6) vs. Sea (10-6, 8-7-1)
Confession: I have never been quite able to jump on the Bret Favre band wagon. It has less to do with him than my general philosophy, which prohibits building a team on ANY QB’s arm instead of a crushing running game and a rock solid defense. My tiresome references to “genius” head coaches is always in regard to a guy who has the arrogance to believe that his passing schemes can overcome deficiencies in the two aforementioned areas.
When Farve is denied one of these weapons, he is reduced to the status of almost mortal. When he is stripped of them both, he is as helpless as any other QB, it is just that he still looks a lot better than the rest of them. When he has one and any part of the other–well, he is just damn near unbeatable. This week he is in that exact situation, with a fine rushing attack and at least part of a defense. Seven points is a lot to give to a pretty good offense and a team that showed me some real resilience and fortitude last week vs. SF. While Holmgren is a “genius”, he is a pretty sound coach as well, who knows what he is up against here. And those “genius” passing schemes, while losing the game, have a way of covering the spread too often. It is, however, cold and snowing in GB and to go against a legend in these circumstances is not a position I want to be in. I’ll take the Pack for three stars
Den+3 (10-6, 8-8) at Ind (12-4, 9-6-1)
Although NE has been easily the most consistent team in the AFC this year, the Broncos seem to have survived the travails of the season in better shape than their last seed position would seem to indicate. I would rate them ahead of the Chiefs, and the Colts and possibly the Titans as well. If you leave out the giveaway game to GB last week (Who would have been dumb ass enough to take Den. in that one?) , their defense is giving up about 80 ypg on the ground the last half of the season and their running game is the best in the NFL right now, averaging 195 ypg from week nine through week 16. Jake Plummer is blessed with a crew of excellent veteran receivers and can do enough with the air game as long as he doesn’t lapse into his chronic attempts to impersonate Bret Favre.
The Colts will doubtless try to make the necessary adjustments to prevent a repeat performance of two weeks ago when they were absolutely manhandled by the Broncos at home, but they are so lacking in defensive fundamentals as to make this problematic at best. Tony Dungy has improved the Indy club on defense, esp. in terms of a pass rush, but that weapon is useless vs. the versatile Bronco offense. Generally speaking, it is very difficult to go into a good team’s building and beat them a second time in the same season. Indy has a pretty good QB and a fine offense of their own, so the Broncs have to be careful and not let this get away from them early. Conversely, if they are able to establish the ground game while defending effectively, they can’t lose their edge late in the game, or Manning will make them pay. The Chiefs had a great first half vs. Den throwing the football.
My biggest concern is that Mr. “genius” Shanahan, by virtually throwing that game last week, has interfered with the timing of a finely tuned machine. I think that, psychologically, that was a poor move to sit all those starters and let GB roll. Also, I think that Peyton Manning and Tony Dungy are two of the finer types in this game and that they will win a SB someday. I just hope its not quite this year. Four stars on the Broncs
