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NFL Wild Card predictions: NFC shines while the AFC grinds
Running back Todd Gurley has Los Angeles thinking NFL playoffs for the first time in an age.  Wesley Hitt/Getty Images

NFL Wild Card predictions: NFC shines while the AFC grinds

After a season fraught with dramas both off-field and on, major injuries to key pieces, and several “game of the year” level matchups living up to their advance billing, the playoffs are here.

Wild Card weekend brings with it a decidedly mixed bag in terms of games. The NFC slate should be tons of fun, with all four teams in action very capable of winning the conference, as well as the return of postseason play to Los Angeles. The AFC games? Well, they’re happening, and no one can deny that. Whereas no set of outcomes in the NFC would be particularly surprising, wins by Buffalo and/or Tennessee in the AFC would cause a major shakeup. 

Saturday, January 6, 2018

Tennessee Titans at Kansas City Chiefs (-7.5), 4:35 p.m. ET (ESPN)


Kansas City Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt takes the handoff from quarterback Alex Smith in the first half of the game against the Los Angeles Chargers at Arrowhead Stadium on Dec. 16, 2017.  Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports

It would not be a stretch to call Tennessee the worst team in this year’s playoffs, though a LeSean McCoy-less Bills team would certainly have a case for that distinction. The Titans have received uninspiring quarterback play from Marcus Mariota all season, and they have been outscored and out-gained on the season. An ideal Titans performance would be built on a strong running game, stout rush defense, and timely playmaking from Mariota. The Titans’ pair of wins over division rival Jacksonville represented their only victories over a fellow playoff entrant this season, and only the first of those came against a Jags team with anything to play for.

If the Titans resemble pretenders, the Chiefs are an enigma. Kansas City started 5-0, endured a brutal 1-6 stretch during which many observers wrote them off, then closed the year with four wins in a row, the first three sealing an AFC West title. Alex Smith ended the year with the league’s highest passer rating, Kareem Hunt won the rushing title, Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce both topped 1,000 yards receiving, and no offense took better care of the ball than Kansas City’s. The problems cropped up on defense, where the Chiefs, when at their worst, were easy picking for just about everyone. If the Good Chiefs show up, Tennessee has very little chance. If the Bad Chiefs show up, this game might stay interesting well into the second half. Recent trends suggest that the Good Chiefs will arrive, and Typical Tennessee won’t be able to keep up.

Pick: Chiefs

Atlanta Falcons at Los Angeles Rams (-6), 8:15 p.m. ET (NBC)


Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan has a long playoff road to go if he is going to avenge last year's Super Bowl loss.  Chuck Cook-USA TODAY Sports

The Falcons delivered a command performance with their season in the balance, harassing Cam Newton into a terrible performance and punching their postseason ticket with a convincing home win. Their task gets much tougher against a Rams team with one bad loss on the season, in Week 2 against Washington, and several impressive wins on their resume. Matt Ryan, Julio Jones and the rest of the Falcons’ offense will have to be at the top of their game, because the Rams ended the season as the top scoring outfit in the league. Atlanta’s defense has been good to very good for much of the year, but this will be their toughest test. The Falcons are probably seeded in exactly the right spot. They are good enough on occasion to beat good teams, but not always, or even often.

The Rams are as explosive as any team in the league, and boast the NFL’s top scoring offense. Jared Goff and Todd Gurley are the core pieces of a dynamic, versatile attack that can hurt opponents methodically, or with big plays. Goff has no shortage of targets to throw to, though Cooper Kupp, the team’s leader in receiving yards, is questionable with a knee injury. If Kupp is good to go, the Rams will be tough to stop. Defensively, Los Angeles has arguably the league’s most disruptive player in Aaron Donald. Donald is the kind of guy that regularly wrecks game plans all by himself. The Rams haven’t been great at home this year, only managing a 4-4 mark, but two of those losses were early in the season, and the last one was inconsequential. If L.A. was ambivalent about professional football at the start of the year, there is considerably more interest in what the Rams are doing now. It says here that Goff and Gurley will give those fans at least one more week of football.

Pick: Rams

Sunday, January 7, 2018

Buffalo Bills at Jacksonville Jaguars (-7.5), 1:05 p.m. ET (CBS)


The Buffalo Bills hope to have LeSean McCoy in place for the playoffs.  Mark Konezny-USA TODAY Sports

LeSean McCoy’s health is what matters here. If he can go, and is a reasonable facsimile of himself, then Buffalo has a chance to keep things close if they minimize turnovers and pressure Blake Bortles into making mistakes – just maybe the Bills can grind their way to a victory. If McCoy is out, Buffalo has precious few answers for a fast and talented Jaguars defense. Tyrod Taylor’s best attribute is that, when he’s going well, he doesn’t turn the ball over and makes the occasional throw that leaves the viewer picking their jaw up off the floor. Problem is, he needs a functional running game to help bring both of those qualities out to their max. Buffalo is a nice story, having ended the league’s longest active playoff drought thanks to Andy Dalton’s late heroics against Baltimore, something that provoked over $100,000 in donations to Dalton and his wife’s foundation from Bills fans, but if McCoy doesn’t go, the playoff ride will be a quick one.

Jacksonville tried to knock out the Titans in Week 17 and, well, failed. The Jags turned in a very uninspiring performance, something almost certainly attributable to the fact that the game had no importance to them beyond trying to make a division rival miserable and ruin their year. Blake Bortles played possibly the three best games of his career late in the season, then followed that up with one mediocre outing, and one bad one. A sharp Bortles will make the outcome academic, but if he is rusty, and the Jags let an inferior opponent – albeit one with a habit of playing takeaway – hang around late, things could get mighty interesting. That said, the guess here is that McCoy will play but be less than his usual self, and Jacksonville will be heading back to Pittsburgh.

Pick: Jaguars

Carolina Panthers at New Orleans Saints (-5.5), 4:40 p.m. ET (FOX)


New Orleans Saints players David Onyemata, Craig Robertson and Manti Te'o will have to keep up the defensive pressure that has defined the Saints at home this season.  Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports

In the interest of full disclosure, I should make it clear that, before Week 17 started, I was giving serious thought to the idea of having the Panthers survive a brutal NFC field and make it all the way to the Super Bowl. The logic was sound, or so I thought. Carolina physically beat up Minnesota in one of the season’s most impressive wins by any team, possessed a strong defense, a versatile and improving offense, and the ultimate wild card in Cam Newton. They seemed like a good choice. And then, Week 17 happened. The Panthers would have ended up winning the NFC South had they not turned in a true stinker of a performance, Newton in particular, in Atlanta. Were the Panthers playing this game at home, they’d seem a smart pick. Asking them to go into the Superdome and win may be too much. It might not matter, though, because the Saints handled them even more decisively in Charlotte early in the season.

If Carolina’s performance was bad, New Orleans’ may well have been worse. The Saints backed into their division crown, losing to Tampa Bay after taking a four-point lead into the fourth quarter. That said, the game was on the road, a place where New Orleans is known to be a different team, and where they suffered four of their five losses this season. The only team to come into the Superdome and beat them was the Patriots, which says all that needs to be said about how good New England is, and how tough the Saints otherwise are in their building. Beating the same team three times in a season is tough, but if New Orleans gets ahead early in this one, it should be over, and it might get ugly. Carolina goes from my Super Bowl representative in the NFC to sitting at home for the rest of the playoffs.

Pick: Saints

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