Puff’s Points, Divisional Playoffs

Two teams hired new head coaches this week. The Texans hired
former Penn St. coach Bill O'Brien and the Bucs brought in Love Smith.

We are one week into the 2014 NFL postseason and the field, vying to be the 48^th to hoist the Vince Lombardi Trophy, has been reduced to eight.

As I did last week, I will preview this Saturday’s playoff games on Wednesday and the Sunday games on Thursday before I, and my Football Freaks co-hosts, make our official predictions on Friday.

Now, it’s time for me to give you a heads up on what I think you need to know as we head into the second weekend of the playoffs.

1. A Postseason of Rematches

In the wild card round, three of the four games were rematches from the regular season (way to screw up the trend, Saints/Eagles).

This weekend we’ll get three more. The Seahawks already beat – or should I say beat down? – the Saints in Week 13. Now the Saints have to go back in front of the 12^th man in the first game of this weekend’s Divisional Round.

San Francisco lost at home in Week 10 the Carolina Panthers. This week they have to play in Carolina. That mid-season loss was by just one point, and the 49ers have gotten a couple key players back from injury since then, but I’ll talk more about that on Thursday.

The Chargers, riding a five-game winning streak, will head back to Sports Authority Field at Mile High, where the second of those five wins came against the Broncos.

2. Better to be Luck-y than Good

Andrew Luck threw three picks in the Colts’ wild card win against Kansas City. But behind a strong second-half performance by his defense, and a lucky bounce on a Donald Brown fumble in the fourth quarter, Luck notched the 11^th game winning drive and 8^th fourth-quarter comeback of his young career.

Luck also showed great poise to avoid a second straight playoff loss to start his career.

3. Branching Out

The Colts announced Monday that they signed Deion Branch to the team. With Darius Heyward-Bey battling a nagging hamstring injury and New England’s defense likely to try and take away T.Y. Hilton on Saturday, this is a pretty good signing.

Branch worked out for Indy last month, so clearly they feel comfortable with the kind of physical shape he is in. It also helps that he’s an experienced receiver. He’s had trouble staying healthy in the past, the main reason a lot of people underrate him, in my opinion, but the Colts only need him for this playoff push and he could be a big asset.

4. Spikes to IR

Sticking with that game, the Patriots are going to have to deal with another big injury for however long their run lasts. Linebacker Brandon Spikes played in all 16 regular season games and was one of the team’s leading tacklers. He also had an interception, a fumble recovery and a couple pass deflections.

But on Monday the Patriots announced that Spikes is now on injured reserve and will be unavailable for the remainder of the postseason. With several other key players like Vince Wilfork, Jerod Mayo, Sebastian Vollmer and, of course, Gronk also on injured reserve, the road ahead only gets tougher for New England.

5. Comeback Player of the Year

Last year, this award clearly came down to Peyton Manning and Adrian Peterson. I doubt there was a person who could come up with a third name to throw into that list if you’d offered up a million dollars.

This year there aren’t any real obvious choices, but there are still some good candidates. NFL.com offers up eight players for consideration and my top three from that list are:

1. Ryan Mathews
2. Brent Grimes
3. Alex Smith

All three players are coming off injuries that ended their 2012 seasons. Ryan Mathews twice broke his collarbone last year and Grimes tore his Achilles. Smith was cleared to play last year after a concussion, but Colin Kaepernick got the “hot hand” nod and Smith was sent packing to Kansas City over the offseason.

Mathews has dealt with fumble issues and people constantly questioning his toughness. This year he shared San Diego’s backfield with Danny Woodhead, who was one of Philip Rivers’s favorite targets early in the season. But Mathews emerged as a leader for the offense during their four-game winning streak to make the cut for the playoffs.

Grimes, coming off that injury and standing at just 5’ 10” as a cornerback, had to settle for a one-year deal with Miami. He’s a Pro Bowler this season after emerging as not only one of the best cover corners in football but also one of the best tacklers at the position.

