Welcome to the Wild Card Round of the NFL Playoffs, the one week where the home stadium is a true advantage, with the home teams historically winning 75% of the time. With that in mind, here are my predictions.
Titans at Chiefs
I live in Iowa, where you only see the Titans on television if they are playing the Vikings or Packers. Or if they are playing on a Monday or Thursday night. And that’s assuming that I don’t have something more important to do, which is likely because the Titans haven’t impressed me since…
Look for the Chiefs to take this game by at least a touchdown. Arrowhead Stadium will be rocking and Alex Smith with complete a pass that travels more than 10 yards in the air. Yeah, I said it!
Bills at Jaguars
If you didn’t catch what I said earlier, I live in Iowa. We don’t care about either of these two teams, nor do we know a whole lot about them. Except for a few things. The Bills required the help of Andy Dalton of the Cincinnatti Bengals to get into the playoffs in the first place, which doesn’t speak well for their chances to win a playoff game. If Andy Dalton is your Playoffs good luck charm, you’re going to have a bad day.
The Jaguars will win this game convincingly with their top rated defense and middle of the road offense. Total points scored in this game will be kept under 40.
Falcons at Rams
Iowa boy here. Since the Rams left for California, we stopped caring about them. No, it was earlier than that. Since the Rams had Jeff Fisher as their coach we stopped caring about him. But Jeff Fisher is no longer the coach of the Rams and that is why the Rams are hosting a playoff game. Jared Goff is playing well, which you would expect with one of the best running backs in the NFL supporting him. Todd Gurley should win the MVP of the league. And the Rams should win this game.
The Falcons are eager to get the stink of last year’s Super Bowl off of them, but now that Matt Ryan has returned to what he is, an average NFL QB, they will lose a close game. Here me now, believe me later. Matt Ryan will never be in the Super Bowl again.
Panthers at Saints
“To be the man, you have to beat the man.” is a favorite quote by Ric Flair. Ric is a fan of the Panthers, which is nice and all, but the Panthers have been so erratic this year. They could beat the Saints by 20 or they could lose by 20. It’s just a matter of which team decides to show up. The last two times they played the Saints they lost. And I predict that trend will continue with another loss.
Oh, I’m from Iowa. And I really don’t care about any of these teams. The Chiefs have some local support around here, but this is really a Viking state. Mix in a little Packers and Bears and there you have it. Add to this the fact that the NFL is in a 10% slump of viewership, this would be a great weekend to spend time working on that honeydo list. Earn some brownie points for next week when the Vikings, Eagles, Patriots and Steelers enter the mix.
Oh, and #FireRogerGoodell
