Puff’s Points, Wild Card

Five head coaches were fired on Monday in addition to the one
midseason firing we had. Other jobs remain in the balance.

An early Happy New Year to you all! Also, happy birthday to my mother!

It’s not quite 2014 yet, but the 2013 regular season is over and it’s time for the playoffs to begin.

I will spend the next two days previewing and predicting each wild card game. But before I do that, I would like to give you this week’s list of things you should know, as well as my current power rankings (based on my own mathematical equation) of the 12 teams still standings.

Let’s get to it!

1. New Faces

Nearly half of this year’s playoff participants are new since last year. In the AFC, San Diego and Kansas City are making their first appearances since 2009 and 2010 respectively.

Half of the NFC participants were not in last year’s tournament. The Saints missed the playoffs last year following three straight trips. Philadelphia last appeared when they won the NFC East in 2010. It’s been a little longer for the Panthers as their last trip came in 2008 when they won the NFC South with a 12-4 record and then went one-and-done, losing to Arizona in the divisional round.

2. AFC West

Denver, Kansas City and San Diego have all earned spots in this year’s playoffs. This marks the fourth time in the past decade that a single division has taken both wild card spots in their conference’s bracket. The AFC North did it in 2011, the AFC South did it in 2007 and the NFC East did it in 2006.

Fun fact, of the four divisions that have done it in the past 10 years, only the 2011 AFC South had three teams with at least 10 wins (the Colts had 13, the Jaguars had 11 and the Titans had 10).

3. Third’s Not the Charm

This is the second year in a row that a team has won 10 games but finished third in their division and missed the playoffs. The Chicago Bears did it last year and the Arizona Cardinals suffered the same fate this season. It’s one of the few arguments for expanding the playoffs by one team per conference.

4. Black Monday

Several head coaches got the axe on Monday. More may come over the next week or so. Those given their papers on the first day of their teams’ offseasons were:

Rob Chudzinski in Cleveland

Mike Shanahan in Washington

Leslie Frazier in Minnesota

Greg Schiano in Tampa Bay

Jim Schwartz in Detroit

Remember that Houston fired Gary Kubiak midseason and Wade Phillips took over. We’ll be looking to see what happens with him and also with Mike Munchak in Tennessee.

5. Tomlin Takes the High Road

Mike Tomlin could have bitched and moaned about the officiating error in San Diego that allowed the Chargers to take Kansas City into overtime and eventually beat them, eliminating the Steelers from the playoffs.

Instead, he chose to take a different path. Though he does feel that officiating is something that should be high on the NFL’s offseason agenda, namely working a deal to make at least some of them full-time NFL employees, he put the blame on himself and his team.

Pittsburgh started the season 0-4. The fact that they pulled their record to 8-8 and came just a tiebreaker away from the playoffs was incredible. But when you dig that deep a hole for yourself, it’s hard to get upset over one officiating mistake.

6. 2014 Regular Season

Though the week-by-week schedule has not been released, we now know which teams will play each other and where each game will be played for next season.

Peyton Manning will get to host his old team next year but will have to travel to Foxboro to see Tom Brady like he did this season. Brady will have a tough road matchup of his own, though, as his Patriots will visit Aaron Rodgers in Lambeau.

Focusing on our local teams, let’s look at Washington first. The Redskins will face the NFC West and AFC South. They’ll be hosting the Rams, Seahawks, Jaguars and Titans and visiting the Cardinals, 49ers, Texans and Colts. They will also host the Buccaneers and visit the Vikings, based on their places in their respective divisions.

The Ravens will get the AFC South and the NFC South next year. They will host the Jaguars, Titans, Falcons and Panthers and will visit the Texans, Colts, Saints and Bucs. Did any of you notice that their AFC South home and away schedule is the same as Washington’s? They’re other conference games will be at Miami and at home against San Diego.

7. Pro Bowl

Most of you by now are aware that this year’s Pro Bowl will not feature an AFC team playing against an NFC team. Instead, the players with the most votes by position, regardless of conference, are placed into a pool and will be drafted to two teams, led by Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders.

As an example of the players being picked regardless of conference, of the six running backs that will be placed in the pool Jamaal Charles is the only one from an AFC team.

The teams with the most players voted to the Pro Bowl are:

San Francisco – 9 players (4 offensive, 5 defensive)

Kansas City – 8 players (2 offensive, 5 defensive, 1 special teams)

Seattle – 6 players (3 offensive, 3 defensive)

Carolina – 5 players (3 offensive, 2 defensive)

Cleveland – 5 players (4 offensive, 1 defensive)

Denver – 5 players (4 offensive, 1 special teams)

New Orleans – 5 players (4 offensive, 1 defensive)

For our local teams, the Ravens will have four players in the Pro Bowl. Marshal Yanda made it on the offensive line, Haloti Ngata and Terrell Suggs made it on defense, and Justin Tucker will be one of the kickers. The only Redskin voted into the Pro Bowl is offensive tackle Trent Williams.

8. Injury Report

Official injury reports have not yet been released for the upcoming weekend. Don’t be surprised if most teams don’t make their public until Friday. But we do know the status of a few key players going into Saturday and Sunday.

Clay Mathews will not be active for Green Bay’s game against San Francisco on Sunday. With Aaron Rodgers and Randall Cobb both healthy, though, the Packers should still be able to put together a solid game and maybe even pull off an upset against the 49ers, who are currently favored by 2.5 points.

Terence Newman and Tyler Eifert were both inactive for Cincinnati on Sunday but are listed as questionable for their Sunday matchup with San Diego.

Kansas City lists Tamba Hali as questionable. If he can play alongside Justin Houston, don’t be so sure that Indy will pull off the same result of their meeting in Houston in Week 16.

Looking ahead to the divisional round, Wes Welker has been cleared to practice for Denver after suffering a concussion a few weeks ago and Percy Harvin (hip) will practice this week and Seattle hopes to have him available next week.

9. Preseason Predictions

Below are my predictions from before the preseason began of who would make this year’s playoffs. Correct picks are in bold (didn’t necessarily get the seeding right for those teams):

AFC

1. Denver Broncos

2. New England Patriots

3. Baltimore Ravens

4. Houston Texans

5. Miami Dolphins

6. Kansas City Chiefs

NFC

1. Chicago Bears

2. Atlanta Falcons

3. Washington Redskins

4. San Francisco 49ers

5. New Orleans Saints

6. Green Bay Packers

10. Power Rankings

Below is my list of power rankings, only taking the 12 playoff teams into consideration. Keep in mind that these do not take into account teams’ performances at home versus on the road. These consider the twelve teams’ entire seasons compared just to each other in several statistical categories.

1. SEA (2.287)	5. NO (3.397)	9. PHI (4.859)
2. CIN (2.524)	6. SF (3.792)	10. IND (5.014)
3. DEN (2.748)	7. NE (4.006)	11. SD (5.324)
4. CAR (3.256)	8. KC (4.532)	12. GB (5.446)

We’ll see how these rankings stand up this postseason. The way I would read it is that a higher ranked team should beat a lower ranked team when the higher ranked team is at home. For example, Denver should beat New England in Denver. But if the lower ranked team is at home, like when San Francisco plays at Green Bay this weekend, this may be less likely to correctly predict the winning team.