Pats, Vikings tipped to reach Super Bowl
Favourites face stern tasks in tomorrow’s clashes as Jaguars and Eagles also have their Super Bowl plans ready, writes Benjamin Hoffman
There was no shortage of exciting games in the divisional round, with upsets in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia and a shocking last-minute win in Minnesota. As the dust settled, a group of four teams emerged as the contenders for the two spots in Super Bowl 52, which will be held at Minnesota’s US Bank Stadium on Feb 4.
Tom Brady is the only quarterback left who could claim to be one of the NFL’s elite, but the conference championships both feature tremendous defensive match-ups. The difference in both games could be which team can force more turn.
AFC CHAMPIONSHIP
Jacksonville at New England (3.05am, Monday, Thai time)
Laugh all you want, but the Jaguars (10-6) got to this point by earning every win. It was not always pretty, but Jacksonville scored the fifth-most points in the NFL, and allowed the second-fewest, regularly confounding opponents who expected the other shoe, hanging precariously from one of quarterback Blake Bortles’ toes, to drop.
So what type of team, exactly, are the Patriots (13-3) facing? First and foremost, the Jaguars are a weaponised secondary. Jalen Ramsey and AJ Bouye are both Pro Bowl cornerbacks, with Ramsey having become a shutdown defender who cuts the field in half. Anyone trying to cheat over the middle will find that Tashaun Gipson and Barry Church are two of the l eague’s finest, and most a g g r e s s i v e , safeties.
P a t r i o t s q u a r t e r b a c k Tom Brady is obviously capable of handling a top-notch secondary, but he will have almost no time to process his reads thanks to a Jacksonville pass rush led by Calais Campbell and Yannick Ngakoue. That duo combined for 26.5 sacks, and the team as a whole had 55. It gets no easier behind Campbell and Ngakoue, where Brady will find Telvin Smith, who was rated by Pro Football Focus as the NFL’s fourth best linebacker.
Should Brady try to avoid both the secondary and the pass-rush by feeding his running backs, he will find that Jacksonville’s defensive line was dramatically revamped by a trade for Marcell Dareus leading up to Week Nine. Once pushovers against the run, the Jaguars now hold their own.
Things are not quite as smooth for Jacksonville on offence, where Bortles can be frustrating to watch regardless of how positive his results are. The combination of big plays and bad throws led to mostly middle-of-the-road statistics, but Leonard Fournette, a rookie running back selected with the fourth overall pick in this year’s draft, was a perfect complement, rushing for 1,040 yards and nine touchdowns in just 13 games.
Fournette found himself in the headlines on Tuesday after being in a car accident, but he was not injured and will be good to go tomorrow.
The Patriots, of course, have numerous advantages. Brady has had perhaps the most consistent run of dominance in NFL history — the anti-Bortles if you will — and Pittsburgh proved in the divisional round that a top-notch passing game can generate points against Jacksonville. The Patriots just have to be willing to break a few eggs in the process.
Coach Bill Belichick, who has famously been in the heads of so many opposing players, is likely to have a game plan specifically designed to limit Fournette’s effect and erode Bortles’ confidence.
The Jaguars can keep up with any team, even the Patriots, on their best day, but beating New England on the road a week after upsetting the Steelers in Pittsburgh seems like a task requiring
more stability than Bortles has proved he can offer. It is easy enough to pick the Patriots to win, but there is a strong chance that this game will be far closer than most people, including Las Vegas oddsmakers, expect.
LINE: Patriots by 9
PICK: Patriots
NFC CHAMPIONSHIP
Minnesota at Philadelphia (6.40am, Monday, Thai time)
The Vikings’ season was basically over. There were 10 seconds left in their divisional round match-up against New Orleans, they were at their own 39-yard line, they had no timeouts remaining and they were down by a point. A 61-yard touchdown pass from Case Keenum to Stefon Diggs changed everything, and brought back the possibility of a team playing at home in the Super Bowl for the first time in NFL history.
It is hard to say how the Vikings (13-3) will react to being brought back from the dead, but it seems like it is bad news for the Eagles (13-3), who had been trying to turn their upset win over Atlanta into something resembling momentum.
When they are not winning games with thrilling 61-yard touchdown passes, the Vikings are really not all that dissimilar to the Jaguars. Keenum is a low-risk, moderate-reward style of quarterback, the team rely on their receivers to take care of the bulk of the work after the catch rather than before it, and they punish teams with a defence that is strong on each level.
Everson Griffen and Linval Joseph wreak havoc on the defensive line, but the crown jewel of Minnesota’s defence is their secondary, where Xavier Rhodes and Andrew Sendejo are top-notch but Harrison Smith is a nearly singular talent. A Pro Bowl safety, Smith was rated by Pro Football Focus as not just the best player at his position in the game, but the top player at any position.
Philadelphia, up until Carson Wentz’s injury, could nearly match the Vikings unit for unit. They have a devastating pass rush led by Fletcher Cox, a three-headed beast of a running game, and they were a top-five team in both points scored and fewest points allowed. Regardless of how happy they were to turn their underdog status against Atlanta into motivation for a win, their play hardly inspired confidence. Nick Foles dinked and dunked his way to a high completion percentage, and the key play of Philadelphia’s victory required one of the greatest wide receivers who ever played the game — Julio Jones — not to catch a ball thrown to him in the end zone.
Unless Foles can somehow locate the explosiveness he showed in 2013, it is hard to believe the Vikings’ path to the Super Bowl is not clear.
LINE: Minnesota by 3
PICK: Vikings