Your Sunday Divisional Round Primer

Seattle receiver Doug Baldwin has been on a tear lately, but how will he fare against Carolina All-Pro corner Josh Norman?

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

In case you missed it yesterday, we posted our preview of Saturday's games, with picks included. This post will cover Sunday's games, and let's not bother wasting any time.

Seattle at Carolina (1:00 p.m. Sunday, FOX)

Opening Line: Panthers by 3
Current Line: Panthers by 1.5

By The Numbers:

Seattle:
Record: 10-6 Overall, 5-3 Away; 8-7-1 Against the Spread, 4-3-1 Away
Average Score: 26.4 (4th) - 17.3 (1st)
Average Scoring Margin: +9.1 (4th); 11.7 "Expected" Wins
DVOA: +18.5% Offense (2nd); -15.2% Defense (4th); +4.2% Special Teams (3rd); +38.0% Overall (1st) 

Carolina:
Record: 15-1 Overall; 8-0 Home; 11-5 Against The Spread; 6-2 Home
Average Score: 31.2 (1st) - 19.2 (6th)
Average Scoring Margin: +12.0 (1st); 12.1 "Expected" Wins
DVOA: +9.9% Offense (8th); -18.4% Defense (2nd); -2.4% Special Teams (23rd); +25.9% Overall (4th)

Player(s) to Watch (SEA): Russell Okung, Garry Gilliam

You don't think of Russell Wilson as a quarterback who takes a pounding, but the fact of the matter is, Wilson was sacked the third-most of any quarterback in the league, with a sack-per-dropback rate that was the 5th-most frequent of regular starters. When you adjust for certain inequalities (for example, the quarterback is much more likely to be sacked when the defense blitzes, and the quarterback is much more likely to be sacked on 3rd-and-10 than 3rd-and-3), Seattle ranked 30th of 32 teams in Football Outsiders' adjusted sack rate - only Tennessee and San Francisco were worse.

Your Saturday Divisional Round Primer

Tom Brady (12) and the Patriots will be welcoming back several players from injury this week, and perhaps none is more comforting to the star quarterback than big left tackle Sebastian Vollmer (76).

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

In the Wild Card round, all four road teams prevailed for the first time since the playoff format changed back in 2002.

Also, unusually, there were two underdogs who covered but didn't win (Minnesota and Cincinnati). Normally in the postseason, underdogs don't pull backdoor covers out of a hat, they normally win outright. So perhaps it makes sense that Minnesota and Cincinnati came within inches of winning outright before losing in heartbreaking fashion.

The Wild Card round split up the conferences on separate days, but the divisional round features one AFC game and one NFC game on each day. As such, we will be previewing Saturday's games today and Sunday's games tomorrow, as to give you, dear reader, two full days to digest all of our useful information and gamble (where legal) accordingly.

Last week, Joe went 3-1 straight up, 1-3 against the spread (only Kansas City saved him from embarrassment), Jeremy went 4-0 straight up, 2-2 against the spread. So, combined with regular season records (where Joe held a one-game lead), we are now tied. With that in mind, let's check out Saturday's games.

Divisional Weekend Roundup: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

 By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Every Tuesday during football season, editors Jeremy Conlin and Joe Parello bring you the good, bad, and ugly from the football weekend that was. 

The Good

LeGarrette Blount

By now you know that the Patriots kicked it old school Saturday night, getting defensive against the Colts in Foxboro and grinding it out with their running game on offense. While the offensive line deserves a great deal of credit, running back LeGarrette Blount was a flat out stud.

The physical back ran over and around defenders all day to tie a franchise playoff record with 166 yards, and an absurd four touchdowns. We all knew Blount was a handful to bring down, but he also proved plenty tough to tackle when given some day light.

With the Patriots leading by six at the start of the fourth quarter, Blount put an exclamation point on his day, running right, then cutting back left to nothing but open grass. He finished the play by out running everyone in the Colts' secondary for a 73-yard score to, effectively, end the game.

AFC Divisional Weekend Preview

Will we see a passing of the torch in the AFC Saturday night? Or, will the elder No.12 add another notch to his playoff belt?

 By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe), featuring Bob Lobel (@boblobel)

Yesterday, we previewed the NFC matchups this weekend, featuring the Saints, Seahawks, 49ers, and Panthers. Today, we tackle the AFC side of the coin, with a special guest appearance from Bob Lobel (you can find his pick for the Patriots game about halfway down, right before we transition to the Sunday AFC game).

For the first time in a long time, Jeremy is going to be forced to write at length about the Patriots (which is something he has avoided doing for most of the season, because of the rage-fits it drives him into), so enjoy that. It may be your last opportunity to experience it this season.

NFC Divisional Weekend Preview

Can the Panthers again contain Colin Kaepernick and the 49ers' ground game?

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Last week we never really set up any ground rules for how to score ourselves with our playoff picks. We listed the line for each game, and predicted a score (and winner) for each game, but never officially picked games "Against the Spread." If we decide that only our straight-up predictions matter, Jeremy did not have a very good week. He went 0-4 (and he doesn't want to talk about it). Joe was a slightly better 2-2, hitting on Indianapolis and San Francisco.

However, in an interesting twist, while Indianapolis and San Francisco both won straight up, Indianapolis failed to cover (they were 2.5-point favorites when we made picks on Thursday, they won by a point), and San Francisco's game ended with a push (they were 3-point favorites and won by 3). San Diego winning, meanwhile, creates an interesting problem - we both picked Cincinnati - but Jeremy picked them to win by 10 (covering the 7-point spread) while Joe picked them to win by four (functionally picking San Diego to cover).

In other words, if we go purely by picking winners, Jeremy was 0-4 and Joe was 2-2. But if we go by the spread, using our score predictions, Jeremy improves to 1-2-1 (he picked Kansas City straight up, they ended up covering), while Joe drops to 1-2-1 (Indianapolis turns into a loss, San Diego turns into a win). The New Orleans-Philadelphia game is the only one not affected - we both picked Philadelphia to win by a touchdown.

Because it gives Jeremy the benefit of the doubt, he, in his infinite wisdom as Editor-in-Chief, has decided to retroactively apply our score predictions as our official Against The Spread picks. (Perhaps more accurately - he's still bitter about losing to Joe in the regular season and wants any advantage he can get, even if it means borderline-shady tactics to get it.) In this week's picks, we'll make it clear both who we're picking straight up (which Jeremy has decided doesn't really matter) and who we're picking to cover.