Carolina at Seattle

It isn't any easier to pick the winner of this game, but the beautiful thing about gambling is that nobody is holding a gun to your head to pick games. It gets discouraging when you look online at the people picking these games and they are just slightly above or below .500 when making their picks. Most the time, this is because they are forced to pick all the games, and quite frankly, unless you feel strongly one way or the other (or are a completely degenerate gambler with no hope for recovery), you aren't going to play every game. More than likely, you will stay away from games that you are decidedly on the fence about, and only plunk down your hard-earned cash when a particular game strikes your fancy. For the purposes of this blog, I will give you my winner of this game, just as I have the previous game, but neither one is a game that I have an incredibly strong feeling about going in. That may change as we get closer to kickoff, but I always found that the toughest week to make money betting was the Superbowl, because there was only one game to pick, and you are compelled to bet on it because it is the only game. Most times, it is a number that you would stay away from, but it is your last chance to bet on a matchup all year, and more than likely, you end up picking a game that in most weeks you would stay far away.
Championship Sunday is not much easier. You only have two games, generally pitting quality teams against one another, and Vegas does a good job of giving us a number that makes both sides equally tempting to bet. The thing that most people don't realize (and now is as good a time as any to explain it) is that Vegas doesn't necessarily have any idea of how the game will transpire, there are no clairvoyants and Karmac does not work for the Mirage (and neither to Siegfried and Roy at this point). All Vegas wants is an equal number of people to wager on both teams and the number eventually gets to that point. In this way, it is quite a bit similar to the stock market. If they put Denver in as a 12 point favorite because they just know that Denver is going to put a "whooping" on Pittsburgh, they wouldn't be able to find even the most ardent Bronco fan willing to give up that many points and all the cash would go to the Steelers side of the ledger. Nothing that the guys in Vegas hate more than risk. Believe it or not, Las Vegas was built on you and I willing to play the odds, not their own love of the unknown. If there is $10,000,000 going on the Seahawks this weekend and only $1,000,000 on the Panthers, the sportsbooks in Vegas would be freaking out right now. There would be panic in the streets because they had $9,000,000 lying out there that could be grabbed up if Seattle covered the number. This never happens. Vegas will move the line up or down until there is exactly (and I mean exactly) the same amount of money wagered in both directions. Let's say on a typical weekend in Las Vegas, there is $100,000,000 legally wagered on NFL games (this is just a random number and I suspect it is much higher). That means that $50 million is going each way on each game. Regardless of the outcome, the sportsbooks will take in $5 million or 10% of the losers share. The winners collect $50 million, the losers pay $55 million and everybody is happy.
That is why I love it when there is about to be an upset in sports and the broadcaster makes some "informed" comment like "Well, you know that the guys in Vegas are sweating bullets over the outcome of this one." or "The sportsbooks are taking a bath on this one--they sure got it wrong today!" The sportsbooks never take a bath. No matter who wins, they win. No matter who loses, they win. It is a beautiful thing. Your local bookie does the exact same thing. His line follows the Vegas line and if for some reason in the Denver area, he can't get any action going Pittsburgh's way, he'll creep the line up a little bit so that his players are giving 4 1/2 points instead of 3. At the end of the day, whatever leftover bets he has (an extra $2500 on Denver), he'll call some guy that he uses and drop that bet on him. At the end of the day, he's got the exact same amount on each team, but may be able to win both ways because he may only be laying 3 points but the bets he has taken are giving 4 1/2 points and may pay even if he wins the $2500 he laid off to his guy. All the bookmaker wants is his 10%, so he is just looking for volume on every game, so he can keep as much of the action as possible for himself (or herself--let's not be sexist when talking about bookies. Women are just as capable of being scumballs as are men-sorry to the ladies out there whom I may have offended by not including them earlier).
So we have the Carolina Seattle matchup today and we are faced with another conundrum. I can see both teams finding a way to win, and I can see both teams finding a way to lose. There are a couple of interesting trends that may lend some insight into this matchup. One of which is that Carolina has not lost in the NFC playoffs under John Fox, and in fact has won four straight road games--no simple feat. In the past 9 playoff seasons, one road team has won on Championship Sunday--9 straight years makes it a pretty strong trend. This is not to say that at least one team has won, only one road team has won. In other words if things follow their recent history, once the winner of the early game has been determined, call your guy and put everything on this game. Barring that vital information, we are going to have to go about this the old fashioned way and pick the winner based on actual head to head matchup.
On paper, at the beginning of the year, I would have said that Carolina was the best team in the NFC, period. They were healthy again, had a swarming, dominant defense, a gutsy quarterback, a strong running game, and a difference maker in Steve Smith. Couple all of that with quality leadership with John Fox and I believed that this team was going to dominate throughout the 2005 campaign. A funny thing happened on the way to home field advantage this year, however and Carolina has been one of the hardest teams to figure out this entire season. One week, they look absolutely unbeatable and take whichever victim they have on the slate behind the woodshed and kick the living crap out of them. Other weeks, they just show up, play down to their competition and find themselves on the wrong side of the beatdown. It has been so difficult to determine which team is going to show up that ESPN.com Page 2 columnist, Bill Simmons has managed to miss picking this team against the spread for 10 straight weeks. That is nearly impossible to pull off, but is a great example of this team's shortcomings. Last week was the one time that I was certain about what was going to happen when they went against the Bears, but that was more based upon the opponent, the situation and the fact that Bears fans had the spread jacked up about six points too high because they are among the most loyal and uninformed gamblers on the planet. On the surface, Carolina should be a no brainer again this week if they are coming with all of their weapons.
