Breaking Down the AFC Wild-Card Match-ups

Like the NFC Wild-Card Match-ups, the AFC will begin its playoff play on Saturday afternoon and will also have a familiar tone to it.

Indianapolis and San Diego, with their stellar regular seasons, will sit at home for a bye week, while Cincinnati and New York, and New England and Baltimore will engage in a couple of season rematches. Like the NFC match-ups, Cincinnati and New York will lock horns for the second consecutive week; where as the Patriots and Ravens will be a rematch week four Patriots victory.

Let's take a few minutes and look at this weekend's AFC playoff games and see who will likely go on to meet the Chargers and Colts in the next round.

New York Jets at Cincinnati Bengals

Saturday January 9, 2010 @ 4:30pm - NBC

Much like the Packers/Cardinals game from Sunday, the Bengals/Jets tussle saw a team needing the win decimating the team that didn't need to. However, unlike the Cardinals, the Bengals didn't necessarily rest all of their starters in anticipation of another match-up. New York defense simply dominated the Bengals offense and a balanced rushing attack kept the Bengals offense off the field.

For New York, they will need to expect the Bengals to adjust to getting pounded via the ground on Sunday and come out passing, which may be tough for a squad that ranked second to last in the NFL as a unit. Still, when you have the best rushing attack in the league, you only have to make the necessary passes. The Jets will rely on the leagues best defense to keep Carson Palmer, Cedric Benson, and Chad OchoCinco in check.

For Cincinnati, they need to know that the Jets have the best pass defense for a reason, so they'll need to take advantage of Benson and Larry Johnson to open up passing lanes for Carson Palmer. But the Bengals are no slouch defensively either, ranking fourth in the NFL in total defense. The best game plan that they can come out with is to stack the line and make Mark Sanchez beat them through the air.

This game is as much of a toss-up as any during the opening round, and it relies purely on who gets their game plan established quickest. The Bengals have struggled of late and may not have the juice to carry themselves past a scrappy squad like the Jets.

Prediction: Jets 20 - Bengals 10

Baltimore Ravens at New England Patriots

Sunday January 10, 2010 @ 1:00pm - CBS

It's amazing how much different of a tone a game can have from one week to the next. When these two teams met in Week Four, the Patriots were an up and down team that was still trying to establish an identity, whereas Baltimore was looking solid before receiving their first loss at the hands of the Pats. Now thirteen weeks later, New England now knows who they are, but it isn't what they hoped to be, and the Ravens are the team that could be contenders or pretenders.

For Baltimore, the game plan is all about controlling the ball and keeping the Patriots offense in check; granted, that should be significantly easier without Wes Welker to account for. Baltimore needs to grind out the game on the ground, with Ray Rice and Willis McGahee, a strategy that was working well for them during the previous match-up before they went away from it. That should allow the NFL's third ranked defense to stay fresh and help to contain the Patriots.

For New England, this is a now a team that doesn't know what to make of itself. The loss of Welker to a knee injury changes the face of the offense tremendously. This likely means that the Pats will have to resort to a large helping of Kevin Faulk to help take on some of the short passing yard workload lost on Welker. Defensively, New England has struggled all season with consistency against the run, and truth be told, aren't really much better against the pass when facing a good quarterback, which Joe Flacco definitely qualifies as. This is a game that Tom Brady and company need to turn into a shoot-out if they hope to advance to the second round.

Had they secured a bye, it would be easier to see New England being able to create a whole new scheme around its other cast of characters, but Welker's loss and only six days to prepare a whole new offense doesn't add up to a championship caliber team. Look for Baltimore to control this game and get their revenge.

Prediction: Ravens 27 - New England 10