Saturday, December 26, 2009

Defensive Corner: Playoffs Edition (Week 16)


First and foremost, Happy Holidays everyone, I hope you had a wonderful day/8 days/ time period associated with a holiday I’m unfamiliar with. I, for one, celebrated with my family in typical Griswold fashion, but that is a story neither relevant nor suitable for this time and place. Let’s just say it involved several trips to the emergency vet and a desperate search for an open gas station.

Ok, on to football. 99.9% of us are into playoffs (and yes, that’s a figure I just made up) so while at least half of us have had our dreams dashed, those of us with still viable hopes of attaining the ultimate prize of a year’s worth of bragging rights (and or cash/trophies/etc.) are entering into competition with our leagues fiercest competitors. So what does this mean? Well, when competition gets this rough 1 point can come between you and a championship, i.e. now, more than ever, the extra points scored by defenses are crucial to success.

Start
Bengals
: The Bengals know how to take advantage of a bad offensive line and boy is Kansas City’s offensive line awful. The Bengals should have no problem getting to Cassel during this home game resulting in point earning sacks, fumbles and interceptions.

Saints: Although they haven’t scored over 5 points in the past three weeks, the Saints have already demonstrated just five weeks ago that they can sufficiently handle the weak Tampa Bay offense, who are on their 3rd quarterback this year and are 2-12 on the season.

49’s: Why should you start the 49’s, well they’re playing the Lions this week. Not enough? Ok, well not only is San Francisco playing the Lions, but they’re playing them at home, and the 49’s play tough at home; in the past three home games the 49’s scored 17, 17, and 24 points with the 24 points coming against the potent offense of the Cardinals.


Mehs (Start if No Better Option)
Cowboys: The Cowboys haven’t been the greatest this season, but they have already played the Redskins which gives us a good indicator of what we should expect this week. Given their past success against the Redskins, the fact that they are in contention for a playoff berth while the Redskins are surely out and that Albert Haynesworth was sent home early from practice for disciplinary problems on top of already being questionable for knee issues, the Cowboys should do well this week.


Sit:
Steelers: As a Steelers fan it pains me to say that the Steelers Defense has been an incredible disappointment this season. What’s even worse is that their collapse is seemingly due to the absence of a certain Samoan. Anyway, the Steelers’ Defense has been far too inconsistent to warrant a start during the playoffs, especially when playing the Ravens.

Jets: While strong, the Jets defense suffers at the hand of their offense. So far, Sanchez has 20 interceptions on the season, 3 occurring last week alone, one of which was returned 99 yards for a touchdown. This, paired with the fact that the Jets are facing Peyton Manning and the Colts does not bode well for the Jets Defense.





Related Posts by Subject



0 comments: