So while the consensus right now seems to be favoring top-seeded Denver and Seattle to emerge from these playoffs, there's good reason to believe that it will in fact be one of the teams playing this weekend that ends this season as champions. Now I'm not quite ready to declare make any bold predictions this far in advance (I'm the guy who had the Lions winning it all this year, after all), but I'm not ruling out that there could very well be a team that emerges from this weekend as an attractive underdog to go with in the Divisional Playoffs.
While my initial seeds were a bit off (aside from Kansas City) in my pre-season predictions, I did have five of the six AFC playoff teams right and four of the six NFC teams. So there's still some hope that I can add a little more green to that page by year's end, but it seems like this season is sort of doomed to be a case of "I was close."
Hopefully my predictions are a little more right on now that I've got a better sampling of what these teams can do. We're preparing to head out of town this weekend, so at least posting my picks now will spare me the semi-annual attempts to post these picks from my phone or some other difficult situation caused by a combination of internet troubles and too much delay on my part. It also means that I'm likely to miss at least one game, but hopefully I can catch the best of the weekend action.
Posting these now also means that I'm able to include the picks of other "experts." We'll start with the crew from the Mother Ship, and I have not forgotten that a couple of these guys (looking at you, Keyshawn and Chris Carter) might magically change their picks after the fact:
Here's the group of predictions from CBS Sports:
And I guess now that Michael Silver and Jason Cole have moved on to greener pastures, that leaves Yahoo with one lone expert? Anyway, I will ultimately add his pick and the Yahoo Users to my standings, although both had not been published as of "press time" today.
Anyway, I feel somewhat hypocritical titling this post and beginning it by mentioning how there's an underdog we need to look out for only to pretty much go with what everybody else is picking. Still, I had my picks made as soon as the matchups were set, and here's what I'm sticking with (in its usual descending order of confidence):
Cincinnati Bengals over San Diego Chargers
So Cincy did not end up being the best team in the AFC that I had expected, but they're still here. The Bolts wildly exceeded the low expectations I had for them, but let us not overlook that San Diego got an awful lot of help to get to this point. In Week 17, the Chiefs rested most of their starters and the Chargers still needed a couple of inexcusable calls from referees to get the victory that got them into the postseason. Sure, there's some temptation to think that maybe Philip Rivers carries the day, but the Bengals have not lost at home this season and their defense continues to perform despite injuries. I have my doubts about Cincinnati making it to the AFC Championship I originally forecast them getting to, but a strong showing here might be able to turn me into a believer again next weekend if they wind up going to Foxboro.
Indianapolis Colts over Kansas City Chiefs
It's awfully hard to ignore the way that Indy handled K.C. when they met a few weeks ago, with one Chiefs player pointing out how Kansas City beats up chumps but flops against the real contenders. We're all pretty well convinced that Andrew Luck is the real deal, and he seems to be capable of carrying Indianapolis even with the loss of Reggie Wayne. Andy Reid's done a helluva job turning around the Chiefs this year, but Kansas City's success in this game is going to begin and end with Jamaal Charles. If he runs wild in Lucas Oil, then perhaps the Chiefs can pull off an upset. Still, I don't think Luck is going to be prone to the turnovers that the Kansas City defense has thrived off of all year, and I'm expecting Indianapolis to emerge victorious in a closer game than the previous meeting.
San Francisco 49ers over Green Bay Packers
Maybe there's the outside chance that the return of Aaron Rodgers was perfect timing and the Packers can return to their dominant ways at Lambeau on Sunday. Against this Niners defense though, I remain fairly skeptical. Let us not forget that San Francisco was also without Michael Crabtree and Mario Manningham for a majority of their season, but having those weapons back against a far less intimidating Green Bay defense should give the 49ers more than enough scoring options (those two receivers, after all, are not as much of a threat as Frank Gore, Anquan Boldin, or Vernon Davis). The bigger concern for Packer fans here should be keeping their star QB healthy, as unlike the Bears defense that Green Bay could just run all over at will last week, Rodgers will be forced to throw here a lot more often. If Rodgers can't get rid of that ball quickly enough and takes one bad hit, it could very well be next season's hopes that get affected in addition to this season ending.
Philadelphia Eagles over New Orleans Saints
The toughest call of the weekend and the one game I'd probably most want to see. The Eagles were the team I was probably most wrong about heading into this year, as the Chip Kelly experiment has paid huge dividends. Nick Foles is dynamite and LeSean McCoy is beastly, but then again, the Saints are no slouches with Drew Brees and Jimmy Graham. Of course, you'll hear half a million times that Brees has not won a playoff game on the road and the Saints have struggled away from the Superdome all year long. As a guy who got burned when Foles was the seemingly surefire fantasy play of the week earlier this season, I cannot rule out the young QB suddenly having a stinker under the pressure of the playoffs. However, the guy's TD to INT ratio speaks for itself and in the end, I just can't shake the feeling that I'm going to be seeing Rob Ryan be making a face a lot like this one.
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