NFL Pick’ems: 2019 Divisional Playoffs Edition – Saturday

What a thrilling weekend of games it was in the Wild Card round, and thankfully for us, things are playing out to become one of the most exciting and unique playoffs in recent memory. Two of the old guards, New England and New Orleans, have been eliminated. These playoffs are stacked with balanced, competitive teams across the board – and it showed. Every game was decided by one score, including two needing overtime to conclude! The quality of teams is high and margin for error incredibly low. The top seeds will now get their say, and what happens this weekend will go down the moments that will have shaped the next decade of the NFL

It certainly feels like the end of one era, and the beginning of a new in terms of the landscape of the league, and the crop of elite young quarterbacks taking over. However, what makes these playoffs even more unique is the crossing over of two generations of great quarterbacks; Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes are on a path to an epic head-on collision in the AFC Championship (with wins this week), while two legendary gunslingers, Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson, still remain, ready to battle for supremacy over the NFC! This is where dreams are realized for some, while for others, long-lasting nightmares of the failed chances and opportunities missed are formed.

Get ready for one of the most exciting weekends of playoff football you will ever see!

Minnesota Vikings (11-6) @ San Francisco 49ers (13-3)

The Breakdown: Speaking of nightmares, Vikings QB Kirk Cousins may have erased his from existence by helping his team defeat the New Orleans Saints 26-20, in overtime. It was a win that for a guy wearing the #8 (made famous for QBs by 49ers legend Steve Young) got the proverbial monkey off of his back for a while. As great as Young was, he’d be the first to say how great of a team he had around him at that time. Cousins has been afforded the same luxury with this year’s Vikings. From top to bottom, from players to coaches, these Vikings are a formidable, talented group of men focused on playing hard-nosed football, emanating from head coach Mike Zimmer.

Last week was the exact kind of scenario for which Zimmer was brought to Minnesota. On the road in a hostile environment against an excellent team, extraordinary measures and the breaking of tendencies are needed to tip the scales in your favor. In an unprecedented adjustment under this regime, Zimmer decided to move defensive ends Everson Griffen and Danielle Hunter to the inside, lining them up against the Saints guards who were unprepared for those matchups. The gamble not only paid off, but worked wonders as Hunter’s sack-fumble completely changed the momentum back to Minnesota just as Taysom Hill and the Saints were taking over.

While the Vikings were battling for their lives in OT, the 49ers were maxin’ and relaxin’ thanks to earning a first-round bye during the regular season. It was long thought that the Saints would be the biggest challenge to the 49ers claim to the NFC this season. However, with the NFC South champs eliminated, the 49ers road to the Super Bowl seems to have gotten a bit easier. Or did it?

The 49ers and Vikings are very similar in their approaches – both deploy a heavy running game followed by efficient play-action passing, backed up by some hard-nosed defensive football. Well, the Niners defense hasn’t been so hard-nose since Week 10. Their points allowed per game more than doubled from 12.8 to 26. Their sacks are down by a third, while opponent passer rating increased by a third. It’s tough to say then, that they’ll be able to affect Cousins enough to win the game, especially considering the diminished number of opportunities they will have.

The Vikings are smart, they’ve figured it out. They’ve got one of the top five running backs in football, perhaps the most dangerous side-to-side back in the league right now, Dalvin Cook. No one has been as elusive in open space, arguably, than Cook this season. The Vikings are not going to play it cute and put the ball into Cousins’ hands 40+ times (if they don’t have to). They’re going to pound Cook over and over until the defense shows they can stop it, which very few have proven to be capable of doing. Once the defense shows they are fully committed to stopping the run (stacking the box, bringing extra men to blitz), that’s when Cousins does his damage using play-action.

The Deciding Matchup: RB Dalvin Cook Vs. LB Fred Warner

While 49ers LB Fred Warner’s name may not be as proliferated among NFL fans as Cook’s, he has quietly evolved into of the more impactful, intelligent inside linebackers in football. One that is constantly lauded upon by defensive coordinator and rising name among future head coaches, Robert Saleh. A third-round pick in 2018, Warner has emerged as the leader of the defense (along with CB Richard Sherman), and one of the most solid tacklers in the league. More importantly, he may be one of the few LBs that has the speed to cut off and limit the options for Cook, who the Vikings routinely send out on toss and stretch plays.

Final Say: As this game nears, it seems more and more convenient to pick the 49ers at home, and perhaps too convenient. What we haven’t talked about, however, is the Niners playmakers on offense – an unsung group of names, but guys that will provide as tough and physical football as any team in the NFC. TE George Kittle, WR Deebo Samuel, RB Raheem Mostert are handfuls for any defense. Samuel is a bit reminiscent of a young Jermaine Kearse during his days in Seattle – his name may not pop up often, but when it does, it’s a physical run or a big catch for a conversion. Mostert is a battering ram with impressive speed and lateral quickness. Lastly, by now, everyone knows how dangerous, relentless, and intimidating George Kittle is on the field. The electrifying TE will undoubtedly have his say on the final result of this game.

