Four teams are done until (at least) the 2011 season. Eight teams remain, the four winners from last week and the four teams who earned at least one home postseason game and a Wild-Card bye. I decided not to write earlier in the week about the first round games. Instead I will use a brief analysis of the winners as I discuss my picks for this weekend, the Divisional Round of the 2010 NFL Postseason.
Game 3:
Sunday, January 16, 2011
1:00pm – FOX
Seattle Seahawks @ Chicago Bears
I never expected that I would have to say this, but the Seahawks actually have a chance to win a playoff game…again! Seattle is coming off two big wins in which their ground game came up huge. They finally had a good game running the ball against St. Louis in the season finale that put them into the postseason. Then, after Hasselbeck put them in a position to win, it was Marshawn Lynch who finished off the defending Super Bowl champs to advance to Soldier Field.
The Seahawks have already won in Soldier Field this season, and though the Bears will be determined not to let it happen again, they may not be able to stop it.
Seattle is red hot, and their morale is higher than ever. They have a coach whose demeanor suggests that he is half his actual age, they have a veteran Quarterback who has taken this franchise to the Super Bowl, and they have a victory against the New Orleans Saints under their belts.
The Bears have a coach who led a Bears team quarterbacked by Rex Grossman to the Super Bowl (definitely an accomplishment, sorry Rex), and home field for this game. Cutler had a terrible game back in week 6 when Seattle won in Chicago 23-20. In his defense, he was coming off a Concussion the previous week and the Bears offensive line was doing nothing to protect him. He has been much better of late, but still not what I would consider to be sharp.
This will be a good game. The thing to remember about Seattle is that they started off 4-2 before going cold down the stretch. Add fire to ice, ice melts. That cold stretch may very well be behind them, even as they go to the Windy City.
Chicago says they have learned from their early season loss to the Seahawks, and I have no doubt they have. It isn’t generally difficult to learn, especially from losses. But the Seahawks are not the same team they were in week 6. They hadn’t experienced losing seven of their last 10 games, and they don’t want to suffer another loss after convincing themselves that they are past that stage. Pete Carroll already had enough problems in his first NFL stint. He wants this one to be successful, and he wants it to be that way right off the bat, and he has an opportunity to make it successful.
The Bears are coming off two very different games (the shootout with the Jets where each team’s defensive secondary couldn’t seem to do anything right, and a low-scoring game against Green Bay in which a 4th quarter interception thrown by Cutler doomed the Bears to one more regular season loss for the year. Now, coming off a bye, and seeing what Seattle did to New Orleans, I don’t think it matters if the Bears learned from the early season meeting. If they think they know what to expect on Sunday, this could easily turn into the Bears being routed by a team that, even including last week’s victory, still hasn’t won as many games as it has lost this season. I certainly don’t know what to expect in this game, but I’m excited for it.
I’m going to go for it and pick the upset here.
My pick:
Seattle beats Chicago, 27-24
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