{"id":2000,"date":"2015-01-03T09:35:10","date_gmt":"2015-01-03T14:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigredsportsmachine.com\/?p=2000"},"modified":"2015-01-03T09:36:07","modified_gmt":"2015-01-03T14:36:07","slug":"wildcard-weekend-round-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/?p=2000","title":{"rendered":"Wildcard Weekend – Round 1"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"It's<\/a>

It’s go time!<\/p><\/div>\n

Welcome to Wildcard Weekend!\u00a0 Before we get to today\u2019s games, let\u2019s first take a look back at the regular season, and see who ended up winning the Big Red Sports Machine\u2019s Pick with the Pros [pops champagne].\u00a0 Yes sir, for the second year in a row, Ginger King walks away with the regular season crown.\u00a0 I walk around the house with a better sense of pride, and my kids (and Mrs. Machine) are in awe of my (non-money making) ability to pick games against the spread.\u00a0 Some day\u2026<\/p>\n

\"Wife<\/a>

Mrs. Machine on Christmas.<\/p><\/div>\n

Anyway, until the Big Red Sports Machine opens up its off-shore betting service (what\u2019s you New Years Resolution?) let\u2019s look at today\u2019s playoff match-ups.<\/p>\n

Arizona at Carolina (-6.5)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Arizona<\/a>In the day\u2019s first match-up, the 11-5 Cardinals travel to the 7-8-1 Panthers.\u00a0 First, stop with the whole \u201chow does a losing team make the playoffs AND get a home game\u201d?\u00a0 Enough whining, already.\u00a0 Carolina won the NFC South.\u00a0 Plain and simple.\u00a0 Stop trying to over-regulate it.\u00a0 The Panthers are at home, going against 3rd<\/sup> string quarterback Ryan Lindley.\u00a0 You got to like that match-up, right?<\/p>\n

With that said, there\u2019s no way in hell Carolina covers 6.5 points.\u00a0 In fact, the Machine likes the Cardinals to win this outright.\u00a0 Say what you want about Carolina being in the playoffs (actually don\u2019t, because it\u2019s annoying) but they\u2019re still not a good team.\u00a0 Cam Newton has regressed, throwing the fewest tds (18), yards (3,127) and most fumbles (6) in his career.\u00a0 As Cam goes, so go the Panthers.<\/p>\n

The Cardinals, however, are more of a complete team, and have been able to withstand promoting the ball boy to starting quarterback.\u00a0 Patrick Peterson is the most underrated corner in the league.\u00a0 He will be a difference maker.\u00a0 The Cardinals game plan should be to force Cam to throw the ball.\u00a0 Even with promising rookie Kelvin Benjamin ,the Panthers passing attack isn\u2019t great.\u00a0 Letting Steve Smith leave will haunt them.<\/p>\n

Take the Cardinals.<\/p>\n

Baltimore at Pittsburgh (-7)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Smash<\/a>

Smash mouth baby!<\/p><\/div>\n

You better take the Ravens with the points before Vegas shuts this line down.\u00a0 With Le\u2019Veon Bell in, Pittsburgh wins this game handily.\u00a0 The Steelers are tough to beat at home (6-2 this year) and even more so in the playoffs.\u00a0 Bell is their workhorse.\u00a0 He ran for over 1,300 yards and 8 td, and also had 83 catches for over 850 yards and 3 tds.<\/p>\n

But, with Le\u2019Veon Bell out, this game has become a toss-up.\u00a0 The Steelers are now one dimension.\u00a0 Granted, it\u2019s a pretty good dimension, with Big Ben and stud receiver Antonio Brown.\u00a0 Brown led the league with 129 receptions for a league best 1,698 yards.\u00a0 He simply looks unstoppable at times.\u00a0 But how much of that potent passing attack is predicated on the efficiency of the running game?\u00a0 Regardless, Brown is simply too good to not be a factor.\u00a0 Pittsburgh will get him involved, perhaps even in the running game (we\u2019re calling an end around).<\/p>\n

On the other side, Baltimore has quietly put together a solid season.\u00a0 They lost Ray Rice, but still had a top 10 rushing offense, running for over 126 yards a game, good for 8th<\/sup> overall.\u00a0 Baltimore will want to play the ball control game, with long, time-consuming drives.\u00a0 They can do that behind their offensive line.\u00a0 Pittsburgh\u2019s D isn\u2019t what it used to be\u2026James Harrison is back, but he\u2019s not any younger.\u00a0 They are vulnerable.\u00a0 Look for Baltimore to use the run game to set up the play action deep ball to Torrey Smith.<\/p>\n

This game will be close.\u00a0 Take Baltimore and the points.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Steelers can cover, just not 7 points.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Wildcard Weekend!\u00a0 Before we get to today\u2019s games, let\u2019s first take a look back at the regular season, and see who ended up winning the Big Red Sports Machine\u2019s Pick with the Pros [pops champagne].\u00a0 Yes sir, for … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"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":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nfl"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Bp3y-wg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2000"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2007,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000\/revisions\/2007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}