Wild Card Weekend always brings us great games and in recent history we have seen teams from these first-round playoffs advance to and win the Super Bowl, so don’t write off teams playing this weekend.
I’m in Houston and ready to call the Bengals-Texans game, where you can tell the city is excited. This will be a game of firsts. First time two rookie QBs will face each other in the playoffs since the 1970 merger. The Texans will be making the first postseason appearance in franchise history and, of course, looking for their first win. Cincinnati, meanwhile, will be looking for the franchise’s first road playoff victory and their first playoff win of any kind since January of 1991, which came against the then-Houston Oiliers.
In honor of all those first, here are a couple keys to look for that will decide this game (all labeled #1, naturally):
1. Who wins the turnover battle? With two rookies at QB, the team that limits the mistakes this time of year usually wins.
2. Can the Bengals slow down Foster and Tate? In the first meeting back in December, the Texans gashed the Bengals for 144 yards on only 28 carries, which took pressure off of T.J. Yates. Can they do it again?
3. Will Coach Gary Kubiak take the governor off of Yates and open up the offense? Kubiak has been conservative with the young QB, but it hasn’t led to many points. They only broke the 20-point barrier once since November 13th and that was in a loss with 22 points.
Should be a great game in Houston. I can’t wait.
– Tony Boselli
Howard David, Tony Boselli and Mark Malone (sidelines) are in Houston ready to call Game One of our Wild Card Saturday doubleheader. Coverage of Texans-Bengals begins at 4 PM Eastern, followed immediately by Saints-Lions from the Superdome.
