Conference Finals Weekend

Well, I'm sticking with my New Orleans over Chicago prediction. But thanks to Schottenheimer I am faced with making a change to my original picks.

The Colts-Pats game this weekend will be very interesting and could go either way. Based on the regular season, it should be a no-brainer for the Colts to win. Furthermore, their defense has really improved in the playoffs shedding their reputation of being unable to stop the run. Unfortunately for the Colts, Peyton Manning has continued his playoff woes. In the last two games he's looked jittery in the pocket. Against KC he threw some uncharacteristic picks and against Baltimore he couldn't get over their 15 yard line.

On the other side, New England just seemed to manage to hang around against San Diego. They didn't make any killer mistakes and took advantage of the bone headed plays on the other side of the ball. One big positive is that they have Brady and Belichek who are now 12-1 in the playoffs. The downsides are the same as they've been all year: no playmakers or big names on either side of the ball, rookie safeties (because of injuries), rookie placekicker (Vinatieri is now on the Colts), relatively slow linebackers.

On paper this shouldn't even be close and the Colts should walk away with it. But because of the Brady-Belichek vs Manning-Dungy factor it throws all the regular season statistics in doubt.

I'm still going to pick the Colts to beat the Pats however.