Unfortunately for my wallet, two of their most important elements are going to be suspect at best later this afternoon. First of all, DeShaun Foster is out with a broken ankle that he suffered in Chicago last week. This puts the running game on Nick Goings for the remainder of the postseason. Goings is a decent back and does a good job of giving Foster and (before he went to the Injured Reserve) Steven Davis a breather during the game. There isn't a huge dropoff on production when he is called in for certain situations. When he is called upon to be the only running option, however, there is significant dropoff. The opposing defense will not fear the run as they would with Foster or Davis in the backfield. In that regard, it will allow them to play with four down linemen, three linebackers in the box and get away with dropping a safety over the top to double team Steve Smith on every play. Having to commit a safety to stopping the run is the recipe for disaster against the Panthers. Smith will absolutely dominate man coverage (and probably will still win most double team matchups these days), but committing an extra body to Marcus Trufant's side of the field will give their cornerback confidence that they can at least control his output today.
The second x-factor that Carolina must deal with is the uncertainty regarding Julius Peppers. On defense, there is no bigger difference maker in the NFL today. The guy is a freaking monster at 6-9 with incredible agility, great hands and unbelievable moves at the line of scrimmage. He is nursing a sore shoulder and has had the flu earlier in the week and has hardly practiced all week. He will play (there is little doubt about that), but he will be, at best 80% of his usual dominance. Couple that with the ridiculously potent combination on the left side of the Seahawk offensive line (Walter Jones and Steve Hutchinson) and he could be a no-factor today. Carolina relies on their front four to cause enough disruption that they can scheme their linebackers and DBs into better coverages and cause the opposing quarterback to make foolhearty throws.
With regard to Seattle, the challenge I have is that I don't fear this team. I like the team--I think that Hasselbeck has done an outstanding job in his development into a top-flight NFL quarterback. I appreciate that he is starting the Pro-bowl in February, but in reality being the starting QB for the NFC is a little bit like being the top team in the Big East in College Football. Yeah, you get to punch your ticket to the BCS, but you realize that if you had to play in the other conference, you probably would be fighting for the six wins necessary to qualify for any bowl game. The NFC is kind of like the "Oh yeah, we have to put somebody out there, why don't we take that Hasselbeck guy." With Donovan McNabb injured this year, the top six or seven quarterbacks are in the AFC--hell, maybe even the top 10 at this point. Manning, Brady, Roethlisberger, Palmer, Plummer, Green, Brees--I'd definitely take any of these guys before Hasselbeck. I might even include Byron Leftwich, a healthy Chad Pennington, or even David Carr behind a decent offensive line on the "Better than Hasselbeck" list.
The Seahawks have gotten fat on a weak schedule. This isn't their fault, or even the schedule makers fault, but the NFC West is deplorable. This division goes even a couple of notches down from the Big East in the grand scheme of things. Any team that gets to play the 49ers, the Rams and the Cardinals twice this season should be ashamed of themselves. That is six automatic wins for crying out loud. In addition, they got to play the inept Titans and Texans and got Indy after they had wrapped up the entire season and played third stringers for most of the game. Games against Philadelphia (post Owens/McNabb) shouldn't even count on the overall record. Jacksonville and Washington beat this team earlier in the season and the wins against Dallas and New York Giants were both outrageous and should have been lost three times if either team had a kicking game worth a damn.
But Seattle did win these games, and in doing so, have earned the right to host the playoffs in the Pacific Northwest. Alexander is back after suffering a phantom concussion last week against Washington and this team will use that "fighting for respect" thing for as long as they can juice some adrenaline out of their collective bodies. Their defense is a bit of the unknown. They are extremely effective, but few people outside the state of Washington (and perhaps Oregon and Idaho) could tell you very much about who these guys are. They find a way to keep their offense on the field, and Alexander will have something to prove today as Hasselbeck did last week.
There is also a mental hurdle for these Seahawks to navigate. Getting to the next level is almost always something that evades teams in their first attempt. This team has not been this close to the Superbowl since 1983 (their only time in a championship game when they were still in the AFC). The weight of the city who has not held a chamionship banner since the Supersonics won in 1980 comes with its share of pressure. Ask the Mariners how easy it is to get to the promised land when you have the best record in baseball history, but still can't get over the hump. As this game progresses, if the Panthers are still around, Seattle will start to press and make the mistakes that Championship teams do not make. The more I think about it, the more I fear that this is the inevitable fate for Seahawk nation.
The receiver corps is beat up (Engram and Jackson are both nursing nagging injuries) and Carolina has proven that they can win on the road. Even though Simmons picked Carolina and will ultimately be proven wrong for the 11th straight week, I have to go with my gut on this one and take the Panthers in a close one decided by a defensive touchdown (shades of Green Bay for Hasselbeck perhaps).
Panthers 20 - Seahawks 16

This may change three times before kickoff, but for now this is an iron-clad, can't miss, five-star Vic the Nose pick of the week.