NFL Playoffs Odds for Sunday January 16, 2011: New York Jets vs. New England Patriots (-8.5)

Betting Online Overview:

Jets head coach Rex Ryan must have loved it when the NFL football betting experts made the Jets such huge football betting underdogs. The Jets coach has surely hung the NFL predictions up on the Jets locker room wall by now and circled the point spread for the Jets game. But the Jets are going to need a lot more than swagger and some inspiring news print to beat the best team in football in the divisional round of the NFL playoffs.

When you play the Patriots, the first thing you are facing is Tom Brady’s uncanny ability to manipulate his offense to beat your defense. It is like the entire offense shares the same brain. They know what each other is doing, and they all know exactly where to go. If that isn’t bad enough, then you have to get around the virtuoso coaching of Bill Belichick. Belichick is where Brady gets all of his ideas from, and the two of them together create a force that just may not be able to be reckoned with in these NFL playoffs.

Offense:
The Jets will be all about the running game this entire playoff run. Rex Ryan has absolutely no faith in quarterback Mark Sanchez’s ability to get the ball downfield, and Sanchez showed nothing against the Colts that made Ryan think otherwise. So the Jets offense will be the offensive line pushing the defense back for running backs LaDainian Tomlinson and Shonn Greene. One-dimensional offense will not beat the New England Patriots. The Jets will find that the Patriots defensive line is not nearly as easy to push around as the Colts line was. With Sanchez not being allowed to test out a weak New England secondary, this will be a long day for the Jets offense.

Tom Brady has so many ways to beat a defense that it is almost not fair. He has wide receiver Wes Welker and tight end Rob Gronkowski underneath. There is Danny Woodhead running the ball and, once in a while, Woodhead also flares out from the backfield to catch a pass. If Brady wants to throw the ball deep he throws it to wide receiver Deion Branch or he sends Gronkowski deep. There are just too many ways for Brady to hurt a defense, and the Jets will need to account for all of them.

Defense:
The Jets could really use a safety like Troy Polamalu in this game to help out the secondary. New York’s defensive line will be battling the Patriots offensive line all day, and the Pats may have the upper hand there. But with Brady sending receivers, running backs and tight ends out into the secondary all running patterns designed to completely confuse the defense, it may be too much for Darelle Revis and an injured Antonio Cromartie to handle.

The Patriots have been able to win 14 regular season games because their defensive line and linebackers are the best in the league. That front seven has been able to compensate for a young and inexperienced secondary. But the secondary has been learning, and Belichick believes he now has a secondary that can play the long ball with any team. That is not a good thing for the Jets.

The Bottom Line:
The Jets are just too one-dimensional on offense and too injured on defense to stay with the Patriots in this game. Rex Ryan is a great marketing tool for the Jets, but he will get completely out-coached by the master Bill Belichick in this game.

BSN Sports Free Pick: New England Patriots