{"id":2667,"date":"2017-01-07T10:41:54","date_gmt":"2017-01-07T15:41:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigredsportsmachine.com\/?p=2667"},"modified":"2017-01-07T10:41:54","modified_gmt":"2017-01-07T15:41:54","slug":"wildcard-weekend-afc-saturday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/?p=2667","title":{"rendered":"WILDCARD WEEKEND – AFC (SATURDAY)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"nfl-wild-card\"<\/a>It\u2019s not how you start, it\u2019s how you finish!\u00a0 Welcome to the 2017 NFL Playoffs.\u00a0 The kickoff game isn\u2019t exactly get-your-popcorn-ready material.\u00a0 This unwatchable match-up (which probably pulls twice the rating of the Cubs\/Indians World Series Game 7) features the team that drafted Khalil Mack (Oakland Raiders) and the team that should have drafted Khalil Mack (Houston Texans).\u00a0 Vegas agrees,, this game has the lowest total (37) of the weekend….but hey, it does have the smallest spread (HOU -3.5), so maybe it\u2019ll be close?!<\/p>\n

\"STAR<\/a>

STAR POWER<\/p><\/div>\n

A lot of people thought the Texans were crazy when they signed Brock Osweiler to an $72 million dollar contract in the offseason…..and those people were right.\u00a0 Through 15 games, \u201cB.O.\u201d completed under 60% of his passes, threw more picks (12) than touchdowns (11) , took 27 sacks and fumbled a handful of times.\u00a0 In other words, good enough to win the AFC South!<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, the Texans skill players collectively turned in a down year.\u00a0 Lamar Miller barely cracked a 1,000 yards; a threshold DeAndre Hopkins couldn\u2019t even reach.\u00a0 Safe to say Nuk wasn\u2019t on many fantasy championship rosters this year.<\/p>\n

\"LOL\"<\/a>

LOL<\/p><\/div>\n

Despite losing their best player before the season began, defense is the name of the game in Houston.\u00a0 JJ Watt was too busy creating his own logo<\/a> and filming Bose commercials to train in the offseason and promptly blew out his back, missing the entire season.\u00a0 Ironically, if you look at his logo upside down you can kind of see an inflated ego. #hiddenmessage.\u00a0 That has left the 2014 No. 1 overall pick, Jadeveon Clowney as the face of the defense.\u00a0 For his career, The Clown has amassed 72 tackles, 10.5 sacks and 1 forced fumble….or what we like to call a \u201cdown year\u201d for All-World Khalil Mack (University at Buffalo shout out).<\/p>\n

The Texans defense ranks first in yards allowed.\u00a0\u00a0 Or is it last in yards allowed??\u00a0 Either way, teams had trouble moving the ball for positive gains against the Texans.\u00a0 I guess they can hang their oversized cowboy hats on that…..oh and the fact that they don\u2019t have to face….<\/p>\n

\"Might<\/a>

Might want to mix in a few squats to the workout routine, just saying.<\/p><\/div>\n

Derek Carr was in the MVP discussions before he broke his leg in half on Christmas Eve.\u00a0 Not to be outdone, backup Matt \u201cThe other Red Rifle\u201d McGloin broke his McShoulder the following week.\u00a0 To top it all off, starting Left Tackle Donald Penn has been ruled out with a knee injury.\u00a0 When the Raiders move to Vegas any chance they change their logo to a black cat breaking a mirror with an upside down horseshoe under a ladder?<\/p>\n

\"Soulless<\/a>

Soulless embrace. #14<\/p><\/div>\n

Truthfully, the McGloin injury is a blessing in disguise considering he\u2019s 1-7 as a starter.\u00a0 That\u2019s bad, right?\u00a0 The Raiders at least get to trot out the \u201celement of surprise\u201d in 4th<\/sup> round rookie Connor Cook.\u00a0 The Texans are literally going to have to breakdown his college tape to game plan for him.\u00a0 Have fun with that.<\/p>\n

The 3.5 point spread makes a ton of sense.\u00a0 The Raiders are going to protect Cook as much as possible (translation: run the ball) knowing that the Houston offense isn\u2019t exactly going to blow the doors off the hinges.\u00a0 Turnover machine Osweiler will see to that.\u00a0 This game feels like it is going to come down to a fluky special teams play or a missed extra point.<\/p>\n

Since I\u2019m practically the president of the Khalil Mack fan club (is it that obvious?), my pick here may be slightly biased, but I\u2019ll take the RAIDERS +3.5.<\/p>\n

Final Score: Houston 24, Oakland 22
\n<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not how you start, it\u2019s how you finish!\u00a0 Welcome to the 2017 NFL Playoffs.\u00a0 The kickoff game isn\u2019t exactly get-your-popcorn-ready material.\u00a0 This unwatchable match-up (which probably pulls twice the rating of the Cubs\/Indians World Series Game 7) features the … 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":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nfl"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Bp3y-H1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2667","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=2667"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2674,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2667\/revisions\/2674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}