Clearing up the muddy NFL playoff picture

A wild weekend for football, my pro picks were so-so. The college picks
so far have been on point. Other than Rice getting a massive case of
stage fright and getting run over by Troy, all of the picks have been
right. Hey I'm not braggin' these picks have so far been easy. But now
the learning curve starts to steepen. The bowls start to flood in now.
After one game today tomorrow. Three on Thursday and five on Friday. Will I preview them all??? Don't be silly, of course I will.
This weeks NFL games upcoming will be crazy, thankfully no Thursday
game this week and no Monday game at the tail end. But there is a
Saturday game, with high importance As the Giants who after free-falling
wildly still have a say so in their playoff destiny go to Washington. If
they win, and the Packers lose in primetime to the Bears. The Giants go,
if they both win the Packers will go based on strength of schedule. Who
would have thunk it? The Pack still have an outside shot at the
playoffs. Hopefully the Giants will win and make this game meaningless.
The Eagles need only to win to win the NFC East. That would also
elimnate the Falcons and probably cost Jim Mora Jr. his job. They would
get the #3 seed and take on whoever gets the #6. The Eagles also
giftwrapped the other bye week slot for the Saints by beating the
Cowboys who still can win the NFC East only if they win and the Eagles
lose. If they finish tied, the Eagles win the tiebreaker based on their
head to head sweep of the Pokes. The Seahawks won the NFC West despite
losing their last three and will be the #4 seed. Their likely opponent
will be the aforementioned Pokes. The Bears and Saints are locked into
their respective 1 and 2 seeds with the bye the goes with it

The AFC cleared itself nicely, as all of the divisions have been
decided. The Chargers are trying to hold off the Ravens for the #1 seed
and hold home field advantage in the AFC playoffs. The Ravens are hoping that the Chargers take an L in the season finale, with that and a Ravens win the Ravens get the #1 seed based on their 14-13 win over the
Chargers in October. Both teams have clinched the bye week. The Colts
and Patriots are in the #3 and #4 seeds respectively and can only flip
flop if the Pats win and the Colts lose. If they finish tied the Colts
hold the tiebreak with their win over the Pats.
The wild card is...forgive the pun...wild. The Broncos and Jets are in
full control of their playoff fates. The Broncos got a gift wrapped
ticket when the extra point snap sailed wide of Bengals holder Kyle
Larson preventing a tied game and insuring that even if the Broncos lose
to the Niners and the Bengals beat the Steelers, the Broncos will win
the tiebreak. The Jets are in similar solid ground. Their win over the
Dolphins last night put them in a simple win and in situation. A win
over the hopeless Raiders at home gives them 10 and no other team can
get that many. The Bengals are on life support and need massive amounts of help. They need to beat the Steelers (who would like nothing more than to deep six their hopes) and hope that the Jets improbably lose to the Raiders and the Bengals would get in based on a better conference
record than the Jets. Their reward? A trip back to Indianapolis. Though
the Bengals can and should beat the Steelers, the Jets will not lose to
the Raiders. The Bengals will be on the outside looking in.
I hope that make sense...there will be a pop quiz on it later in the
week.

NCAA Football

Motor City Bowl
Central Michigan (9-4 MAC Champs) vs Middle Tennessee (7-5 Sun Belt Co-Champs)
Ford Field, Detroit 7:30 (ESPN)
Favorite-Central Michigan by 7.5
Fast Fact-This is Middle Tennessee's first bowl game in school history
If Central Michigan has some Red and Black in it, it can be explained as thus: New Cincinnati coach Brian Kelly has allowed some of his staff that will be joining him at UC to help coach in the Motor City Bowl. The Blue Raiders are making their first bowl apperance, but they are by no means a pushover. They hung tough with BCS qualifier Louisville for three quarters before being worn down. The Chippewas have a big play offense and QB Dan LeFevour likes to and can go deep. If he can stay away from big play linebacker J.K. Sabb (I like the initials!) who had 14.5 sacks he may be able to pick on an inexperienced secondary. The Blue Raiders are a nice story but the Chippewas are playing close to home and will use that to a big advantage.
Pick-Central Michigan