The NFL draft is coming up this weekend! Hopefully it’s followed by a full season of NFL football!   Let’s take a look at what the Patriots might do this Thursday with their stockpile of picks (3 in the first 33).

The Patriots have a huge glaring need for a pass rusher. They had no pass rush last year, resulting in terrible 3rd down defense, and they were really dependent on turnovers to stop drives. Next, they need some offensive linemen, with Stephen Neal retiring, Logan Mankins possibly holding out, Matt Light a free agent, Dan Koppen in his 30s, etc. After that there’s some case to be made for a RB to fill in the spot after BJGE and Woodhead, and possibly a deep threat receiver in the Moss mold. Personally, I’d be pretty happy with a draft of all offensive linemen and pass rushers.

The Patriots own the 17th, 28th, and 33rd picks in the draft.  RB Mark Ingram from Alabama is a possibility that’s been tossed around, but I just don’t think a 1st round RB is worth while. RB’s have a high bust rate (think Laurence Maroney), and you can often find them in the late rounds or undrafted (BJGE and Woodhead). Although if you think Ingram is going to be the next Adrian Peterson or Chris Johnson type back, then it might be worthwhile.
Pass rushers on the other hand, are a surer bet, and harder to find later. Some of the names that have been talked about for the Pats are DE JJ Watt, DE Cameron Jordan, and DE Cameron Heyward. Will the Pats take one of the players at 17? Possibly. If the Pats have one guy rated higher than the other two, they could try to trade up to ensure they get him. If they feel they can drop back and still get him (like they did with McCourty last year), then they’ll likely do that. If they have two or three rated equally rated and think they can drop down and still get one, they’ll probably do it. So I’m expecting some trade movement, and one of those pass rushers (or maybe an OL).  With the 28th pick, I expect the Pats to trade down with a team that wants a QB, probably getting their second round pick (maybe around the 39th pick) and their 1st next year. Then with the 33rd pick, the Pats can listen to trade offers Thursday night, and be willing to move, knowing they’ll have a pick just a few down.

My expectation is that the Patriots will take some pass rushers and offensive linemen in the first two rounds. I would expect a RB and WR somewhere in the middle rounds. And I wouldn’t be surprised to see another young QB to develop behind Brady.

And the Pats lock up the AFC East and home field advantage in the playoffs with this 34-3 win in which they forced the Bills into 7 (seven!) turnovers! The Patriots have turned the ball over 9 times all season.  Brady now has a record 319 passes without an INT, and the Patriots have gone 7 games without a turnover.  Pretty impressive stats!  The Patriots have 9 turnovers on the season, Eli Manning by himself has turned the ball over 25 times (20 INTs and 5 fumbles lost).

A lot of the talk for this game has focused on the Patriots pass vs the Jets defense.  Their pass rush, who Revis will cover, how will Branch fare, etc.  But I think the key is for the Patriots to run the ball. You don’t want to battle that pass defense every play, you certainly don’t want them keying off on Brady.  And while the Jets have a good run defense, so did the Steelers. I think the Patriots’ offensive line has the ability to push forward and make holes for the running game.  I really think the Pats should come out and pound the ball, and I expect BJGE to have a big game.

I’m going to attempt to make predictions about the winners of each division. We’ll see how this goes.

• AFC East: I’m still not sold on Mark Sanchez in New York, I think he’s more likely to regress than progress. And I’m optimistic about the Pats young players coming along. So I’m going Patriots, Jets, Dolphins, Bills.
• AFC North: This should be a really competitive division. The Bengals swept it last year, but the Ravens have also added some new weapons. The Steelers start without Ben Roethlisburger, but should be ok without him. Is Jake Delhomme going to turn it over constantly for the Browns? I’m going Ravens, Bengals, Steelers, Browns.
• AFC South: Will Indy finally have a struggle this season? Or will they be the first super bowl loser in 10? years to make it to the playoffs?  Can Houston finally put together a whole season or a whole game?  How will the Titans look with Vince Young?  I’m going to say Titans, Colts, Texans, Jaguars.
• AFC West: This division could go to anybody. The Chargers got worse, everyone else got better. Ryan Matthews should be exciting though. I’m going to say Broncos, Chargers, Raiders, Chiefs but I think it will be really close.
• NFC East: Another tough division. How will Kevin Kolb do in Philly? Donovan McNabb in Washington? Can they G-men recover from their miserable season last year?  I think it will be Eagles, Cowboys, Redskins, Giants.
• NFC North: Aaron Rodgers and the Packers offense look insane. Is Brett Favre too old for this game? Can the Bears offense work well with Mike Martz?  How improved are the Lions?  I’m picking the Packers, Lions, Vikings, and Bears.
• NFC South: No one has repeated in this division in ages. The Falcons and Panthers could both compete with the Saints here. However I’m going to say Saints, Falcons, Panthers, Bucs.
• NFC West: No one here looks particularly good. The Seahawks under Pete Carroll? Alex Smith quarterbacking the 49ers? Derek Anderson quarterbacking the Cards? The Rams with Sam Bradford?  I’m going to say it will be the Seahawks, Cardinals, 49ers, and Rams.

Playoffs?! Don’t talk about playoffs! Are you kidding me?

Yes, that’s right, playoffs. So we’ve got the division winners, who are the wildcards? In the AFC, it will be the Jets and Colts.  In the NFC, the Lions and Cowboys. Yes, the Lions!  The Super Bowl?  Probably the Packers over somebody.

