Seahawks or Seachickens?

Type/Last Week/Season
NCAA/0-1/11-9
NFL/3-1/28-27-1
Invest/+2*/-1.0*

SATURDAY (All Times ET)
**4:30 FOX HD (1) Seattle 27 (-9 ½) (6) Washington 10.
Three straight road victories is almost impossible for an NFL team to win. That has to be magnified in the playoffs. Seattle has balance on offense with NFL MVP Shaun Alexander at RB and Pro Bowler Matt Hasselback at QB. Seattle has earned its designation as Seachickens in recent years, but this year’s defense is playing markedly better.

8:00 CBS HD (4) New England 27 (+3) (2) Denver 20, *over 44.5
New England has won 10 straight postseason games with HC Bill Belichick and QB Tom Brady. Many Patriots that didn’t dress for the October game will be on the field for this one (DL Seymour, RB Dillon – at what speed though?, LB Bruschi – see Dillon ?, CB Samuel). The number that struck me looking at the box score of the first game was that the Patriots did a pretty good job against RB Mike Anderson (15 carries, 57 yards). I think that New England will do a much better job against the Denver WRs and just can’t convince myself to pick Denver QB Jake Plummer to outduel Tom Brady.

SUNDAY
1:00 CBS HD (1) Indianapolis 27 (-10) (6) Pittsburgh 16. The Colts flipped a switch at the start of the regular season, starting 13-0 after an 0-5 preseason. The offense didn’t score much during the first month of the season against some strong defenses (24 v. Baltimore, 10 v. Jacksonville, and 13 v. Cleveland), but the Colts won those games because their defense started the season at a high level. The Colts are just too fast for the Steelers on both sides of the ball and the Steelers may not be able to stay in the game while waiting for their running game to take its toll on the smaller Colts defense.

4:30 FOX HD (5) Carolina 16 (+2 ½) (2) Chicago 13. I think that this Bears team is better than the 2001 unit that had a similar regular season. The Bears did win 13-3 in the regular season game, sacking Panthers QB Jake Delhomme 8 times. It was one of 7 games that the Bears won with their offense scoring 1 TD (or less). What I didn’t like about the way the Bears finished the season against the Vikings was that starting QB Rex Grossman didn’t play. He has started 7 or 8 games in his 3-year career. He didn’t need the week off. He needed the game action to prepare for the playoffs. The key to this game will be avoiding turnovers in their own territory.