NFL Picks, Playoff Week 2: Suck My Chalk

This is the week of the year when the favorites, historically, have an incredible advantage. On average, three out of four of them will win and advance. So whenever any of the wild-card teams break through, it's memorable, and the memorable bets are the ones that keep you coming back. It's also the far more sexy and contrary pick. When you go for the road dog in this round, you get to talk about momentum, about how some teams have such weak coaching that the extra week of preparation won't help them, and how your pick has the testicular fortitude to overcome everything. You get to play into the underdog role and amp it up.

But picking games isn't "300"; you don't get style points for losing. The road team in these games usually faces an over-the-top crowd and defensive intensity in the first quarter, and heavy legs in the fourth. It's usually too much to bear, and after last weekend where I watched the Jags fritter away an easy cover and the Bucs do everything possible for Eli Manning to be relaxed and comfortable... well, I'm not looking for more than I can bear, no way.

This weekend also separates the fans that should really be satisfied with their team's year from those that can be justified in thinking the year was lacking. If you make it to next week, you are better than 7 out of every 8 teams in the NFL, and if you could say that about every other aspect of your life and live in America, you'd be making over $150K a year, with kids that get to go to very good schools, and a host of other things to be incredibly thankful for. (On a global scale, living in the US probably qualifies as being in that 1 in 8 mindset, but that's too much Pollyanna for this hour and blog.)

In short, enough of the I Can Only Be Happy If My Team Wins Everything mindset. It only leads to bankruptcy, on every level.

And with that financial condition looming, on to the picks!

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Chargers at COLTS - Colts are an 8.5 point favorite with a 45 point over/under

On top of the usual rested home team versus tested road team, and the former was probably better anyway because they are the higher seed, is the following five factors:

1) Strength of schedule. The Colts got the #2 seed despite six games against the Jags, Titans and Texans -- three teams that were over .500, two of which made the playoffs. The Chargers had six games against the Raiders, Broncos and Chiefs. Enough said.

2) Strength of coach. Tony Dungy may not have the greatest playoff record in the world, but in general, he's gotten his team as far as they were supposed to go, and usually lost to a better coach. Norv Turner is, well, Norv Turner. At least no one can say he's choking this week, since he's the underdog.

3) Strength of QB. The Colts start a clear Hall of Famer who is playing with house money at this point, in that no one is giving him grief over Not Winning The Big One. He's also got one of the fastest releases in the game, negating most strong pass rushes, and has a coach-like ability to adjust to the defense pre-snap. The Chargers start the closest thing left in this year's playoffs to Rex Grossman.

4) Health. The Colts are likely to get back Marvin Harrison this week, and even if they don't, they've lived without him long enough to manage. The Chargers are likely to be without Antonio Gates, which means they will need a second straight week of step-up performances from Chris Chambers and Vincente Jackson... and it will also mean Bob Sanders gets to spend all his time staring down LaDanian Tomlinson. Against a Colts secondary that isn't injured or lacking, they won't get it.

5) Defenses. The Chargers have a flashy, big hitting defense that lives on turnovers and emotion -- and if they can get lucky enough with gambles and athleticism, they might just make enough plays to give their team the ball with a short field. The Colts just make all of the plays that win games consistently, from not giving up big third down conversions to stopping the run without trickery or unnecessary risk.

If you're looking for a reason to take the Chargers, you're looking at turnovers and special teams -- which is to say, freak and fluke plays. In general, I'm not a huge fan of teams that rely on winning the turnover battle to win games; in the games where the turnovers balance out to more or less even, and those are the majority of games in the NFL, it's won at the line. The Chargers didn't win the line against the Titans, at home, for a very long time, last week. Expecting them to do better in Indy isn't looking likely to me.

Indianapolis 31, Chargers 20 -- which means Colts and OVER.

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Jaguars at PATRIOTS - Pats are a 13-point favorite with a 49.5 point over

Unlike many prognosticators, I don't think the Jags need to play a perfect game to defeat the Juggernaut. The Colts, Eagles, Ravens and Giants didn't come close to playing perfect games in the Patriot close calls, and all were a handful of plays away from blemishing the perfection. (No team, really, plays a perfect game; there are always negative plays and individual battles lost, but if all of the game-changing plays go one way and the other team quits, it looks like perfection. Anyway.)

