by Mike Davies

After 17 weeks of hard fought football, the NFL playoffs have officially begun.  Twelve teams will be competing for the Vince Lombardi Trophy in Dallas on February 6th, 2011. This season was extremely unpredictable to say the least.  All of these teams had different pathways to the playoffs, but every team gets a fresh start entering the postseason.  Here is a look at the AFC and NFC Wild Card matchups:

The NFC has fairly strong teams entering the postseason.  A team with a losing record, Seattle Seahawks (7-9), will be hosting a playoff game for the first time in NFL history when they face the New Orleans Saints (11-5). The NFL will be put under a lot of scrutiny after teams like the Buccaneers (10-6) and the Giants (10-6) were not able to make the playoffs even though they had abetter record than the Seahawks.  Other than this controversy, the rest of the playoffs are filled with great matchups.  The Seahawks are entering the game with a little momentum after beating the Rams for the NFC West title.  It appears the Saints are still recovering from a Super Bowl hangover and will try to repeat as champions for the first time since the 2003-2004 New England Patriots.  They will take a step in this direction when they beat the Seahawks by a large margin.

The other NFC Wild Card matchup is the Green Bay Packers (10-6) versus the Philadelphia Eagles (10-6).  Similar to last season, the Eagles are limping into the playoffs and have lost two straight games.  Michael Vick had a leg injury against the Vikings a few weeks back and did not play last Sunday.  Vick says he feels a lot better after having the week off.  The Packers have been on a roll for the past two weeks after their loss to the Patriots during Week 15.  The Packers beat the Chicago Bears last Sunday to earn the number six seed in the playoffs.  Although they are on the road for the remainder of the playoffs, I expect the Packers to be very successful.  They will beat the Eagles in a very close game in Philadelphia, which is something the Packers have experience with.  They lost to the Arizona Cardinals in overtime during last year’s wild card matchup.  The Packers offense will be clicking and should book their flights to Atlanta to face the Falcons.

Moving now the AFC comes a rematch of last year’s AFC Championship game.  The New York Jets (11-5) have cooled down after starting the season with a 9-2 record.  Still led by Rex Ryan, the team needs to find a way to find Mark Sanchez some confidence.  Ryan also hopes to improve his defense after not meeting last year’s expectations.  They will have to be spot on when they play Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts (10-6).  It is rare to see a super bowl runner-up make the playoffs the following year; Luckily history was not on the Colts’ side.  Key injuries to Dallas Clark and Austin Collie have slowed down the Colts’ high-powered offense; however, they enter the playoffs with a four game winning streak.  The Jets have been lucky at times this season and I expect the Jets to pull out a win driven by their defense.  Peyton has proven to have poor performances in the playoffs (9-9 overall) and he will lose even with the home field advantage.

The final and possibly most interesting match is the Baltimore Ravens (12-4) versus the Kansas City Chiefs (10-6).  The Ravens are always a postseason threat especially with success in the past three seasons.  It will be interesting to see if Joe Flacco can make some plays in the postseason.  The Chiefs on the other hand are extremely inexperienced.  The Chiefs are a team many people thought could make some noise in the playoffs, but a loss to the Raiders last week made analysts skeptic.  I agree with the analysts because the Ravens’ run defense will be a burden for the Jamaal Charles.

If my predictions are correct, the Jets will travel to Foxboro to take on the Patriots, the Saints will play the Bears, the Packers will play the Falcons, and the Ravens will play the Steelers.  The playoffs begin this Saturday at 4:30pm and a new episode of Ground Pound will air Thursday, January 20th only on FPTV-25.