NFL Games of the Week

With every team gearing up to play their 10th game this Sunday, the NFL is coming down to it’s home stretch. With so many teams still alive for a playoff spot (two games separate eight teams for the last three playoff spots) and no truly elite team lording over the league, the final four game stretch is going to be full of jostling for playoff position and seeing if a team or two emerges as clear favorites.As it currently stands, I have the New England Patriots and Arizona Cardinals the favorites of their respective conferences, but with the Patriots losing offensive weapons like it is going out of style (Nate Solder, Dion Lewis, and Julian Edelman) and the Cardnals suffering some curious losses (home to the Rams and against a Landry Fields led Steelers team), there is still room for a team to over take favorite status.Some of the key tilts in deciding playoff picture for week 11 include: a battle for NFC North supremacy between the upstart Minnesota Vikings and perennial divisoin power Green Bay, a crucial AFC wild card battle between the New York Jets and Houston Texans, and finally, the game of the week featuring the Cincinnati Bengals going on the road against the Arizona Cardinals. With the conclusion of each game, we will have yet another game with which to judge these teams and see if they can truly make some noise when the playoffs roll around in January.

#3 Cincinnati vs Arizona

J J Wilson

Here is an intraconfernce matchup that doubles as the game of the week. Two teams with a combined three losses, looking to put themselves in position to secure a first round bye when the playoffs starts. The Bengals will be looking to bounce back after an embarrassing home defeat on Monday night last week where their offense did absolutley nothing, while the Cardinals are coming off a galvanizing win in Seattle that saw them traverse adversity and come out with two huge 80 yard touchdown drives to win the game.

Keys to Bengals Victory

Simple, get back to doing what got you to 8-0. That’s when they had a top three offense and could run and throw the ball at will. The Bengals need to get their play makers the ball in space and let them go about making defenders try and tackle them 1 on 1 look silly. To me, this means less Jeremy Hill, who hasn’t looked nearly as good as he did in his stellar rookie campaign, and more Giovanni Bernard who is dynamite with the ball in his hands and deserves more than 14 touches a game. The Bengals offensive line has not been nearly as good as this year at run blocking, and Bernard’s shiftiness allows to mask these problems, as evidence by his 5.5 yards per carry (compare that to Hill’s 3.2 yards per carry).

In addition to this, the Bengals pass game needs to get on track again, from both a quarterback and receiver stand point. Last week, they looked completely out of sink as there were numerous over throws and uncharacteristic drops. They Bengals will also need to stop the blitz, as they have been one of the worst teams against the blitz this year and in all of quarterback Andy Dalton’s career. The Cardinals will bring people from all different angles and it will be on Dalton and the offensive line to identify who is and isn’t coming and make Arizona pay by winning 1 on 1 matchups. To me, this is going to be the biggest determining factor between who wins and loses.

Keys to Cardinals Victory

Keep doing you. This is the best team in the NFC in my eyes, something that their 117 point differential suggests (37 more than the next best team), and they are playing more and more like it every week. They have a top 3 MVP candidate in Carson Palmer rolling right now, as evidence by some of the dimes he dropped last week that ripped the heart out of the Legion of Boom, and they need to continually put the ball in his hands and let him be the leader. What helps Palmer so much is the plethora of pass catching options he has, each who bring a different skill to the table and allow the pass game to be very diversified. If they can get a little juice from their running game, this game has the potential to be a beatdown in the desert.

On defense, as mentioned above, they need to look to confuse the Bengals with varying blitz looks. This doesn’t mean blitzing every play, as bluff blitzes do a great job of causing confusion as well, but they need to keep the Bengals guessing all game long with who and who isn’t coming. With these all these blitzes, the Cardnals will need phenomenal 1 on 1 tackling because the Bengals have no fewer than six players who can make a defense pay dearly if they miss. The Bengals offense vs Cardinals defense will be a fascinating subplot to watch and will no doubt determine who wins the game.

Prediction

I see the Cardinals, playing at home in primetime, winning this game fairly comfortable. The final margin might end up within a single score, but I think anyone who watch this game will come away thinking that the better team won the game.

#2 New York vs Houston

Nate Washington

This matchup in Houston will go a long way in determining who is in line to get an AFC wild card berth. If the Texans lose they will be looking at the weak AFC South as probably their only way of getting into the playoff tournament, while the Jets don’t want to lose another wild card tiebreaker after dropping a game to the Buffalo Bill last week.

Keys for Jets Victory

The Jets need to get back to controlling the football both in the run game and turnover department. Against the Bills, they could not get anything going on the ground and in turn gave the Bills a touchdown when they dropped a punt. The Jets simply aren’t good enough to win a game when they do things like this, as their offense is not built to come down from big deficits. With one of the better running backs in Chris Ivory, the Jets need to open up holes for him and allow him to work a usually soft Texans defense. If they ask Ryan Fitzpatrick to go out and win this game on his own, they will head back to New York dissapointed, but if they give him short down and distances and manageble situations, he can be very effective finding his big target on the outside, Brandon Marshall.

