NFL Playoff Picks 2015: Updated Odds and Predictions for Sunday Wild Card Games

If legacies are solidified in the playoffs, Sunday's Wild Card action will serve as a significant referendum for each of the four teams involved.  Fair or not, the mainstream public will jump to sweeping career-defining conclusions based on the results, particularly about the quarterbacks' careers.

Neither Andy Dalton nor Andrew Luck has missed the postseason in seven combined seasons, but the two have also combined for just a single win.  Ditto for Matthew Stafford and Tony Romo, whose gaudy stats have been overshadowed by untimely mistakes on big stages.  It's far too simplistic to reduce these games to a battle of quarterbacks, of course, and the supporting casts in both games will feature an intriguing dilemma: Should teams play to their strengths or their opponents' weakness?

How the four squads approach that question will likely determine which two move onto the divisional round.  Picking the games against the spread based on the lines from Odds Shark, let's take a last-minute look at how the end of Wild Card weekend may play out. 

Bengals (+3.5) over Colts

David Kohl/Associated Press

When these two teams met in Week 7, Indianapolis' 27-0 whitewashing over Cincinnati was one of the year's most lopsided games.  The Colts outgained the Bengals 506-135 in terms of yards and held a 39:43-20:17 edge in time of possession.

Nevertheless, that blowout was clearly an outlier, and based on Indy's second-half form, it's unlikely the Colts have the firepower to replicate a similar performance.  Indy's offense is actually rather ill-equipped to exploit the Bengals defense.  Based on Football Outsiders' opponent-adjusted DVOA rankings, Cincy ranks 28th against the pass and seventh against the run.

Of course, the Colts' putrid running game essentially pardons the Bengals' biggest defensive weakness.  Since Ahmad Bradshaw went on injured reserve, the Colts have averaged 3.95 yards per attempt and scored just three rushing touchdowns.  That could force an increased burden on Luck, who has been pressed for too much in his previous playoff defeats:

The Bengals cornerback trio of Leon Hall, Terrence Newman and Adam Jones is among the most underrated in the league, while Dre Kirkpatrick's recent emergence has added even more depth.  With rangy free safety George Iloka keeping a cap in Cincy's single-high schemes, the Bengals have allowed just 6.4 yards per attempt, the eighth-best mark in the league.

Of course, much of that won't matter if Andy Dalton remains painfully limited.  Just as he was in the first meeting, Dalton will be without top target A.J. Green, who is out due to a Week 17 concussion.  With his only real downfield threat gone, Cincinnati's already conservative passing game will get even safer.

Thus, the key to this game will be Jeremy Hill and Giovani Bernard on the ground.  The Colts are a mediocre 19th in DVOA against the run, though they haven't allowed an individual 100-yard rusher since Jonas Gray's memorable 201-yard performance on Sunday Night Football.

Nevertheless, the Bengals have averaged 4.6 yards per attempt since the LSU rookie started getting regular touches in Week 9, the seventh-best mark in the league.  The guess here is that Cincy adopts a low-variance game plan on offense that forces Luck to carry the Colts on his own.  The Bengals are well-suited to counter such a strategy, which should lead to at least a cover, if not an outright victory.

Cowboys (-6.5) over Lions

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While Romo and Stafford will generate much of the discourse, the game will probably come down to which running game can win and control the trenches.  Both quarterbacks have been at their best this season when playing complementary roles in an offense that stays ahead of the chains.  When forced to play behind schedule, the risk factor shoots way up.

The headliner matchup is the league's leading rusher, DeMarco Murray, facing off against a historically great Detroit run defense.  Ndamukong Suh's overturned suspension was an indispensable lifeline to the underdog Lions, who have reverted to a relatively average run defense without the All-Pro defensive tackle on the field this season:

Not to diminish Murray's remarkable workhorse effort this season, but it's probably fair to give the edge to the Lions run defense.  Murray only ranked fifth among running backs in DVOA, which measures per-play success rate, while the Lions run D ranked as the fourth-best since 1989.  If you'd rather take more conventional stats, Detroit has allowed just 3.2 yards per carry, the best mark since 2010, while Murray's 5.03 yards per touch "only" ranks 20th in that time span.

The good news for the Cowboys is that Romo should still have success so long as the offensive line protects him.  Detroit's secondary has no logical counter for Dez Bryant, and the Lions' pass defense has declined in general during the season's second half, as FO's Aaron Schatz details in his game preview.  

Conversely, it's hard to say the same for Stafford.  Though he has seen an uptick in completion percentage and a big cut in turnovers under offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi, Stafford has also been making significantly fewer downfield throws while taking a career-high 45 sacks.  Consequently, his per-attempt rate stats are virtually identical to what they've been in recent seasons. 

Thus, a Detroit offense that has run the ball on just 37.9 percent of its plays—25th in the league according to TeamRankings.com—may need to feature Joique Bell more prominently.  Though he's averaging a mediocre 3.9 yards per attempt this year, Bell has come on since taking the clear lead-back role, averaging 4.37 yards per attempt since Week 11, per Pro-Football-Reference.

This game will come down to which team can alleviate pressure best off its quarterback.  Though Murray faces a significantly tougher test, the Cowboys have more promising fallback options and have shown a greater commitment to the run game.  Stafford will make his share of plays, especially if Calvin Johnson draws matchups against Brandon Carr and Sterling Moore, but Detroit's high-variance style makes it vulnerable to a surprisingly lopsided score.