Wild Card Weekend

For Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, and the Gillette Stadium faithful it was business as usual. The Patriots, by virtue of a dominating second half eliminated the overmatched Jacksonville Jaguars 28-3 on Saturday night to advance to the divisional round of the AFC playoffs. The win was an NFL record 10th straight playoff win for the Pats and it ran the unblemished record of the Brady / Belichick duo to 10-0. With the victory (and a Pittsburgh win over Cincinnati) the Patriots earned a trip to Denver next Saturday night to face the Broncos at Invesco Field at Mile High.

Coming in to the matchup most experts and fans agreed that the Patriots had the advantage given their playoff history and the home climate conditions in New England in January but few expected that the margin would be this wide. After all the Jaguars were 12-4, 2 games better than the Patriots in what is a tougher division (only given the presence of the Colts). They played Indianapolis tough twice, losing by 7 on both occassions (and they only gave up 10 points in the first meeting). They also beat Seattle, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh in the first 6 weeks of the season. After week 7, however, their schedule weakened remarkably as they played only 1 team with a winning record over their last 10 and in the end their 3 good wins early in the season were their only legitimate victories. (You were wondering where all the terrible teams were while the Patriots were getting manhandled by the entire cast of the NFL playoffs? They were playing the Jags.) They also lost Byron Leftwich on November 27th for the majority of the second half allowing their weak schedule to grant them a few victories they may not have merited with backup David Garrard. Nevertheless they were a 12 win team which is impressive regardless of whom the victories came against. They did not make their own schedule they simply beat all of the teams on it.

That leaves me with a question. Are the Patriots this good or are the Jaguars this bad?

One key to answering that question is the decision by Jack Del Rio to start Byron Leftwich against the Patriots. Frankly, put in the same position I probably would have started Leftwich over David Garrard. The rookie had played well but in a playoff game against Bill Belichick I would not want my chips riding on a player with just over 100 career pass attempts (0 against teams with winning records). The Pats make a living out of confusing quarterbacks and forcing them into mistakes and it is much easier to do so to a player who has never faced a Belichick defense. However since the Jaguars failed to muster a single touchdown an argument could be made that Garrard should have been given a chance. Leftwich was rusty, going 18-31 for 179 yards and no touchdowns. Garrard in limited action was 3-8 for 68 yards (41 of which came on 1 play). Leftwich predictably was immobile and unable to elude the rush of the defensive line, especially that of Willie McGinist who set an NFL playoff record with 4.5 sacks. Maybe the mobility of Garrard would have helped keep him upright, maybe his inexperience would have resulted in more tunrovers. I think in the end it did not really matter. When a team is forced to choose between starting an injured veteran with limited playoff experience or a rookie with none in New England the deck is immediately stacked against them.

Furthermore, this Jaguars team was not the same team that beat 3 top teams early in the season. At that time Fred Taylor was healthy, coming into this game he was not. (Gasp! Fred Taylor injured? He should not have enrolled in that Nomar Garciaparra school of durability.) Leftwich was getting time to throw down the field to a resurgent Jimmy Smith among others. And the defense led by a healthy Mike Peterson was stingy to say the least. After Taylor went down for a while and Leftwich got banged up they were entering the easy part of their schedule and the fortuitous matchups kept their record deceptively high.

In this game they met a New England team with a similar scheduling trend but moving in a totally different direction. Rather than using their easy schedule to fool people into believing they were a threat in the playoffs the Pats used their downtime to actually become one. To conclude either way on the question I posed above is difficult in this type of game. There is no question that the Patriots are good but a 28-3 margin is probably pushing expectations, and while the Jaguars looked totally anemic throughout they certainly are not this bad. However, given Leftwich and Taylor's injuries, the dreadful performance by the defense in the second half, and the fact that Del Rio looked totally overwhelmed all night I tend to lean more towards the Jaguars being this bad than the Pats being this good. I would hate to sound like I am disrespecting Tom Brady (quick duck!) but New England by no means played a perfect game and while the score reflects a blowout I'm not convinced that the margin was due entirely to superiority by the Pats.

Throughout this contest the Patriots made several key mistakes that would have buried them against a better team. 4 first half sacks on Tom Brady is far too many as are 4 fumbles (none of which were lost). They only managed 126 yards of offense over the first 30 minutes, but fortunately the defense held Jacksonville to only 115. At the end of the second quarter they had a chance to bury the hatchet but Deion Branch dropped Brady's long pass that hit him right in stride. Opportunities like that cannot be squandered against a better team like Denver, especially since they will not come out and completely lay down in the second half.

The Pats offense, more specifically Ben Watson, clinched the game late in the 3rd quarter with his incredible 63 yard touchdown reception. At the time the score was 14-3 and while Jacksonville had yet to accomplish anything in the second half the score was close enough to keep the game in doubt. On 3rd and 13 Watson caught a short pass from Brady on the right hash, broke 3 tackles, one of which seemed to narrowly miss bringing him down, and took it all the way to make it 21-3. Just a few plays later the outcome was fully decided when Asanti Samuel took an interception 73 yards to notch the final score of the game.

