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Wild ride expected as playoffs kick off
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Sometimes it’s not who’s hot but who’s healthy that matters in the NFL playoffs.
The fact that teams playing in the wild-card round this weekend must win an extra game to get to the Super Bowl makes it even more difficult to avoid injuries. Yet those teams have been successful: In seven of the last eight seasons, a Super Bowl qualifier played in the wild-card round. Only 2009 was the exception.
Six times in that span, the eventual champion also came through the wild-card weekend.
Today, it’s Indianapolis versus Kansas City, then Philadelphia against New Orleans. Tomorrow, Cincinnati welcomes San Diego and Green Bay hosts San Francisco.
Players returning from injury will be huge in Green Bay and Kansas City.
For the Packers, the defense has been a sieve and is missing its top player, linebacker Clay Matthews, but the comebacks of passer Aaron Rodgers and receiver Randall Cobb for the regular-season finale not only provided a boost to the offense but lifted Green Bay into the postseason.
Their reward: hosting last season’s NFC champions, the 49ers.
The 49ers are one of the strongest wild-card teams in recent NFL history. They have no fear of going on the road, where they were 6-2. They beat Green Bay at Candlestick Park to start the season, and are on a six-game winning streak.
Kansas City, runner-up to Denver in the AFC West, got off to a 9-0 start, but then injuries took a toll. Top linebackers Justin Houston and Tamba Hali, tackles Branden Albert and Eric Fisher — the top overall draft choice last year — and receiver Dwayne Bowe were sidelined or hobbled at various times, and the Chiefs lost five of their last seven.
“Big-time players want to make big-time plays in big-time games,” Bowe said. “These are the games you have to show up.”
The one wild-card game where injuries are relatively a non-factor is Philadelphia-New Orleans. Unless you count the Saints’ damaged pride about their inability to win on the road.
They went 8-0 at home but have been mediocre away from the Superdome, dropping their last three. They have never won a road playoff game.
Still, they feel their experience in the postseason — many of the current Saints won the 2009 championship — will provide an edge.
“We have been through a lot together,” quarterback Drew Brees said. “We know the expectation level. We know the preparation. I think there is a level of pride that comes along with that — and accountability.”
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