Merril Hoge
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Tampa Bay at St. Louis

Tennessee at Jacksonville

Jags happy to see Titans again

Bucs already on the defensive

St. Louis now a football town


Rams, Jags boast some firepower

Special to ESPN.com

Here's a quick look ahead to the conference championship games in the 1999 NFL playoffs:

Titans at Jaguars, Sunday, 12:35 p.m. ET
Jimmy Smith
Jacksonville's Jimmy Smith is a physical receiver who's very tough to stop.
Jacksonville has shown that it has as much offensive firepower as any team in the league. Fred Taylor challenges an opponent's whole defensive concept. The Jaguars also have weapons in their passing game, with Jimmy Smith being the key guy. The Pro Bowl receiver has shown that he is a difficult guy to defend because he is so physical.

What Tennessee has to do is disguise and design a lot of coverages to get help on Smith. However, Taylor is where it starts for Tennessee's defense. The Titans have to be able to contain and control Taylor. One of the matchups that the Jaguars will have to be concerned with is Jevon Kearse. Tennessee will likely move Kearse around from one end to the other.

Jacksonville's defense really stepped it up in the Miami game. However, when you look at that game, it's hard to figure out how much of it was really the Jags defense and how much of it was just a poor performance by the Dolphins.

Steve McNair takes the Jags defense out of a lot of things that they like to do. McNair's mobility causes some concerns for Jacksonville with its zone blitzes and aggressiveness. Because of this, Jacksonville's defensive game plan might be a little more conservative. The Jags don't want to get burned. Their coverages will have to be extremely disciplined. They can't lose track of receivers, especially on underneath coverages, because that's what hurt them last time they played the Titans -- a game the Titans won 41-14 as McNair threw a career-high five TD passes.

Offensively, Tennessee must get more production out of its passing game. The Titans can't beat Jacksonville throwing the ball like they have been. It just too hard and you're putting your defense in a bind too many times. Tennessee has to find ways to get more offense.

It is difficult to beat a team three times in a season. I've been in a situation where we played a team in the playoffs that beat us twice in the regular season, and we went into their house and beat them. It is tough to beat teams three times in a row, especially within your division, because you know each other so well.

Buccaneers at Rams, Sunday, 4:15 p.m. ET
The first thing that is going to be talked about is the Rams' high-powered offense against the Buccaneers' stingy defense. Which one will outplay the other?

As I've looked at the Rams, the thing that Tampa Bay will give up right away is the underneath stuff. But the Rams receivers are so good at running with the football after the catch, that might be enough to beat Tampa Bay. The Bucs will give up the underneath slant routes and crossing routes.

The patience of the Rams might be challenged some early in the game. If they take advantage of what the Bucs are giving them, they'll start hurting Tampa and force the Bucs to adjust. When they do that, St. Louis will start to find matchups downfield and the big plays will start to come.

St. Louis will slowly wear down the Bucs. Tampa Bay might have one of the best defensive concepts and team defenses in the NFL, but the Bucs just can't match up with the Rams. Nobody has, and nobody will. Nobody has found an answer for Marshall Faulk. Nobody has found an answer for the Rams' talented group of receivers. Nobody has the ability to match all that speed.

The Rams defense has been underrated and overlooked all year. The Bucs basically have a running game that runs a lot. However, they don't run the ball very well. They don't have much of a passing game, and they have a limited offense. The Rams have great speed on the defensive line, and they will attack and disrupt and limit the Bucs offense.

For the Bucs, you don't change what got you this far. But the bottom line is that they will have to find a few opportunities over the course of the game to go down the field. It has to happen for them to win -- there might be a half-dozen opportunities for the Bucs, and they have to capitalize. Of those half-dozen chances, they have to hit four of them. And those four have to result in some kind of points.

The only way I see the Bucs winning is if they can control the entire game and limit the number of possessions the Rams will have. Even doing that, the Rams will probably get 21 points on the board which might be too much for the Bucs.


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