Your NFC Wild Card Primer

Washington quarterback Kirk Cousins is pumped to be playing at home, where his team is 6-2 and he's posted a 117 passer rating this season. On the road Washington is just 3-5, with Cousins' passer rating dipping all the way to 87.7.

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

We kicked off our Wild Card Weekend preview yesterday with our AFC Primer. Both of us like the road teams on that side of the bracket. Here comes the NFC Primer, where again, both road teams are the nominal favorites.

All four road teams can't end up winning, can they?

A reminder, in case you missed the AFC Preview - the "DVOA" line in the "By The Numbers" section is the Football Outsiders' metric "Defense-Adjusted Value Over Average." It is designed to measure each team on a per-play basis, adjusted, obviously, for the opponent, but also for down and distance. For example, a 6-yard gain on 3rd-and-4 against Seattle is a more valuable and/or meaningful play than a 11-yard gain on 4th-and-12 against New Orleans. DVOA accounts for those things. And positive numbers represent more yards/points, so a defense is better when it is further negative.

Let's dive right in. 

Football Roundup: Good, Bad, and Ugly

Things are getting ugly for the NFL, which has gone into full-on "damage control" mode. What's a commissioner to do?

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

Every week, editors Jeremy Conlin and Joe Parello bring you the good, the bad and the ugly from the pro and college football weekend that was.

The Good

Patriots Defense/Special Teams

Probably the two best performance from any units on any teams - they sacked Matt Cassell six times, picked him off four times (including one with a sixty yard run-back), a blocked field goal that was returned for a touchdown, and to add some icing to the cake, they averaged 16.5 yards on punt returns (they only received two kickoffs and both went for touchbacks). The Patriots dominated field position and only surrendered 217 yards of offense - that's how you win by three touchdowns despite only gaining 292 total yards on offense yourself and committing 15 penalties for 163 yards (in their defense, two of those penalties for 58 of those yards came on a meaningless drive at the end of the game, up 30-7 with under two minutes left). The Patriots average drive start point was their 42 yard line and started three drives inside Minnesota territory. The offense sputtered - they only scored 10 points on those drives, and if you take those away, plus the blocked kick return touchdown, this was a much closer game. But the defense tipped the scales.

-JC

Bob Lobel: The NFL Shield Now Protecting Wife Beaters and Child Abusers

By Bob Lobel (@boblobel)

It was billed as the National Felons League (NFL) decades ago. Must have been a reason for that, right?  

Of course there was, and that was before the days of privacy and very little hard reporting. Well, they have pushed the envelope again, considering “the very bad, God awful, really stinking, lying and cover up week” they just went through. And it is not over by any stretch of the imagination. Usually, the crisis management people employed by every team and by the league itself will tell you to wait out the news cycle, and it will all go away. 

But really, how much damage has been done to America's favorite sport? 

The NFL's All-Prison Team

Who will join O.J. on our All-Prison team?

By Joe Parello  @HerewegoJoe

Ok, I know you've all been thinking it, so don't make me the bad guy for actually putting this list together. The moment Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez was taken into custody, Facebook and Twitter were ablaze with "Longest Yard 2 starring Hernandez" jokes, and everybody was talking about an All Star team you could make with players that have been to jail.

The first thing that came to my mind was, "Hernandez can't actually be the best tight end to ever go to prison, right?" Well, I did some research, and it turns out he's up there. So, without further ado, here is my All-Prison Team, comprised of NFL players that have served jail time at some point in their lives (Note that I didn't say convicted).

The NFL's Suite Stars

Loaded fronts couldn't stop this Suite Star from making history in 2012.

By Joe Parello and Jeremy Conlin

With the Pro Bowl now in our rear view mirror, we at Suite Sports would like to humbly offer our opinion on who the best players in the NFL were this season.

So, here are our Suite Stars, along with award winners for 2012, as we get closer to Super Bowl XLVII.

Quarterback

1. Peyton Manning, Denver
2. Aaron Rodgers, Green Bay

You know it’s a great year for QB’s when Tom Brady is on the outside looking in after a fantastic season. You’ll hear a bunch more about Manning when we get to the awards section, but what the former Colt did in his first year in Denver, coming off neck surgery, is nothing short of amazing. Aaron Rodgers gets a little lost in most people’s minds because he was out of this world in 2011, but the Packer signal caller followed up his MVP performance with another phenomenal year.