Jags-Pats

I spent most of the week not thinking too much about football, but on the eve of the first Patriots playoff game, I'm getting that excited feeling of anticipation.

I don't want to sound too cocky, but while the Jags will put up a good fight, I don't think they have a good chance to win this one. I pretty much have one reason why the Patriots will win: the Patriots pass offense (their biggest strength) is too much for the Jags' pass defense (their biggest weakness).

The Pats O-line struggles with quick speed rushers (like the Colts' players), but can stand up to the bigger physical pass rush like the Jags employ. If this game is to be close, the Jags will have to score 25+ points. As good as they're playing, that's a tall order, no? I saw a lot of columns this past week talking about how the Jags match up well, but I couldn't disagree more. But then again, I'm just a casual (OK, maybe fanatical) observer.

I read/heard two things this week about the Pats/Jags game that I found unique and insightful. The first was Cris Collinsworth on "Inside the NFL," who observed that in watching the Jags play last week, "they could NOT blitz the Steelers without getting burned." He went on to say that this is the main reason he couldn't see the Jags pulling out a victory. Is this true? Can the Jags really not blitz effectively? Seems like a pretty important point if it's true.

The second point comes from ESPN's football analyst Ron Jaworski, who was asked how aging inside LBs Bruschi and Seau affected the Patriots subpar run defense. The short answer was that contrary to every commentator's opinion, the defensive weakness was not on the inside, but on the outside. Furthermore, he thought their age was more a liability in pass coverage, not in run defense. This is very consistent with what I have witnessed in every Patriots game this year--outside runs have been more effective than inside runs, and Belichick replaces these two with faster players during critical passing situations. I think Jaworski is one of the best football analysts out there because he actually analyzes the plays instead of mindlessly repeating the "conventional wisdom."

As for the other games this weekend, I'll briefly sum them up:

Seahawks-Packers: Yawn...Packers probably win.

Cowboys-Giants: Exciting...Eli stinks it up and the Giants lose.

Colts-Chargers: Despite my strongest wishes, there's no way the Chargers win this game. Just as I predicted the Titans would not score more than 10 points last week, I think the same is true of the Chargers offense this week.