Photo credit: David Richard (AP)
By Matthew Brooks (@brooksie1219)
Welcome back to another week of my NFL playoff blog!
Last week was a relatively successful week for my picks at 4/6. I definitely struck gold going a little bit against the grain for my Texans and Lions picks, two games in which a lot of people expected the road team to prevail, but the home division winners dodged the upset. My only really bad whiff was on the Dolphins; it was a crazy pick, and it ended up being stupid crazy and not genius crazy.
But let’s move onwards to my more orthodox picks for this weekend as the league looks to thin down these eight squads into four real contenders.
Saturday, January 20th:
AFC: No. 4 Houston Texans at No. 1 Baltimore Ravens — 4:30 pm ET (ESPN/ABC)
Make no mistake, the Texans looked amazing last week. This is a Houston team that is way ahead of schedule and could be a dangerous Super Bowl threat with a few small additions in this coming offseason. I don’t even think it would be that outlandish if they won tomorrow. But the Ravens are my Super Bowl pick, and I’m going to stick with them even though they’ve gotten a tough draw.
There are very few quarterbacks in the NFL that are more talented and special than CJ Stroud. At some point, I bet he’ll overtake Matt Schaub as the franchise’s passing leader. But Lamar Jackson is definitively the best QB in the league right now, and he’s really just a Stroud that is more polished and experienced. I’m not saying Stroud is going to choke, but I’m predicting he’ll throw an uncharacteristic interception and simply won’t be up to match the incredible play coming from Jackson right now.
I predict a low-ish scoring game where both defenses have a major impact, and the Ravens win in the ballpark of 24-17.
NFC: No. 7 Green Bay Packers at No. 1 San Francisco 49ers — 8 pm ET (Fox)
For any blog readers that don’t know me, I am a diehard NY Sports fan of the Yankees/Giants kind. Last week’s upset of Green Bay over Dallas might be my favorite non-Giants football game that I’ve ever watched. Just at every moment, Dallas couldn’t figure anything out, and every second of it was pure joy. Now that I’m a temporary Packers fan for the rest of the playoffs, It’d be cool to see them win. We’ve never seen a seven seed get this far, so why not pick them to keep going?
But this isn’t “Matt picks whatever outcome he thinks is more fun” (if it was that I would’ve had Green Bay last week). And the reality of the situation is that Green Bay just doesn’t match up to San Francisco on either side of the ball. The 49ers defense will have answers for Jordan Love in the air, and particularly for the Packers run game. Somehow Dallas let them get going on the ground, which they haven’t been able to do all year. I don’t see that happening again. Give me San Francisco by more than double digits.
Sunday, January 21st:
NFC: No. 4 Tampa Bay Buccaneers at No. 3 Detroit Lions — 3 pm ET (NBC)
The storybook Detroit run continues, earning themselves their second-ever home playoff game in Ford Field by winning the first against former QB Matthew Stafford.
I’m not necessarily down on the Bucs, but their win is more of a reflection of the disastrous state of the Eagles than anything else. The Eagles are a team that should have won that game with the talent that they have, but lost because their offense has been severely predictable and vanilla.
As for the Lions, I think they’ll give up 21-28 points or so, but I don’t think they’ll have much trouble getting to 30. The Bucs defense has been good against a fairly weak schedule, but the Lions offense has been better. Whether All-Pro tight end Sam Laporta suits up will have a minor impact, but for this week I think they’ll be able to make do without him. I’m taking the Lions by a touchdown.
AFC: No. 3 Chiefs at No. 2 Bills — 6:30 pm ET (CBS, Paramount+)
Another year, another chapter of the Bills against Chiefs showdown. This has truly become the playoff rivalry in this chapter of NFL history, and the Brady/Manning of our time. It’s the only matchup of this weekend that is nearly guaranteed to be close.
Interestingly, this year has had both of these teams on fraud watch, but both seem to be hitting their stride at around the same time. I have two key factors that turn my pick to Buffalo. Firstly, the Chiefs haven’t cleaned up their act with catching the football enough yet. Mahomes might outplay Allen, but Mahomes is going to have to work harder to mitigate wasted opportunities from drops and other miscues. Secondly, the Bills have something this year that they have never really had to bring in this rivalry: an actual run game. James Cook has had a fantastic sophomore campaign, and I think he’ll force Andy Reid to respect the inside run, and it’ll open up the passing game in a way that it hasn’t in the other installments of this matchup.
Welcome to New York, Taylor. Except this is not the New York you are familiar with. Don’t worry about the result; if you make it out in one piece and without broken ribs via folding table, you’ll be better off than many in attendance this weekend.
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