Take the Niners personnel on offense and the brilliant playcalling by Kyle Shanahan, insert an intelligent, talented and seasoned QB like Jimmy Garoppolo who, for half of his career was learning under the wings of Tom Brady… and success will find you. The 49ers front office has done a masterful job building a contending team, and the ride doesn’t stop here.

Winner: San Francisco 49ers

Tennessee Titans (10-7) @ Baltimore Ravens (14-2)

The Breakdown: It will be 19 days between this game and the last time Lamar Jackson and the Ravens starting offense played. Baltimore sat out their starters in Week 17, and of course, there is speculation that the team could be “rusty”. Hopefully, they are, because it would make this game a lot closer than if the Ravens are full-steam ahead. That is not to underestimate or disrespect the Titans, unquestionably a worthy playoff team coming off a win that few have ever accomplished – beating Tom Brady and Bill Belichick in Foxboro, in January. With that being said, the Patriots were clearly not the same dominant team we’ve known for years, and had multiple fatal weakness. The Ravens offense, on the other hand, is like nothing the Titans have ever seen.

In the 100th year of the NFL, we (the public) view it as a passing league dominated by those who have great quarterbacks. Well, for the first 60 years of the league, it was the complete opposite. Great running backs and offenses dominated the league, and passing the ball was largely a last resort. Since 1977, no team have averaged over 200 rushing yards per game for an entire season. That is, until the Baltimore Ravens did it this year with Lamar Jackson as their quarterback. Prior to the season, head coach Jon Harbaugh said he and the Ravens offense wanted to revolutionize the game. A bold statement. The word revolutionize, for most people, simply means to change, which it does. The literal meaning, however, has to do with positional reference. A revolution is to complete one cycle, or one orbit – meaning, you eventually return to the original position from which you began.

Harbaugh, Jackson, and offensive coordinator Greg Roman have, indeed, been revolutionizing the game – bringing things back to a simpler, traditional style of football that some of our fathers and grandfathers would be more accustomed to seeing. Yet, here were are in the year 2020, the “future” for anyone that was around to consciously watch the 1978 Patriots set the single-season team rushing record. With the Marino’s and Montana’s emerging in the following years, the game changed – forever, it was thought. With Jackson, the Ravens have broken the single-season team rushing record, taken us back a century, while simultaneously giving us a vision of the future of the NFL. For it is not Jackson’s running ability that makes him special – other quarterbacks have tried this style and found little long-term success. It is his ability to run combined with a superb ability to throw the football accurately that makes him so special.

Jackson is often compared to Michael Vick, but the truth is, Jackson is more accurate now at age 23 than Vick ever was in his 13-year career. An even scarier thought – he is arguably a more dynamic runner! These are not things you want to hear if you’re the Titans defense. As solid as they’ve played at times this season, they simply don’t have the personnel to contain Jackson, and that’s OK. It’s possible that, at the moment, no defense does. The Ravens have won 12 games in a row, and have beaten more top-tier contenders than any other playoff team by far.

The Deciding Matchup: QB Ryan Tannehill Vs. The Ravens CBs

The obvious choice here would be RB Derek Henry Vs. The Titans LBs. However, it’s safe to say at this point that the rushing-title holder coming off a 180-yard game is going to get his. What the Titans need to win this game – to keep pace with the overpowered offense of the Ravens – is nothing short of the best performance of Tannehill’s career. The seventh-year QB is in the midst of, not only the best stretch of his career, but one of the better stretches of QB play in recent history. Tannehill tallied eight games with a passer rating above 110.0, six of which were over 130.0, an amazing feat.

However, the Ravens boast arguably the deepest, most experienced trio of corners in the league. Jimmy Smith is as consistently solid as any cover corner there is; Marlon Humphrey is a rising young star in the secondary, putting together a fabulous season with five takeaways and two defensive scores. Finally, Marcus Peters. The Rams castaway has been a perfect fit for Baltimore – the toughness, the swagger, and most importantly the execution to back it up – Peters is perhaps the final piece to the puzzle for the Ravens.

Final Say: This is going to be a dogfight. The Ravens are a proud organization with a hungry and balanced team. Lamar Jackson has been talking about going to the Super Bowl all season long. When you put that kind of pressure on yourself and your team, expectations can’t be any higher. This might be the most physical team Baltimore will have faced all season long, and stopping Derrick Henry right now would be a challenge even for the legendary 00′ Ravens defense. It’s a good thing they’re the highest-scoring team in the NFL because they’ll need every bit of their offense to show up on Saturday.

Winner: Baltimore Ravens