NFL Divisional Selections

The Divisional round of the NFL playoffs was something to behold. Things did not go according to plan for both the Indianapolis Colts and the Dallas Cowboys. The same was true for our selections; we only made three picks on the week, and all three lost.

The carnage began on Saturday when the Seattle Seahawks (+8) fell 42-20 to the Green Bay Packers at snowy Lambeau Field. We expected Mike Holmgren to outcoach Mike McCarthy and the Seahawks pass rush to get to Brett Favre. Instead, Seattle managed just one sack while the run defense allowed Ryan Grant to gallop for 201 yards. His counterpart, 2005 MVP Shaun Alexander, ran for 20 yards.

Seattle was one of our two Best Bets of the week. The other was in Sunday's contest between the Colts and the San Diego Chargers. We didn't get burned on the pointspread (Indy -10), but we did have the under cashing in on the total of 46. Indianapolis and San Diego boast two of the best defenses in the league; the Colts failed to live up to their end of the bargain in a 28-24 loss.

Our third game was Saturday's AFC tilt between the Jacksonville Jaguars and the New England Patriots. Our workbook concluded that the Pats (-13) would overwhelm the Jacksonville secondary and cover the spread. The Jags focused their attention on Randy Moss, holding him to one catch for 14 yards; that just allowed Tom Brady to hit the "easy" button and go for short, high-percentage plays, connecting on 26 of his 28 attempts. Laurence Maroney rolled for 122 yards and New England prevailed 31-20, just shy of a payday.

No pick was made in the game between Dallas and the New York Giants. This matchup was the NFC's version of Indy-San Diego, as the Giants (+7) won 21-17 in a slugfest at Texas Stadium. The Cowboys had a huge advantage on offense, controlling the ball for 36:30. But New York was up in Tony Romo's grill all day, limiting him to just 201 yards passing and a single TD throw. Eli Manning and the Giants, meanwhile, engineered three TD drives and committed zero turnovers.

As they say, any given Sunday. We have two Conference championship games coming up this weekend; we'll tackle those, then it's time for the big enchilada, the Super Bowl.