While I said that I thought this victory was more due to the failures of the Jaguars than the impressiveness of the Patriots there were plenty of positives that the team can carry into this week. Tom Brady was his usual steady self, throwing for 201 yards and 3 touchdowns (1 to David Givens who has caught a TD in his last 6 playoff games) with a passer rating of 116.4. The three headed rushing attack of Dillon, Faulk, and Pass accounted for only 98 yards but helped to manage the clock in the second half when the Pats were sitting on a lead. The defense accounted for 2 turnovers, 6 sacks, and a touchdown. The defensive unit also did not give up a 1st down until the 2nd possession of the 2nd quarter and stopped the Jags on 11 of 12 3rd down chances. Most importantly the Patriots overcame their meager performance in the 1st half and came out firing in the 2nd and were able to put the game away. That is vintage Patriots football. The championship teams of the past few years always seemed to come out of halftime with a renewed energy and a few adjustments that were able to put them over the top, these final 2 quarters were reminiscent of that. The teams that won the Super Bowl did not always play perfect games either, but they always did enough to win. That trait was something that was missing in this team earlier in the season but they seemed to find a little of that old 2nd half magic on Saturday and it distanced them from a mediocre Jacksonville team. If they can carry that momentum further into the playoffs they could be very tough to beat, but if they waffle around in the 1st half in Denver we could see a repeat of the game that took place earlier this season where they nearly dug themselves out of a 28-6 hole built by their inefficiency early in the game.

If the Pats hope to run their NFL record playoff win streak to 11 they will need to build upon this performance, not repeat it. Denver is probably the 2nd best team in the NFL and will be rested coming off of the bye. As Brady always says, "It will be a good test for us." It's a test they need to ace from the beginning, not just from the beginning of the 2nd half if they hope to continue their dynasty.

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Other Wild Card Weekend Notes:

Carolina at Giants: Eli in the playoffs, Eli in the playoffs, freakin' Eli in the playoffs. 3 interceptions (on 3 consecutive possessions), a lost fumble, and a mere 10 completions. Welcome to the big time D-Caf Jr. It seems that you have all the playoff poise that is genetically passed down to you from your big bro who can't win in the post season either. Luckily for the state of his car windows while driving through Manhattan Manning was not the lone Giant to fail to show up on Sunday. Tiki Barber a legitimate regular season MVP candidate managed only 41 yards on 13 carries. The G-Men as a whole put up a whopping 132 yards of total offense, exactly 0 of which were accounted for by Plaxico Burress. Remember when the Giants were considered a Super Bowl contender? Were you on board with that? Don't hang your head in shame, many people forgot that Mannings cannot win under the bright lights, just remember that when setting the line on D-Caf Sr. this weekend. I hate to revel in the failures of an individual but when that individual is so detestable it's just hard not to. We'll miss your "Daddy Why!?" sour puss this off season D-Caf Jr.. Hopefully you and Peyton can watch the Super Bowl together.

Washington at Tampa: In the least shocking road victory in the history of the NFL playoffs the Redskins edged the Bucs 17-10 to earn the right to lose to Seattle this weekend. Should this have been any surprise? It certainly was not to Patriots fans who watched the Bucs get simply demolished 28-0 a few weeks ago in New England. Like I said in my Wild Card weekend preview I can't believe that both of these teams made the playoffs. I would have much rather seen Vick and the Falcons than either of these teams, oh right the Falcons stunk too. Wow the NFC is horrible. Moving on.

Pittsburgh at Cincinnati: I really wish that Carson Palmer had not gotten hurt on the first play of the game. How telling was it that the play on which he tore his ACL and MCL would end up being the longest play from scrimmage of the day (and in franchise playoff history) for the Bengals? This could have been a classic matchup of speed vs. power, instead Pittsburgh was able to turn it into classic Steelers football with their running attack and their defensive pressure. The rest of the game saw Jon Kitna running for his life and trying not to lose the game for the Bengals, which in fact he did not. He just wasn't good enough to win it for them either. You have to feel bad for the fans of the Bengals, this was their first trip to the playoffs in 15 years and their franchise QB was finally playing the brand of football that was expected when they drafted him a few years ago. Their offense was exciting, their defense led the league in turnover margin, and their coach seemed to be pushing all of the right buttons. Then exactly one play into the game it all came crashing down. Regardless of Palmer's injury it seemed to me that the Bengals were on the down-slide anyway. They probably lost half on purpose to the Chiefs in week 17 but even before that the air was leaking from the balloon. In addition Kitna was one of only a dozen Bengals who had any playoff experience coming in so that advantage (which is huge in the playoffs) was with the Steelers going in. I took the Steelers in this game because I felt that would be the difference, but I certainly wish we had gotten to see how the best matchup of Wild Card Weekend would have played out with the Bengals at full strength.