Smith is on my list because people are forever questioning him. They say he sucked early in his career, but he only started 8+ games once in his first three seasons. In 2011 they said he sucked because he only threw 17 touchdowns, even though he also only threw 5 interceptions and led his team to a shootout win against the Saints in the playoffs. And going into 2013 they conveniently forgot his 13:5 TD-to-INT ratio in nine games before his injury last season. This year he threw 23 touchdowns and 7 interceptions and turned the Chiefs’ run offense into a juggernaut capable of beating you on the ground or in the air.

6. Old and New Coaches

The Titans joined the search for a new head coach when they fired Mike Munchak on Saturday. I wouldn’t be shocked if we see the Bengals join the hunt, too, after Marvin Lewis lost his fifth playoff game in five tries.

Two teams have already found their men. The Houston Texans fired interim head coach Wade Phillips and hired Penn State coach Bill O’Brien.

In Tampa, the Buccaneers want to separate themselves from the image Greg Schiano gave them. I’d say they did a pretty damn good job by grabbing Lovie Smith, the former Bears team that took Rex Grossman to the Super Bowl. Did you hear that? He took Rex Grossman to a Super Bowl. As a starting quarterback. Why did the Bears fire him, again?

7. Comeback Wild Card

In three of this year’s wild card games, the winning team was trailing at halftime. Only the San Francisco 49ers were able to keep control of the game through the second half, albeit just barely.

The Colts trailed 31-10 at halftime and 38-10 less than two minutes into the third quarter. They came back to win 45-44.

The Saints trailed 7-6 at the half and then scored the first 14 points of the third quarter. They won 26-24 on a last-second field goal by Shayne Graham. I wonder if Garrett Hartley would have gone 4-for-4 on field goals on Saturday?

And the Bengals held a 10-7 advantage before collapsing only slightly less embarrassingly than the Chiefs. The Chargers outscored Cincinnati 20-0 in the second half of that game.

8. Home Teams Beware

Only the Indianapolis Colts won at home on wild card weekend, and they needed a miraculous comeback to do so. It seems like this is a trend of the past few years and the bye week teams better look out.

9. Streak Breaker

The last game of the divisional round will break one of two streaks. The last four teams to visit Philadelphia for the Eagles’ regular season home opener have gone on to win the Super Bowl. The Saints beat the Eagles in 2009 and went on to beat the Colts in Super Bowl XLIV.

The Packers beat Philly in 2010 and then beat Pittsburgh in Super Bowl XLV. Then in 2011 the Giants won in Philly’s home opener and went on to beat New England in Super Bowl XLVI.

Last year the Ravens lost to the Eagles in that Philly home opener but still won the Super Bowl, proving that you don’t have to spoil Philadelphia’s home opener.

This year, the San Diego Chargers won 33-30 in Week 2 in Philadelphia and will have a chance to continue that streak with a win on Sunday in Denver.

But Peyton Manning has never lost twice at home to the same team in a single season. In fact, the only time he has lost twice in the same stadium to a single opponent was in 2004 when he lost the season opener in New England and then lost in Foxboro in the playoffs.

10. Power Rankings

My power rankings went 2-2 last week. New Orleans was ranked above Philly and San Francisco ahead of Green Bay. But both Cincinnati and Kansas City were ranked higher than their opponents in the wild card round, so maybe my calculation only works for NFC teams.

Anyway, I’ve recalculated everything for just the eight remaining teams, so here are the updated power rankings:

1. Seattle Seahawks (1.514)	5. Carolina Panthers (2.771)
2. Denver Broncos (2.264)	6. Indianapolis Colts (3.365)
3. New Orleans Saints (2.551)	7. New England Patriots (3.382)
4. San Francisco 49ers (2.679)	8. San Diego Chargers (3.708)

So according to these rankings, Seattle and Denver should both win easily since they are playing at home against lower ranked teams. Meanwhile the Patriots and Panthers are ranked lower than the teams they are hosting, but not by much, so the home field advantage may well overcome the difference.

Or my rankings calculation could just be way off. Eh, it’s just for fun anyway. I like manipulating numbers.