Well- it’s that time of year again, postseason football is finally here. Saturday afternoon at 4:35 ET the Kansas City Chiefs, riding with a 12 game win streak, will take a trip into Gillette Stadium to take on the number two seed in the AFC, the New England Patriots. Lets take a deeper look into this matchup.
Rested Pats
For New England, they will be coming off a much needed bye week, especially with a week 4 bye, this was essentially the first break all year for Belichick’s men, and they have needed it. This week will likely represent the first game since week 7 vs Miami where the Patriots have all their guys star players back, not including those on season ending IR. Easily, the most notable return will be that of WR Julian Edelman. Edelman’s impact on both the offense and on QB Tom Brady cannot be understated. The offense with #11 is entirely different specifically on third downs, where the offense is 50% on third downs with him, and just 33.9% without him. Tom Brady will also be glad to see Edelman return, given that his QBR was 111 in the seasons first 8 games with Edelman healthy and has dropped to 92 ever since. One might wonder how smooth is transition back into the offense will be, given that he hasn’t played since mid november, but Edelman told ESPN Boston’s Mike Reiss that he will “go full throttle regardless.” Edelman’s return should also open things up for TE Rob Gronkowski, Danny Amendola and the rest of the weapons on the outside as well.
Matchups to Watch
The Kansas City Chiefs have three prolific offensive players, TE Travis Kelce, RB Jamaal Charles and WR Jeremy Maclin. Of those three, it looks as though Kelce will be the only one on the field Saturday, with Charles out for the year and Maclin’s status in doubt following a high-ankle-sprain in their wildcard round win in Houston last week. Knowing Belichick always draws up a specific plan to eliminate one certain offensive player, my guess is he will do that with Kelce. No body else on the outside scares New England and there secondary, which will most likely allow the Pats to throw eight in the box to limit RB Charcandrick West, leaving it in the hands of Alex Smith. Knowing how lethal Smith can be with his legs, New England must keep Smith in the pocket. If New England can prevent Smith from running wild, given the injuries that offense is facing, Alex Smith will need to play his absolute best football to win this game.
The Kansas City defense is among the best in the entire NFL, so Brady and the offense will certainly have their hands full. It includes probowl pass rusher Justin Houston who has been battling a knee injury for quite some time, so his health will have a huge impact on Saturday’s outcome. Marcus Peters is also a very talented player in the Kansas City secondary and will most likely spend most of his time across from Julian Edelman, and assuming he is as healthy as he says he is, it should be a matchup to watch. The third and final matchup that will have a huge impact on the game is All-Pro TE Rob Gronkowski going against All-Pro Safety Eric Berry. Gronk, who has missed practice twice this week, is battling a lingering knee injury, so thats another thing to keep an eye on.
Final Prediction:
Patriots 27 Chiefs 17 – Tom Brady is 14-3 at home in the playoffs and has been bounced in the first round just two times. The Patriots will be getting a lot of rested key players back this weekend, and that should get them back on track. That being said nothing will come easy against this Chief defense, so it will certainly be a tight game. The deciding factor for me is if Kansas City is without Jeremy Maclin, I just don’t think they have the fire power to put up enough points this Saturday.
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