Packers-Cardinals: Playoff Preview?

The Green Bay Packers travel to Arizona to take on the defending NFC Champion Cardinals Sunday at 1:15 PST. There has been speculation that the teams may rest players, and that would be bad news for fans of these exciting teams.

The good news is that with the game between the Eagles and Cowboys being moved to the same timeslot as this game, both the Packs and Cards are likely to still have a playoff seeding—fifth or sixth for the Packers, second to fourth for the Cardinals—to play for. This means it is likely that starters will play for most if not all of the game.

Only three games affect seeding in the NFC—the aforementioned two and the Minnesota Vikings hosting the New York Giants. And no matter how that game turns out, it relies on the other two games to complete the picture.

However, an authentic preview of this game can't be created because there is a very good chance both teams will go "vanilla" with the gameplan.

But, like my brother-in-law is fond of pointing out, vanilla is still a flavour. There is no such thing as plain ice cream.

So think of offenses and defenses as ice creams, with your fundamental plays being vanilla. Going into tasting ice cream blindfolded, the things that might not be expected would be the flavour swirls, chips, nuts, fruit...even more complicated combinations like cookie dough.

They equate to complicated blitz/coverage schemes and specific plays designed to exploit the opposition's defensive weaknesses. These are things both teams may be reluctant to unveil for fear they will lose the element of surprise the following week.

Disregarding ties—not because, like Donovan McNabb, I am so clueless as to not know (or see) that they happen, but because a tie unnecessarily complicates the picture when the probability of it happening in even one of the games (based on frequency of the last 12 years) is less than 1 in 600—there are eight potential result combinations. In four of them, these two teams go right back at it, same bat-time, same bat-place, (probably even) same bat-channel.

If Minnesota wins at home, no matter what happens in the other games, the Packers and Cardinals will engage in a rematch next weekend. If the Vikings lose, only a Cardinals victory avoids these two being back at it.

Thus, for all of us Packers fans rooting for a matchup with the Vikings in the first round, that happens if both the Vikings and Packers lose. But be careful what you wish for—it is a fallacy that it is hard to beat a team a third time, as the majority of teams with the chance to do so close out the sweep.

(Of course, we all know Brat did not read that memo—or the Vikings defense—in 2004, when he threw four picks to let an 8-8 team win on the hallowed ground of Lambeau Field. It was his second home playoff loss, and the second in franchise history; he would go on to a third.)

Not only do six of eight possible outcomes for this weekend result in Green Bay returning to Arizona for the first round of the playoffs, the chances are actually better than 75 percent. Despite how they are playing, the Vikings have to be considered to have at least a 60 percent chance of beating a team that has much less to play for.

For this reason, I think any analysis of this game would be skewed. I think if you take out the Packers complicated blitz schemes and just line up players, the deep athletic receiving corps of the Cardinals tests the injury-riddled Packers secondary, neutralizing the defensive advantage Green Bay has. Combined with the better offensive line and special teams, that outweighs the Packers better offensive balance, and Cards win 31-28.