NFL 2006 Conference Championship Predictions

Who will win this weekend?

Saints @ Bears
I've said before I really like the Saints' story, going from #2 in the draft to #2 in the conference, and now the conference title game. I really like the team. The offense, with MVP candidate Drew Brees leading the way, has gotten all the attention, but the defense ain't all that bad.

Conversely, I'm not all that big a fan of Chicago. The struggles on offense are well documented. But even the vaunted defense began struggling late in the season. The Seahawks were a pretty lightweight division winner, even by NFC standards, and last week's playoff game still came down to a last second field goal.

The Saints are the better team, even if they don't have the better record. But, I live in the upper midwest, just off Lake Michigan. I was outside this morning. Chicago in January has one of the best home field edges around thanks to the wind and the cold. A team from New Orleans is not going to be well acclimated to the conditions, and it will impact their competitiveness. I've read Sean Payton saying that, when he was a coordinator for the Giants in their Super Bowl year of 2000, they had a lot of practices late in the season indoors and still managed to win in the cold. But the difference is the players' bodies were used to the cold. The Saints' players won't be.

It sounds silly, but for that reason alone I have to go with the Bears in this one.

Patriots @ Colts
This is the one everybody cares about, for good reason. Whoever wins is most likely to win the Super Bowl. As the NFC title game was in the 80's and most of the 90's, so the AFC title game is now. New England is clearly no longer the team it was a few years ago when it was winning back to back titles. The defense and passing game have both declined due to age and attrition. But they are still a tough team to beat, as San Diego found out last week. On offense, the running game is brutal when they get both Dillon and Maroney going. As for the passing game, well Brady finds a way to make things work even with lesser receivers, which is pretty much all he's ever had.

As I wrote earlier in the week, everyone is raving about the new-found Colt defense. The team that couldn't stop anyone in the regular season suddenly looks pretty good. But that analysis seems to me to be without context. In both playoff games, the Colts played lesser offenses whose passing game was less than impressive. Not having to worry so much about the passing game allowed Sanders, returning from injury that caused him to miss most of the season, to come up and help with the running game and improving the team's performance in that department. So the recent success has come by bring in secondary help to stop the run. The Patriots, of course, have a much more capable passing game. If they bring Sanders up frequently to help out against the run, Brady will make them pay with passing that the Chiefs and the Ravens couldn't execute. With Sanders playing further back in pass defense, the Colt run defense suddenly becomes what it was in the regular season: bad.

Everyone knows what Manning can do. But that analysis seems more based on reputation than facts. Manning has struggled mightily in this post-season, with 5 interceptions to only one touchdown. Granted the Ravens are not too shabby on defense, but Manning and the rest of the offense had no touchdowns. (The Chargers aren't too bad on defense either, and the Patriots managed a few touchdowns.) Another measure of the Colts' offensive struggles is a stat Peter King pointed out: "In the last two weeks of playoff football, Gaffney and Caldwell have 30 catches for 337 yards and two touchdowns. Indy's Marvin Harrison and Reggie Wayne: have 16 catches for 180 yards, one TD." The Colt offense is all about the wide receivers, but Manning hasn't been getting them the ball, at least not for big gains.

Expect New England to pound the ball with Dillon and Maroney. It exploits the run defense weaknesses of the Colts, and should result in prolonged drives that will both take the dome crowd out of it and keep the Colt offense on the side lines unable to get into a rhythm. They got away from that during the regular season matchup, a mistake Belichick is sure to learn from. When Sanders inches forward to help out against the run, expect play action passes to exploit the resulting weakness in the pass defense.

The Patriots can control the ball far better than Indy can. So I have to go with them to win yet another conference title.

So Super Bowl 41 is a rematch of Super Bowl 20.