The real problem for the Jags is that, contrary to popular belief, they really aren't the kind of team that can beat New England. To wit:

1) Teams that give New England trouble on defense have exceptionally physical corners that take Moss out of the game without double-teaming him. Double-teaming Moss doesn't really work that well, since he sees it so often. But if you can clean his clock early, he loses his taste for things late. Witness the Eagles and Ravens games. The Jags don't really have that kind of secondary; their big hitters are closer to the line.

2) You have to exploit Seau and Harrison's age and slowness to keep drives alive against this team. (And to a lesser extent, Vrabel and Bruschi. Make no mistake about it, the Pats will draft LBs next year, and the Adalius Thomas signing was as big for the defense as Moss was for the offense.) The Jags don't get much from their TEs, and with the outstanding exception of MoJo, don't really have a great RB threat in the flat.

3) A month ago, the Pats didn't look like they could run the ball worth a damn, which dooms teams in the playoffs... but they've ran the ball just fine down the stretch, and you have to think that they are going to have plenty of opportunities to run, with the Jaguars having three plus receivers to worry about.

Having said all that, the Jags are physical and any team with a home-run hitter like MoJo has a puncher's chance... and there may be no weaker home field at this round in the playoffs than the very spoiled New England crowd. But it's hard to see how that translates to a win, and David Garrard playing from behind has the potential to get ugly.

New England 34, Jaguars 17 - which is Pats and OVER.

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Seahawks at PACKERS - The Pack is an 8 point favorite with a 42-point over/under

The Packers have a lot of players without playoff experience, but the Seahawks can't pull this off without Matt Hasselbeck having a great game... and the Packer corners, at least the top two, are very good. Hasselbeck might make some hay with the slot and TEs, but it's hard to get to 300 yards and 3 touchdowns that way, and I think he needs to do that for Seattle to win. (And no, he's not going to get much from his RBs. The Seahawks would be better off if Shawn Alexander retired. Today.)

For the Packers, Ryan Grant is actually the most important player for the team, since he'll keep Favre from forcing things. Also, the Seahawks secondary is susceptible, and they won't get to Favre anywhere near as much as they did Todd Collins; even if they do, Favre gets the ball out fast, and the Packers won't have as many horrible drops as the Redskins did.

It's also noteworthy that while everyone seems to have gotten off the idea that the Seahawks hadn't beaten a .500 team since Week 1, just because they survived the Skins. One week does not make a trend, and this team has been so gutless, so long, on the road... and it's just not inside my brain to imagine that Favre will lose this one, really.

Packers 27, Seahawks 13 - which is Packers and UNDER.

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Giants at COWBOYS - Cowboys are a 7.5 point favorite with a 46 point over/under

How on earth do you make sense of this Giants team? On the one hand, they've been really good for the past few weeks. On the other, they played against a Pats team that didn't blitz until they wanted to win, and a Bucs team that seemed to think that blitzing was worse then losing. For the positive, they are now 8-1 on the road this year. On the negative, the teams they beat on the road were mostly terrible. For the positive, their running backs look good now, especially Bradshaw. On the negative, their defense has given up 8 million points in two games against the Cowboys, and their safeties are very exploitable -- and you don't want bad safeties against Witten and potentially Owens.

If the Giants are hard to figure, the Cowboys are a broken Rubik's Cube. Romo's got a bad thumb and a ready-made horrible storyline from the Mexico trip. Owens is a three-ring circus of injury drama. They haven't ran the ball worth a damn in a month. They've got a pretty terrible game-day coach. Their starting safety is a 15-yard penalty waiting to happen.

And yet... Romo just makes plays. Whenever he fumbles, the ball bounces up to him a friendly dog. He's got a good home field. The Cowboys can pressure the QB a little, and will, especially with a week off. They've just owned the Giants this year, and I don't buy the idea that beating a team that you've stomped is hard three times, when you've done it twice.

Cowboys 31, Giants 21 - which is Cowboys and OVER.

Bet early and often!