{"id":1411,"date":"2014-01-18T21:42:20","date_gmt":"2014-01-19T02:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigredsportsmachine.com\/?p=1411"},"modified":"2014-01-18T21:42:20","modified_gmt":"2014-01-19T02:42:20","slug":"conference-championship-sunday-spoiler-alert-take-the-points","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/?p=1411","title":{"rendered":"Conference Championship Sunday! [Spoiler Alert: Take the points]"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the best Sunday of football.\u00a0 Hell, it’s probably<\/del> the best Sunday of the year!\u00a0 Four teams vying for a shot to play in the Super Bowl.\u00a0 You couldn’t have scripted it better this year as there are a thousand fascinating\u00a0storylines.\u00a0 But it basically boils down to this:<\/p>\n

Brady v. Manning.\u00a0 Kaepernick v. Wilson<\/p>\n

New England at Denver (-5.5)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The line on this game hasn’t sit well with me…..or the public, as 81% of the money has come in on NE….all week.\u00a0 Belichick\u00a0and Brady in an outdoor AFC conference championship against\u00a0an opponet\u00a0they are all to familiar with and already beat once this year and you’re spotting them a TD?!<\/p>\n

The Week 12 matchup between these two teams….which saw NE win on an\u00a0overtime field goal…seems like an eon ago.\u00a0 Since then, Von Miller blew out his knee, pot became legal in Colorado and Peyton Manning and Papa John built a DeLorean!\u00a0 That game was one of the wackiest all year.\u00a0 The Broncos stormed out to 24-0 halftime lead.\u00a0 Game-flow\u00a0combined with\u00a0a\u00a0Patriots\u00a0defensive scheme that dared Denver to run the ball resulted in Knowshon\u00a0Moreno toting the ball 37 times for 224 yards and 1 rushing TD.\u00a0 We won’t see that kind of workload again.\u00a0 I also doubt we’ll see Manning throw for less than\u00a0150 yards, Demaryius Thomas and Wes Welker held to 4 catches each or Eric Decker held to 1 catch.<\/p>\n

\"Don't<\/a>

Don’t choke on your pizza!<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

New England has changed their identity\u00a0a bit since then too.\u00a0 They’ve featured a balanced offense, with a power-running attack lead by LeGarrette\u00a0Blount….with a name like that, nevermind.\u00a0 Julian Edlemen\u00a0and Danny Amendola\u00a0are nightmare matchups for most slot corners.\u00a0 New England won’t have a problem moving the ball on Denver’s defense.\u00a0 I’d expect the Patriots to follow San Diego’s Week 14 blueprint (the same blueprint San Diego couldn’t follow last week) of ball control, time-of-possession offense while trying to rattle Manning with pressure on defense.\u00a0 Easier said than done.<\/p>\n

This game will truly be chess match\u00a0and could really loom large in defining the Brady-Manning Rivalry.<\/p>\n

When the dust settles, I really think Denver has much more firepower than New England.\u00a0 I think Denver wins, but there is no way I’m beating against Brady and Belichick, I’ll gladly take the points.<\/p>\n

Prediction: Denver 31, NE 26<\/p>\n

San Francisco @ Seattle (-3.5)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first game is going to look like a hugfest compared to this game.\u00a0 The coaches hate each other, the fans hate each other<\/a>\u00a0and the players really hate each other.\u00a0 I can’t wait for the glorious Anquan\u00a0Bolden-\u00a0Richard Sherman matchup.\u00a0 Bolden\u00a0absolutely bullied and abused the Carolina secondary last week which really set the tone for that entire game.\u00a0 He actually lost mind a few times and should have been flagged for head-butting on at least one occasion.\u00a0 He’d better keep his cool because it wouldn’t surprise me if the ref’s paid extra attention to him this week.<\/p>\n

These teams split their games against each other this year, with the home team winning each game.\u00a0 If I have to listen to somebody tell me that the fans caused a mini-earthquake on the Beastmode\u00a0run against the Saint a few years back I’m going to vomit.\u00a0 Sure, it’s loud.\u00a0 And it’s a tough place to play but the Niners\u00a0aren’t going to be rattled.\u00a0 They are far more dynamic on offense than the Seahawks.\u00a0 The Niners should be adopting a Greg Williamesque mantra\u00a0when it comes to\u00a0beating Seattle: “Kill the Beastmode and the body will follow”.<\/p>\n

\"Can<\/a><\/p>\n

I’ll gladly take Kaepernick\u00a0+ Harbaugh + 3.5.<\/p>\n

Prediction: 49ers 19, Seattle 17<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the best Sunday of football.\u00a0 Hell, it’s probably the best Sunday of the year!\u00a0 Four teams vying for a shot to play in the Super Bowl.\u00a0 You couldn’t have scripted it better this year as there are a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Bp3y-mL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1411"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1417,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1411\/revisions\/1417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}