{"id":803,"date":"2007-01-05T22:44:40","date_gmt":"2007-01-06T03:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jetnation.com\/?p=803"},"modified":"2007-01-05T22:44:40","modified_gmt":"2007-01-06T03:44:40","slug":"jetnation-playoff-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/2007\/01\/05\/jetnation-playoff-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"Jetnation Playoff Preview"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Nick Ferraro<\/strong><\/p>\n

The regular season in the NFC seemed a lot like a demolition derby.\u00c2\u00a0 For seventeen laps the cars slammed into each other with reckless abandon.\u00c2\u00a0 There are only six still running all of which have varying degrees of damage.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that damage, however, that gives the NFC playoffs an increased appeal.\u00c2\u00a0 The flawed nature of this bunch lends an uncertainty to the NFC side of the house.\u00c2\u00a0 It gives the NFC playoffs an NCAA tournament type of feel.\u00c2\u00a0 The Bears enter the postseason as the favorite, but there are few outside the windy city that feel they are unbeatable.\u00c2\u00a0 The Saints were the story of year in the NFL, and Drew Brees was the acquisition of the year, but the Redskins gave the league a blueprint on handling their explosive offense.\u00c2\u00a0 Injuries hampered the defending NFC champion Seahawks all season and they continue to do so into the first week of the playoffs.\u00c2\u00a0 The NFC East was supposed to experience a return to its dominant form, but all it produced is mediocrity as the Cowboys and Giants limp into the wildcard weekend.\u00c2\u00a0 The Eagles enter the playoffs on a high inspired by the play of backup quarterback Jeff Garcia.\u00c2\u00a0 His play has been outstanding, but few backups have been successful in leading their team to the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n

The AFC has been the better of the two conferences by far, but the drama of the playoffs seems predestined to end with a matchup of the conference\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s top two seeds.\u00c2\u00a0 The Chargers have not lost a game since October while the Ravens dropped just one game in the last ten weeks of the season.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard to imagine any AFC team preventing a meeting between Baltimore and San Diego, and most will agree that, given the AFC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dominance, it would be the Super Bowl before the Super Bowl.\u00c2\u00a0 The Patriots find themselves meeting the Jets for a third time.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a difficult matchup to call since neither team has many quality wins to their credit.\u00c2\u00a0 Other than winning once against each other, the Patriots beat just one team that finished with a winning record, and the Jets didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t beat any.\u00c2\u00a0 The Colts played enough defense to again win their division.\u00c2\u00a0 They drew a nightmare matchup, however, in the Chiefs who have the type of monster ground game that has plagued the Colts all season.\u00c2\u00a0 In all, the four wild card week players will likely serve as no more than a speed bump on the way to Baltimore vs. San Diego.<\/p>\n

Wildcard Weekend<\/strong><\/p>\n

Kansas City Chiefs at Indianapolis Colts (-7)
\n<\/strong>The Chiefs are feeling good about their ability to run on the Colts, but while they will certainly have success on the ground, can they stop Manning?\u00c2\u00a0 The Chiefs are just 3-5 away from Arrowhead while Indy is perfect at home.\u00c2\u00a0 They will need extra light bulbs for the scoreboard, and the Colts will advance in the end.
\nColts 35 Chiefs 30<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dallas Cowboys at Seattle Seahawks (-2.5)<\/strong>
\nThe Cowboys are coming off their worst performance of the season.\u00c2\u00a0 After setting themselves up as the NFC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s second favorite to Chicago, the Cowboys dropped three of their last four.\u00c2\u00a0 The good news for Dallas is they drew a team that also dropped three of four to close the year.\u00c2\u00a0 The Seahawks were never able to establish any type of consistency during the season.\u00c2\u00a0 After opening the year 3-0, they weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t able to string three wins together again, and they won back-to back games only twice.\u00c2\u00a0 Unlike Dallas however, the Seahawks can blame some of their poor play on injuries.\u00c2\u00a0 Shaun Alexander is getting healthy, and the Seahawks will ride him past the Cowboys.
\nSeahawks 24 Cowboys 20<\/strong><\/p>\n

New York Jets at New England Patriots (-9)<\/strong>
\nThe Jets have been a great story this season, but they are just not good enough to win twice in Foxborough.\u00c2\u00a0 Ironically, they would have a better chance of sneaking by had they not won there earlier in the season.\u00c2\u00a0 As it stands, there is no way the Patriots take them lightly.\u00c2\u00a0 The Pats are lucky they drew New York.\u00c2\u00a0 The Jets are the only playoff team they can handle.
\nPatriots 21 Jets 13<\/strong><\/p>\n

New York Giants at Philadelphia Eagles (-7)<\/strong>
\nThis is the classic example of two teams heading in different directions.\u00c2\u00a0 The Eagles are heading to New Orleans.\u00c2\u00a0 The dysfunctional Giants are heading home.
\nPhiladelphia 30 New York 13<\/strong><\/p>\n

Divisional Playoffs<\/strong>
\nNFC
\nChicago Bears 23 Seattle Seahawks 13
\n<\/strong>The Bears throttle the Seahawk ground attack, and ride their own running game to the win.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia Eagles 31 New Orleans Saints 20<\/strong>
\nThe ball drops on the Cinderella Saints as the Eagles front four harasses Brees all day long.<\/p>\n

AFC
\nSan Diego Chargers 27 New England Patriots 7<\/strong>
\nThe Chargers expose every Patriot weakness and batter Brady into the offseason.<\/p>\n

Baltimore Ravens 31 Indianapolis 16<\/strong>
\nThe Ravens grind up the Colts front four dominating the ball and the clock as Manning falls short again.<\/p>\n

Conference Championships
\nNFC<\/strong>
\nPhiladelphia Eagles 17 Chicago Bears 7<\/strong>
\nThe Bears get bounced by the one NFC team they can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bully.\u00c2\u00a0 The Eagle\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pass rush turns the Bears over and out of the playoffs.<\/p>\n

AFC
\nSan Diego Chargers 20 Baltimore Ravens 9<\/strong>
\nA bruising affair is decided by Tomlinson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s receiving rather than running.\u00c2\u00a0 Baltimore\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s offense is frustrated by the San Diego defense.<\/p>\n

Super Bowl XLI
\n<\/strong>San Diego Chargers 37 Philadelphia Eagles 17
\nSchottenheimer finally has his playoff payoff while the Chargers make quick work of the overmatched Eagles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nick Ferraro The regular season in the NFC seemed a lot like a demolition derby.\u00c2\u00a0 For seventeen laps the cars slammed into each other with reckless abandon.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,258,33],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-803","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-featured-editorials","7":"category-new-york-jets-game-previews","8":"category-nick-ferraro"},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peLffi-cX","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miletestsite.com\/jets\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}