NFC Divisional Round Primer (With Picks): Favorites

Vic Beasley going against Seattle's struggling offensive line could be the story of Saturday afternoon.

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

Both Jeremy and Joe had success picking NFC games last weekend, zeroing in pretty quickly on the idea that Seattle was just a terrible matchup for Detroit, and that New York just didn't have the offensive firepower to keep pace with Green Bay.

Both home teams held court in the Wild Card round, but it seems like the top two seeds in the NFC are relatively beatable (especially considering Seattle already beat Atlanta this season and the Cowboys have averaged just 316 yards of total offense over their last six games, and the team they're playing against has now won seven straight games, and most of them have been rather convincing). The last time the No. 1 overall seed failed to make the Super Bowl from the NFC was 2012, so it remains to be seen if Dallas can keep the streak alive.

That's still a month away though. For now, we deal with Round 2.

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.

NFC Wild Card Weekend Preview

The Eagles' offense has to be smiling about facing a depleted Saints defense in Philly.

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

Yesterday, we previewed the AFC half of Wild Card Weekend - today, the NFC half. We aren't going to bother with an intro like we did yesterday, let's just get straight to the games.

New Orleans at Philadelphia (8:10 p.m. Saturday, NBC)

The Line: Eagles by 2.5

By The Numbers:

New Orleans:
Record: 11-5 (8-7-1 vs. The Spread)
Average Score: 25.9 (10th) - 19.0 (4th)
Average Scoring Margin: +6.9 (7th) - 10.8 "Expected" Wins
DVOA: +15.9% Offense (5th); -5.9% Defense (10th); -2.5% Special Teams (24th); +19.3% Total (4th)

Philadelphia:
Record: 10-6 (8-7-1 vs. The Spread)
Average Score: 27.6 (4th) - 23.9 (17th)
Average Scoring Margin: +3.8 (9th) - 9.4 "Expected" Wins
DVOA: +22.9% Offense (2nd); +5.0% Defense (23rd); -2.8% Special Teams (25th); +15.1% Total (8th)

Player(s) To Watch: DeSean Jackson

Philadelphia's rushing attack gets the lion's share of the attention, and deservedly so - their 2566 yards on the ground and 5.1 yards per rush both led the league by sizeable margins, and their DVOA score (+23.7%) had such a large lead over the rest of the field that the 2nd-best rush offense by that metric (Kansas City - +12.3%) was actually closer to league average than they were to first.

And yet, if not for DeSean Jackson, Philadelphia might not have even made the playoffs.