NFL Conference Championships Betting Preview and Picks

Conference Championship weekend is my favorite in the NFL season, as we get to see the four best teams in the league go head-to-head for the two spots in the Super Bowl. With such high quality teams and so much at stake, it’s almost like getting to watch two early Super Bowls.

This weekend, the Green Bay Packers travel to Seattle to face the defending champion Seahawks, while the upstart Indianapolis Colts head to Foxborough for a game with the New England Patriots.

Despite the fact that the home teams are heavy favorites, both games should prove thoroughly entertaining if last weekend’s Divisional Playoffs are any indication.

Let’s take a closer look at each game.

Green Bay Packers at Seattle Seahawks (-7), Sunday 3:05 PM ET

The Seattle Seahawks will try to become the first NFL champion to make it back to the Super Bowl since the New England Patriots did it in the 2003 and 2004 seasons.

The strength of the Seahawks, just like last year, is the defense, which has allowed 56 points total over the last seven games (8.0 PPG) and was tops in the NFL in pass defense and third in run defense during the regular season.

On offense, Seattle is a more ground-oriented team this year. They led the league in rushing yards, but were near the bottom in passing (largely due to having few real threats at receiver).

After holding a slim 14-10 lead over the Carolina Panthers through three quarters last weekend, Seattle managed to pull away in the final frame, scoring 17 unanswered points before the Panthers added a late touchdown. The 31-17 win was enough to both cover the big 10.5-point spread and hit the low over (40).

Star cornerback Richard Sherman credits the team’s intensity in practice for its dominant in-game performances.

“We just like our way — it really works as hyper-competitive as [head coach] Pete [Carroll] is,” Sherman told USA TODAY Sports. “We practice like it’s a championship game.”Pete shows a highlight tape the day after practice and you don’t want to be embarrassed in front of the whole team for not playing hard. So guys play hard in practice.”

The Packers, meanwhile, will have a hobbled Aaron Rodgers under center on Sunday. Rodgers put in a truly courageous performance last weekend against the Dallas Cowboys. Though he was clearly limited by a strained calf, the MVP-favorite led his team back from a fourth-quarter deficit to earn a 26-21 win and a trip to Seattle. (The five-point margin wasn’t quite enough to cover and the game stayed under the 52.5 point total.)

Rodgers is aware that he’ll be facing a different sort of defense this weekend, and is keenly aware of Sherman – arguably the best corner in the league.

“You have to be aware of [Sherman],” Rodgers said on his ESPN Milwaukee radio show. “Not scared of him, but you have a ton of respect for him. Look at the numbers, they don’t lie. Not a lot of guys catch passes on his side, and for the amount of times he’s targeted, his interception totals are very impressive. You just have to play your game, but if he’s locking his guy down, he’s probably not going to get a lot of passes thrown his way.”

Rodgers is 0-2 in Seattle since Russell Wilson took over as QB of the Seahawks. But the Seahawks are laying seven points to the Packers, and conference championship games tend to be tight, hard-fought affairs.

My pick: Take the Packers and the points (+7).

Indianapolis Colts at New England Patriots (-6.5), Sunday 6:40 PM ET

Last weekend, the Indianapolis Colts beat the Broncos in Denver (24-13), something no other team had managed to do this year. Despite being seven-point dogs, the Colts were downright dominant, holding the Broncos to 288 total yards.

When the Colts and Pats met in the regular season, relative-unknown Jonas Grey had over 200 yards rushing, and the Pats cruised to a 42-20 win in Indy.

But what will transpire with New England’s running game this weekend is anyone’s guess.  Gray has seen limited action since that game, and may not even suit up on Sunday. In addition, the Patriots were held to just 14 rushing yards by the Ravens last weekend, and they didn’t call a single run play in the second half. When you add in Indy’s clearly improved rush defense, it’s clear that this weekend’s game may bear no resemblance to the regular season tilt.

That said, the Patriots still managed to get by Baltimore in the Divisional Playoffs (35-31) even though they couldn’t run the ball and trailed by 14 points on two separate occasions. They have also dominated the Colts during QB Andrew Luck’s short career.

Luck is 0-3 against the Patriots and every loss has been by at least 21 points, and the Colts were torched 43-22 by Brady and company in the playoffs last year. (But, again, it was the run game doing the bulk of the damage in that one, piling 234 total yards and four touchdowns.)

This is the fourth year in a row that the Patriots have made it to the AFC Championship game and the staggering ninth time overall for Tom Brady.  Experience has proved an asset for Brady in the past, as the futures Hall of Famer is 3-0 against opposing quarterbacks who are making their first AFC Championship start. (Brady beat Peyton Manning in 2004, Ben Roethlisberger in 2005 and Philip Rivers in 2008.)

With the Colts rolling of late, though, Brady knows the Patriots need to keep elevating their game if that mark is going to improve to 4-0. “[W]e are looking to try to put together our best game of the year against these guys coming up on Sunday,” he said in his weekly interview on Boston sports radio station WEEI.

“You work all year to get to this point. Last year we got to this point and didn’t play our best game on the road at Denver and you have to work a year and put everything in to get back to it.”

Given the Patriots’ historical dominance over Luck and the Colts – including two relatively recent games – it’s hard not to lean heavily toward New England.

My Pick: Take the Patriots and lay the points (-6.5).

(Photo credit: Mike Morbeck (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/legalcode]. Photo has been cropped.)