Good thing for the Jets, they are going against an offense that has struggled all year. This will give their top five defense a chance to shine and possibly win the game for Gang Green. They have the corners to stick with and make life difficult for Texans star receiver DeAndre Hopkins, and this should allow them to continue with their patented game plan of blitz, blitz, and blitz some more. If they can speed up the game for whoever plays qb for the Texans this week, Brian Hoyer or TJ Yates, the Jets should come out victorious.

Keys to Texans Victory

In order for Houston to win the game this week, they need to have their defense come out with another dominant showing. After a tough year for the defense, they came out last Monday and shut down one of the best offenses in football in Cincinnati, and it allowed them to come out victorious as the offense struggled through another rough outing. Plain and simple, the offense and their quarterbacks aren’t good enough to lead them to victory, probably ever, so the Texans need their stars on defense to show up and play a dominant game. JJ Watt needs to wreck his usual havoc in the run and pass game, Brian Cushing needs to play like a man possessed, and Whitney Mercilus needs to continue his current streak of great play.

Combine this with a secondary that is opportunistic and starting to play better, and the Texans have the recipe to shut down an average Jets offense. If you noticed that I have said nothing about the Texans offense, that is because I think they can do nothing to help the Texans win besides not royally screw up. The Texans aren’t a very good team, simply treading water due to a soft playoff bubble, and their offense is mainly to blame. If Hopkins can hit a big play or two, that will do wonders for the Texans chances.

Prediction

If you haven’t guessed by now, I am picking the Jets to go on the road and come out with the win. Head Coach Todd Bowles has this team playing with some good confidence, especially on defense and they are poised to take apart a sorry offense.

#1 Green Bay at Minnesota

Aaron Rodgers

A big tilt is taking place in Minnesota this week, as two teams currently headed in opposite directions square off to see who will gain the upper hand in the division going into the last five games of the season.

Green Bay rolls into town sporting a three game losing streak where Aaron Rodgers and his supposedly high powered offense has been effetively shut down each game. Meanwhile, the Vikings are riding a five game winning streak, looking like a team that is finding their identity behind head coach Mike Zimmer’s desired game plan of stifling defense and a strong running game.

Even when Jordy Nelson went down for the Packers before the season, the Packers looked to still be the class of the division, but as the games have played out, this assumption is proving to be untrue.

Key for Packers Victory

It’s pretty simple for Green Bay this week, they have to play above average defense for the first time in awhile and their receivers have to get open. For the past few weeks now, the Packers have been providing little resistance against opponents, highlighted by their effort two weeks ago when they gave up 37 points to a Carolina Pnthers team that sports zero above average receivers.

This week they will be going against another average receiving core this week, and need to bring some of the lockdown ability people saw in them at the start of the year. This will be important because they can’t give up any big plays in the pass game to a team that uses those as icing on the cake.

Up front, they will have to contend with the best running back in the league, once again the dominant Adrian Peterson. This will be a chore for their middling rush defense, but if they can at least make Peterson work for his yards and not break through for big chunks they will give their offense a chance.

On offense, Aaron Rodgers needs someone to create separation from the Vikings pass defenders and give him some easy throws. This does not take some of the blame away from Rodgers play the last few weeks, very subpar for him, but when receivers can’t get open, it is natural for the quarterback to start pressing throws. The thing is, the Packers might not have anyone capable of actually getting open. With Randall Cobb hobbled by injury and DaVante Adams looking very pedestrian, the Packers are stuck relying on castoffs (James Jones) and no names to pick up the slack (Richard Rodgers). Safe to say it hasn’t worked. However, if they can just get a little separation, Rodgers is more than capable of turing that into a huge day

Keys for Vikings Victory

For the Vikings, it’s pretty simple, keep doing what you have been doing. This is a young team that has slowly begin to find their identity and it has shown over the last few weeks as the wins have started to pile up. In Adrian Peterson, they have one of the best non qb trump cards living, someone who can put a team on his back and help improve every unit on the field.

The Vikings need to look to establish Peterson early and often in order to set up their play action game and give 2nd year quarterback Teddy Bridgewater some easy throws downfield. This will in turn help keep the defense off the field which minimizes the damage that the reigning MVP can do when he is running around and finding receivers downfield for huge gains. In my eyes, if the Vikings follow this simple game plan, they will come out victorious.

Prediction

Even on the road, I have to go with the best quarterback in the game and pick the Green Bay Packers to take this game. Rodgers knows if they lose they are almost for sure staring at a wild card berth at best for the playoffs so he is going to bring his A game and lead the Packers to victory.