NFC Wild Card Weekend

Who'll win: Saints (#6) at Eagles (#3)

  • Saints

    Votes: 41 41.8%
  • Eagles

    Votes: 57 58.2%

  • Total voters
    98

Jeff Van GULLY

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Jul 13, 2005
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The Saints on the road this season look nothing like the Saints in the Dome.

For gambling purposes a game with a road-favored Saints against Philly would be amazing.
 

Dehere

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Apr 25, 2010
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I don't think the Saints will be favored in Philly. The people who follow the league closely enough to bet on it are more than aware of the Saints home/road play this year.
 

mabrowndog

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Full schedule for Wild Card Weekend:
 
Sat - KC at IND 435pm ET
Sat - NO at PHI/DAL 8pm ET
Sun - SD at CIN 105pm ET
Sun - SF at GB 430pm ET
 

redsahx

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Really looking forward to that 49ers-Packers game, especially given the weather. If San Fran beats Green Bay again, in their elements, that pretty much settles the recent version of that rivalry, and Green Bay needs to go back to the drawing board. Either 49ers or Packers vs. Seattle is intriguing to me. If we can't get San Fran and Seattle murdering each other, seeing Rodgers and the Packers head to Seattle in a rematch of the Fail Mary game would be a nice consolation.
 
Forecast for Philly on Saturday night doesn't look too bad at the moment (Temps in the low-to-mid 20s but not much wind). Undecided on that one. Logically I can see the Saints struggling on both sides of the ball and getting beat handily, but my hunch is they are due for a good game on the road. If conditions are calm, the 20-degree temps are no excuse for Brees not to keep the Saints in that game.
 

H78

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Jul 22, 2009
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Apparently the Bengals, Colts, and Packers are yet to sell out.
 
Wait...
 
THE PACKERS?!
 
Yes.
 

axx

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Jul 16, 2005
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H78 said:
Apparently the Bengals, Colts, and Packers are yet to sell out.
 
Wait...
 
THE PACKERS?!
 
Yes.
 
 
Not quite 10k tickets, but the Patriots game against Baltimore (You know, the one that was over in the first 5 minutes) had tickets easily available to purchase at face value. I know, because I debated going, but decided against it. And if I remember correctly, the weather was really cold too.
 

LondonSox

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Jul 15, 2005
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It's meant to be freezing in philly too but they sold out in 10 minutes.
None of the other 3 have yet.

I mean if the wildcards (3/4) are blacked out locally the nfl might have a serious (and overdue) revolution/ mass freak out on its hands.

Great news for the Eagles that the weather looks like it's going to be miserable. Should be good news to the Packers too, but niners aren't built like a warm weather team.
 

axx

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Jul 16, 2005
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LondonSox said:
It's meant to be freezing in philly too but they sold out in 10 minutes.
None of the other 3 have yet.
 
Forecast for Philly on Sat night is 20-23 with small wind. Forecast for GB on Sun Evening is -1 to - 9 with a moderate wind. It's gonna be freezing.
 

Euclis20

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axx said:
 
Forecast for Philly on Sat night is 20-23 with small wind. Forecast for GB on Sun Evening is -1 to - 9 with a moderate wind. It's gonna be freezing.
 
Adding on to that, although Green Bay has the larger national following, Philadelphia has 15x as many people as Green Bay.  It isn't a huge surprise that they sold out faster. 
 
Green Bay, Indy and Philly finished 2nd, 3rd and 4th in home attendance percentage this year.  They will all sell out.
 

TheYaz67

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May 21, 2004
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Dehere said:
I don't think the Saints will be favored in Philly. The people who follow the league closely enough to bet on it are more than aware of the Saints home/road play this year.
 
Yeah, at the same time, Philly is actually a better road team than a home team over the past 4 years:
 
2013
 
Home 4-4
Away 6-2
 
2012
 
Home 2-6
Away 2-6
 
2011
 
Home 3-5
Away 5-3
 
2010
 
Home 4-4
Away 6-2
 
I swear they seem to play tighter at home/make more stupid mental mistakes.  Other than the "advantage" of the cold (since NO is a dome team), I don't think Philly really has a "home field advantage" these days...
 

DJnVa

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Philly did win their last 4 homes games though, so it's possible that they figured something out.
 

johnmd20

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axx said:
 
Forecast for Philly on Sat night is 20-23 with small wind. Forecast for GB on Sun Evening is -1 to - 9 with a moderate wind. It's gonna be freezing.
 
