Saturdays NFL Playoffs!
In an NFL season where anything could and has happened, why should we think that the playoffs will be any different? New Orleans travel to San Francisco and Denver travel to New England this Saturday and both games are sure to have a few points scored. In a season where the Colts have finished with the worst record, Denver made the playoffs and the Kansas City Chiefs (7-9) were the only team to beat the 15-1 Greenbay Packers anything is possible.
The following are my predictions for Saturdays playoff games, I apologise in advance to any Denver fans out there!!
New Orleans @ San Francisco
In the first game of the weekend New Orleans travel to San Francisco. New Orleans are small favourites in this game and in my opinion this will be the first upset of the weekend. San Francisco has had an extra week to prepare for this game and they have home field advantage.
At home this season San Francisco is 7-1 with their only loss coming way back on the 18th of September in an overtime loss against Dallas. Since then San Francisco have dominated at home, winning all their games by an average of just over 21 points. New Orleans on the other hand has not performed well outside the comforts that the Superdome provides.
New Orleans are 5-3 away from home and while their stats for the year are amazing they are severely reduced away from home with total points, total yardage, passing yards and points conceded all much worse when they are away from the Superdome.
Final Score Prediction: 24-20 San Francisco Win
Denver @ New England
I would love to say that this is the second of my upset predictions. However, as much as I would like to see the Patriots get knocked out of the playoffs, I simply do not think that Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos can win this game.
New England beat Denver in nearly every measurable stat except for maybe QB rushing yards and overall Defence. The patriots are going to be able to handle the option play much better than Pittsburgh as they have a younger and faster defensive core and, with Belichick as their head coach, it is my opinion that they will be better prepared than the Steelers were.
With regard to total defence, Denver are much better on paper, however while New England give up large chunks of yardage, they stiffen up when it comes to red zone stands and it will be much harder than it appears for Denver to score points against this defence. As for New England’s offence it is 2nd in the league playing against the 19th ranked defence and I think that with New England’s offensive power and Denver’s lack of scoring ability this could be a wide margin victory for a very strong New England team.
Final Score Prediction: 45-17 New England Win