I don’t understand what all the issue is with having the Super Bowl in New York.  Weather is part of the game!  If the Super Bowl were to be played in snow, freezing temperatures, ice, etc, I think it would only make it more exciting. And football is meant to be played in any weather, not just secluded to domes and warm weather.  I’ve heard people say the ‘fans’ won’t want to sit in this weather at the Super Bowl. But the fans will, the problem is that the Super Bowl crowd is mostly made up of corporate sponsors who won’t want to sit in the weather. But maybe this will mean there will be fewer corporate sponsors at the game and more true fans can go!  I hope Super Bowl XXXVIII is a success and that more cold weather stadiums are able to host it in the future.

This is blasphemy as a Patriots fan, but I find myself rooting for the Jets this year.  There are a bunch of reasons: 1) there’s no more Mangini, 2) they have an amazing defense, 3) they have a great running game, and 4) Rex Ryan is hilarious. Plus I’d much rather root for them than Peyton Manning.  J-E-T-S?

That was an impressive performance by the Patriots. Perhaps their best game of the year, at least #2 after the Titans game.  The run game was going (197 yards), the pass game was beautiful (more touchdown passes than incompletions), and the defense looked great, stopping the Jags on 4th and 1 early in the first quarter to get things going and getting two interceptions.

Now the question is, what do the Patriots do next week?  The game means virtually nothing to us - it decides if we’re the 3rd or 4th seed, but we have no idea who either will play.  So it could be a good opportunity to get a bye week before the playoffs start, BUT it would be nice to see if we could be conistent and continue this great performance next week, on the ROAD at Houston.  It will be interesting to see what the Patriots try to do.  Personally, I would like to see them keep the momentum going, although resting any injured players.

On a side note, the starting Colts players sure looked deflated and demoralized after being benched and losing that game to the Jets…

I think the Steelers will win the Super Bowl, mostly because they have the #1 defense in the league.  James Harrison is amazing, Ike Taylor will mostly shut down Larry Fitzgerald (with help from Ryan Clark and Troy Polamalu) and the Steelers will win.  I was originally picking the Ravens because of their defense (#2 to the Steelers) but defense usually wins.  I’m still hoping to see some excitement from Kurt Warner and some ridiculous catches from Fitzgerald, but its the Steelers.  With their pass rush, they should force Kurt Warner into some bad throws, and I think their D will get some turnovers out of it.  On the other side, Roethlisburger and Willie Parker should be able to do enough to win the game.

Here are my playoff predictions.  My somewhat ’sleeper’ teams that I really like are the Ravens and Falcons.  As is the usual with the NFL playoffs, I would expect the teams with the best defenses to go far.  So the Titans, Steelers, Ravens, Panthers, and Giants.  Here we go:

Wildcard Round:

Ravens over Dolphins
Colts over Chargers
Vikings over Eagles
Falcons over Cardinals

Divisional Round:

Ravens over Titans
Steelers over Colts
Falcons over Giants
Panthers over Vikings

Conference Championships:

Ravens over Steelers
Falcons over Panthers

Super Bowl:

Ravens over Falcons

The day is finally here. Patriots vs Giants. A rematch of an incredible game from 5 weeks ago. A chance for the Patriots to make history and go 19-0. The Super Bowl. Let’s take a look at the matchup.

Lets look at the Patriots offense vs the Giants defense. In the Patriots last two playoff games, the opposing teams have kept Randy Moss well covered and forced the Patriots to run the ball or throw short to Wes Welker and Kevin Faulk. The Giants, however, are more of a team that will blitz more in an attempt to get to Tom Brady. These blitzes will leave some of the wide receivers open downfield if Brady has time to throw. In the first matchup, Brady was only sacked once and hit a long TD pass to Moss on a blitz. This time around, the Patriots have two more starting offensive linemen back that they didn’t have in the last matchup. I expect to see the Patriots hold the Giants blitz off enough for Brady to make some long throws. I expect the Patriots to score touchdowns on the majority of their drives (6 of 8 maybe?).

On the other side of the ball, the Patriots defense didn’t play too well last time. The Giants scored touchdowns on all four of their trips into the redzone. That will have been a point of emphasis in the Patriots practices this week. The key things the Patriots defense has to do are to pressure Eli Manning, stop Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw, and cover Plaxico Burress. In the last matchup, Manning looked great against the Pats defense until they started blitzing, the pressure forced him into some bad throws, including an interception. With the pressure the Patriots offense puts on the Giants offense as well, forcing them to try to score on nearly every drive, I expect Manning to be pressured into some bad throws again. I also expect to see some more frequent blitzes from the Patriots defense early in the game.

On special teams, the Giants scored a touchdown on a kickoff return in the last matchup. I don’t expect that to happen again. The Patriots I’m sure have studied that and the special teams will ensure that doesn’t happen again. Especially with Kelley Washington playing as well as he has lately.

My prediction: Patriots 42, Giants 24.

Predicted stars of the game:

• Offensive line - gives Brady the time he needs to hit some big throws against the blitz
• Randy Moss - catches 1 or 2 long passes
• Kevin Faulk - comes up huge again, making some nice blocks and catching short passes
• Tom Brady - nearly perfect in the pursuit of perfection
• Mike Vrabel - will be big in pressuring Eli Manning
• Ty Warren - same, also a force against the running game
• Junior Seau - will play like a madman, with some big hits and maybe a turnover
• Kelley Washington - some big special teams stops