-30 degrees wind chill expected Sunday evening. This one will be interesting to watch, that's officially dangerous weather to watch a sporting event for four hours in.
 

Al Zarilla

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Dec 8, 2005
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johnmd20 said:
 
-30 degrees wind chill expected Sunday evening. This one will be interesting to watch, that's officially dangerous weather to watch a sporting event for four hours in.
The article below says the wind chill for the "Ice Bowl" game in Green Bay on Dec. 31, 1967 was -36, so this one will be comparable. That game was bizarre. Bart Starr said he recommended the final TD scoring play to coach Lombardi (his own sneak) because the running backs couldn't get enough traction with the field being almost like ice. Lombardi went along and the rest is history. For this game, they'll have embedded electrical heaters in the ground though, I imagine.
 
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/grb/?n=icebowl67
 

DanoooME

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johnmd20 said:
 
-30 degrees wind chill expected Sunday evening. This one will be interesting to watch, that's officially dangerous weather to watch a sporting event for four hours in.
 
I went to this game and that was the coldest I'd ever been.  I swear the wind was worse than what was listed that day, because it was howling.  We didn't get there until early 2nd quarter, spent halftime in the heated bathrooms, and left late 3rd quarter after it was 21-3 and I was frozen the whole time despite wearing 3 and 4 layers of clothing under 2 jackets.
 
I can't imagine watching that game live.
 

Oil Can Dan

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DanoooME said:
 
I went to this game and that was the coldest I'd ever been.  I swear the wind was worse than what was listed that day, because it was howling.  We didn't get there until early 2nd quarter, spent halftime in the heated bathrooms, and left late 3rd quarter after it was 21-3 and I was frozen the whole time despite wearing 3 and 4 layers of clothing under 2 jackets.
 
I can't imagine watching that game live.
 
I went to this one and that was the coldest I'd ever been.  I wore layer upon layer, had battery powered socks, stood on a broken styrofoam cooler to break the cold between my feet and the concrete, and still spent most of the 2nd and 3rd quarters inside a bar called Curleys because it was just too damned cold outside. And the game went to overtime.
 
I have no pictures from the game because my camera froze. As did my beer, and my phone.  It was no joke.  All said it's still the greatest game I've ever attended from an 'event' standpoint.
 

LondonSox

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I went to the blizzard bowl in philly between the Eagles and the vick led falcons. I had a great time actually but it wasn't close to that cold and I had hand warmers 8 layers etc.
No one sat down the whole game as it was too cold to stop moving.

Children and old people should not go to - 30 games though.
 

singaporesoxfan

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Are any of these games going to be snowy? Because that Philly-Lions game where everyone had to go for 2 was seriously great to watch (on TV of course).
 

Dehere

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Saints have ruled Pierre Thomas OUT against the Eagles. Big break for the Eagles' defense.



Brutal. My favorite Saint. Routinely gets more yards after contact than he has any right to and the only RB on that team who can both run the ball and catch a pass. Sproles and Ingram really not suited to these weather conditions. Huge blow to the fleur de lis.
 

JCizzle

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Dec 11, 2006
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I'm not sure why they didn't either move the GB game to today or reloacte it. I have no problems with teams playing in the cold, but this goes beyond being a homefield advantage (since I don't think it's possible for anyone to prepare for unprecedented conditions) and enters into dangerous territory for fans and players. 
 

RedOctober3829

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Jul 19, 2005
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This is something that no one besides me may be interested in: Chip Kelly being shown on TV going over the turf with the head groundskeeper. He's even overseeing how they paint the playoff logos on the field. Nothing gets by him.
 

mascho

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This is something that no one besides me may be interested in: Chip Kelly being shown on TV going over the turf with the head groundskeeper. He's even overseeing how they paint the playoff logos on the field. Nothing gets by him.


Some of that may be for splits. Depending on route structures, receivers base their alignments on landmarks, such as "top of numbers," "bottom of numbers," etc. I they have splits based on other field markings such as logos, he probably wants to make sure they are exactly where he and the receivers expect them.

Or he is an anal control freak.
 

Mystic Merlin

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Sep 21, 2007
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I think mascho's right.  Spacing is very important, especially for an offense that utilizes a ton of motion.  The new logos are an added variable at certain parts of the field (I think they stick them at the 35s).