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Dr. Z's keys to the wild-card games
Posted: Thursday January 06, 2000 05:18 PM Redskins-Lions | Bills-Titans | Vikings-Cowboys | Dolphins-Seahawks
The Lions have lost to the Skins 19 straight times at their place. The last Detroit victory came in 1935, when the Skins were the Boston Redskins and the game was played in Fenway Park, the short leftfield wall being perfect for the array of righty hitters in the Lions' lineup. After reviewing tapes of the game, Bobby Ross has impressed upon his righthanded players the absolutely necessity of pulling the ball. Hey, I remember that contest well. Ace Gutowski and Dutch Clark just carved 'em up. I was in my mid-30's, just wrapping up my semi-pro career with the Framingham Flounders. You say you don't see that game having any bearing on this one. Maybe you don't take the millennium seriously; personally, I feel the time-warp continuum will have terrifying implications in the early years of the double-thou era. Cut the crap and get to the point, my wife is telling me, putting on her serious face for a change. O.K., here are the seriouses of it: The Redskins can't stop the run, but Detroit can't run the ball, so call it a push. The Lions managed to put a bit of heat on the Vikings' Jeff George in the last contest, but he still was able to burn 'em downfield, and so will Brad Johnson, the Detroit secondary still being a bit shaky. Stephen Davis' return is big, but we won't know until kickoff just how functional he'll be, if at all. Meanwhile Tampa Bay and St.Louis are licking their chops, waiting for the survivor. Best game on the card. Now I know you're all waiting for me to go down memory lane and tell you about the stirring Bills' comeback the last time the teams met in the playoffs, but I'm not going to fall into that trap. Past performance has nothing to do with current action, unless it's, like, a week or two in the past. Buffalo will have its parade of runners -- Antowain Smith, Jon Linton and still the best of all of them, Thurman Thomas -- healthy, but there's one thing I don't like about the Bills' attempt to gain yardage groundwise on this defense. Speed, or rather, the lack of it. The Bills' O-linemen are mushers -- big, fat area blockers who just grind it out. The Tennessee front is too quick for them. Unsung hero in this unit: tackle Jason Fisk. Sung hero: Jevon Kearse, who will make plenty of backside and pursuit plays but is not very sound at the point. Doesn't matter, though. They've learned to cover for his wild upfield bursts. Still, the Bills will make him a target of their array of 350-pounders. Just a hunch, but I think the Bills and Rob Johnson will open it up quickly, trying to get something on the board in a hurry, to get as much of Eddie George out of the equation as they can and trying to get Steve McNair to beat them. Which I feel he'll do. Not at first, though. Give 'em a taste of George for a while, get their legs a little tired, then come back with McNair, whose scrambles don't help a tiring defense that's been pounded. If McNair is as hot as he's been down the stretch, it could be a two-TD victory. If not, then it'll be tight. One curious thing about Buffalo. Everyone raves about their massive nose tackle, Ted Washington. I see him as a big guy who hangs in for a while then gets tired. But the man who replaces him, Pat Williams, No. 93, now there's a guy who can cause problems. In fact, I like their four-man nickel unit, with Williams or Shawn Price and Marcellus Wiley from good old Columbia U. and end Phil Hansen moving inside, better than their base lineup, either against the run or the pass. O.K., the early game is Dallas-Minnesota, and let's dispose of that one quickly. The Vikings send the blitzers after Troy Aikman to get him out of his rhythm (strong safety Robert Griffith and middle linebacker Ed McDaniel will be key here), knowing that the Cowboys receivers aren't exactly terrifying. Televiewers will see a lot of close-ups of Aikman's frowning face. Emmitt will get his yards, just as he did against Minnesota the first time, and John Randle will be the target, just as he's been all season. In his declining years he's interested in sacks, period. The club even sent films to the league to try to buy him an extra one in his last contest, all of which might explain why I have never picked this guy on my All-Pro team, no matter how many sacks he piles up. If the Cowboys run effectively and a lot, they've got a shot, but I never like the match-up of grind it out vs. big play attack (which was why I picked the Bills over the Giants in the '91 Super Bowl, and hey, if Scott Norwood's kick ... ah, you know the deal here). Boom-boom for George and Randy Moss and Cris Carter, but I'm not exactly being original, am I? Of real interest, though, is what Deion will be like when the action heats up. Too much baseball and punt returning and spot duty at wideout and foot injuries have all taken a toll on this man who rates, at least in my eyes, as the greatest cover-cornerback of all time. Yet, it's incredible that teams, who see the same films I do, still refuse to test him. Keyshawn Johnson vs. Deion was the big hype before the Jets-Cowboys game, but not once did anything serious happen here. The book on the latter-day Deion is that you run him across the middle and stay away from the outs and the ups. Indy did just that, completing crossing patterns to Terrence Wilkins against him, then killing him on a post to Marvin Harrison when he fell asleep. But the Saints, of all people, burned him on a 50-yard go-route to Keith Poole, and I believe Deion, at 32, is vulnerable. I say the Vikings test him. I say he gets mostly passing grades, but a few flunks, too. Finally my upset. Miami turns the ball over but still beats a dispirited,
lackluster Seattle outfit in the Dome. Why? Because of defense and the fact that
Jon Kitna has looked like a solid quarterback only once, against KC, down the
stretch. Even in that game he wasn't overly effective downfield. I see this as
about a six-turnover game, Seattle committing four of them. The book says to run
the ball on the worn-down Seahawk front seven. But who do the Dolphins have to
run with? Even when everyone was healthy and Cecil Collins wasn't busting into
apartments they didn't worry anyone with their running. I think they'll do it by
committee and I give them around 135 yards on the ground Sunday. But the thing
that really convinces me about this game is the look I spotted on the faces of
the Seattle guys in the dying moments of the Jets loss. Whipped, despondent,
tired. They know they shouldn't be in the postseason. And I think the Dolphins
know it,
too.
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