Pigskin Pigsplosion: The Packers Must Prevent Russell Wilson from Scampering for Big Gains

Sunday’s the last real football day of the year. Obviously, a game is played on Super Bowl Sunday — that’s the whole point! — but it almost gets lost in the shuffle after two weeks of overkill coverage, clowns at media day, ex-players hawking their wares on radio row, 10 hours of pregame nonsense with 45 talking heads on each channel, eating and drinking ourselves into oblivion, and a two-hour halftime show. Let’s do this.

Green Bay @ Seattle (-7.5)

Ryan: This might sound a bit homer-ish, but the Packers have a much better shot at winning this game outright than it seems as though people are giving them. While Green Bay would need to play a bit better than they did this past Sunday, it’s not out of the realm of possibility. Everyone’s been talking non-stop about the Week 1 blowout — which, historically, doesn’t really matter — and generally made Seattle out to be invincible.

The Seahawks defense is terrifying, but as PFF’s Pete Damilatis points out, Green Bay has a matchup advantage between the lines for running up the middle. For the duration of the game, Aaron Rodgers will need to play a lot more like he did in the second half against Dallas, where he completed 11 straight passes and was a goddamn assassin, than he did in the first. Also, it goes without saying that any chance the Packers have at winning outright resides on his staying in the game.

Beats By Dre has been running an ad all week, non-stop, where Jim Rome is yapping about an unnamed team certain to challenge Richard Sherman after shying away from him in a prior matchup. This an obvious reference to Green Bay’s targeting him zero times in Week 1, which led Sherman to call Rodgers out for wussing out. Though it wasn’t like Sherman shut down Jordy Nelson or Randall Cobb — the Packers lined up Jarrett Boykin in Sherman’s slot the whole game, and basically cut themselves off from that part of the field — it’d be a major psychological accomplishment to torch him for a big gain as Jordy did Darrelle Revis in Week 13.

On defense, the Packers need to force Russell Wilson and his mostly anonymous group of receivers to beat them deep. The worst thing would be to get Seattle in 3rd-and-long, have everyone covered, but take a poor angle on Wilson and permit him to scamper 30 yards untouched for a first down. Instead of going all out for sacks, the Packers need lane discipline and a containment policy. Colin Kaepernick ended Green Bay’s season with his legs the past two years and it’s on the likes of Clay Matthews, Mike Daniels, and Julius Peppers to make damn sure Wilson doesn’t do that to them. The Packers defense will also have their hands full with Marshawn Lynch, who will get his 4-5 yards but must have his momentum thwarted before he’s barreling downhill, absorbing everything in his path like Cartman’s trapper keeper.

Anyways, it’s a lot easier to type that the Packers should do all that in theory than it is for them to be the ones whose bodies accomplish it in practice. There’s a certain element of house money in this game, what with benefitting from the dubious Dez Bryant call and being huge underdogs this week (the Bill Simmons “Nobody believes in us” theory will be out in full force), and there’s something to be said for that. Packers.

Jason: Well, I won’t play contrarian to you two here. I like Green Bay to cover and make this a game since it is over a touchdown, fully recognizing what Seattle is capable of at home (or anywhere). Rodgers is the best QB in the game, and I think Green Bay will have a better game plan this time around. Packers.

Indianapolis @ New England (-6.5)

Jason: New England has made the conference championship game in 9 of the 15 years that Belichick has been there. That’s amazing. Of course–and I saw this somewhere on the “internet” this week so apologies for not remembering the source–New England has gone the longest without a Super Bowl title of any of the final four franchises. There have been plenty of disappointments since the Super Bowl in January of 2005.

The Colts, meanwhile, are being given little chance, much like Green Bay. They are the outsider of the final four, in that they looked least impressive in the regular season and needed to win in the wildcard round. Of course, we’ve seen that kind of team often come up victorious in these situations, including against the Pats.

The other reason is their recent history against New England. Indianapolis has played the Patriots three times in the last three seasons, with the average score being 48-22 New England. Indianapolis got crushed by the run (during Jonas Gray’s 15 minutes of fame) last time and were -8 in turnovers the previous two games. Needless to say, they can’t get destroyed on the ground like that or have a ton of turnovers.

So why does Indianapolis have a chance? It’s pretty simple: Andrew Luck. He can make big plays down the field, and the one advantage has been in the passing game. There have been 8 other conference championship games since 1990 when the visitor had a decided advantage in season net yards per attempt on offense. The visitor won 4 of them, with the most recent example being the Giants at San Francisco in 2011.

The teams that lost (gulp) were all dome/warm weather teams, some in decisive fashion. The difference is that they went up against teams that ranked at the top of the league in pass defense (think Manning against the Patriots in 2003, Brees at the Bears in 2006). While New England has some big names on defense, most notably Darrelle Revis, the overall passing defense numbers are not dominant (16th in net yards per attempt defensively, one slot ahead of the Colts). The Colts can use two tight ends and Boom Herron has emerged as a threat out of the backfield as a receiver, and so I think the Colts can move the ball. Colts.

Ryan: We just can’t all pick the same teams in both games. That’d be boring. Patriots win big, and we all have two more weeks chock full of sunny Bill Belichick press conferences.

Records

Last Week
Ryan: 1-3
Lisk: 2-2
Stephen: 1-3

Total
Ryan: 130-129-5
Lisk: 123-135-7
Stephen: 127-133-4