[-STAT-]

Vikings-Rams play tonight in the final wild card game on ESPN. Winner will play in Philly next week. 

Here is the full schedule. 

Sat. 1/18

Houston at Kansas City 4:30
Washington at Detroit 8:00

Sun. 1/19
Minnesota/LA at Philadelphia 3:00
Baltimore at Buffalo 6:30

Some great matchups for the divisional round, biggest one on paper has to be Ravens at Bills, the 2 top MVP candidates in Lamar Jackson & Josh Allen. 

Washington at Detroit will be another intriguing game, can Washington keep the momentum going with their rookie QB? Or will the Lions make it back to back NFC Championship games? 

Houston will have a tough test on the road at KC, can their defense find a way to slow down Mahomes and the Chiefs offense? Or will KC move onto yet another AFC Championship in their quest for a 3-peat. 

I picked the Rams to upset the Vikings in the wild card, this game is being played at the Arizona Cardinals stadium due to the wildfires in California, so no home field advantage for the Rams which may play a huge factor, and obviously their minds are focused on the tragic fires in LA. Whoever wins will have their hands full going on the road to Philly, who if they can get the passing game going with Hurts, seem to be a complete team, already have a dominant O-line & rushing game, along with an elite defense. 

Some great games on tap tonight and this coming weekend, what are everyones thoughts and predictions?

[Cactus Jack]

Kansas City over Houston. This one would be much closer if Diggs and Tank Dell weren't lost for the season, but as is, Houston just doesn't have the firepower to keep up.

Detroit over Washington. Clock strikes midnight on Cinderella. Just too tough to go from a team drafting as high as the Commanders were this offseason to a conference final.

Buffalo and Baltimore will be the game of the week. Can't wait to see that one. Will go with Buffalo since they have the home field advantage.

Want to see the results of tonight's game between Minnesota and Los Angeles before making a prediction for the winner and Philadelphia.

[King Kong]

Vikings-Rams play tonight in the final wild card game on ESPN. Winner will play in Philly next week. 

Here is the full schedule. 

Sat. 1/18

Houston at Kansas City 4:30
Washington at Detroit 8:00

Sun. 1/19
Minnesota/LA at Philadelphia 3:00
Baltimore at Buffalo 6:30

Some great matchups for the divisional round, biggest one on paper has to be Ravens at Bills, the 2 top MVP candidates in Lamar Jackson & Josh Allen. 

Washington at Detroit will be another intriguing game, can Washington keep the momentum going with their rookie QB? Or will the Lions make it back to back NFC Championship games? 

Houston will have a tough test on the road at KC, can their defense find a way to slow down Mahomes and the Chiefs offense? Or will KC move onto yet another AFC Championship in their quest for a 3-peat. 

I picked the Rams to upset the Vikings in the wild card, this game is being played at the Arizona Cardinals stadium due to the wildfires in California, so no home field advantage for the Rams which may play a huge factor, and obviously their minds are focused on the tragic fires in LA. Whoever wins will have their hands full going on the road to Philly, who if they can get the passing game going with Hurts, seem to be a complete team, already have a dominant O-line & rushing game, along with an elite defense. 

Some great games on tap tonight and this coming weekend, what are everyones thoughts and predictions?

I figured that TB and Washington game could go either way. I'm picking Detroit over Washington.  Detroit just seems to have to much fire power.  Plus a special energy surrounding the team right now.  Washington may keep it close for a bit. 
KC over Houston.  I will be pulling for Houston to get the upset!

Buffalo and Baltimore should be the game of the week.  I'll take and will be pulling for Buffalo in this one. 
I'll take Philly over Minnesota or LA.
Minnesota vs LA will be a interesting game.  I would pick Minnesota but LA I believe will be even more motivated in this one.  With the wildfires going on there something more to play for.  Plus I think LA beat Minnesota once this year.  Picking LA in a close one.

[Cactus Jack]

With the way Los Angeles played tonight, you almost want to pick them as an upset special, but then you also wonder if the travel to Arizona, whatever their preparation ends up being this week, and the cross-country trip to a talented Philadelphia is just too much. Here's to thinking that they may have enough in them to cover whatever the spread ends up being though.

[Van Hagar]

Man, Minnesota went from 14-2 with a chance to be the one seed in the NFC, to getting blown out two straight weeks, season over. Going to be interesting to see if they run it back with Darnold, who was bad these last two weeks, or turn it over to JJ McCarthy.

Baltimore-Buffalo is obviously the marquee next week, and I do think whoever survives it is gonna win the Super Bowl. As I have said all along, I think this is Lamar’s year, coupled with Derrick Henry they are almost unstoppable. KC should hold serve at home against Houston, Detroit should hold off the best story of the year, Jayden Daniels and the Commanders, and I guess I’ll take Philly at home, although they still look to have no passing game with Jalen Hurts right now. Hard for me to see anyone in the NFC keeping Detroit out of their first Super Bowl.

[King Kong]

After watching LA last night,  they're game vs Philly could be interesting.  LA was on fire last night.  Not sure what happened to Minnesota the past few games.

[Cactus Jack]

Man, Minnesota went from 14-2 with a chance to be the one seed in the NFC, to getting blown out two straight weeks, season over. Going to be interesting to see if they run it back with Darnold, who was bad these last two weeks, or turn it over to JJ McCarthy.

I'm thinking that they have to let Darnold walk unless they plan on trading McCarthy or are worried about his recovery from injury. I think the whole point in drafting him was to have a QB locked in on a rookie contract since they'd spent so much on Jefferson.

I'll assume that the Vikings won't do a "tag and trade" the rest of the post.

Darnold performed well overall, but the taste of the last two weeks probably won't be enough to entice someone to overpay him.

Given the type of season that they had and some of the duds Darnold laid, I'd think that looking to sign an Aaron Rodgers or Kirk Cousins at a discount for one year might be just as, if not more, likely than them trying to resign Darnold first.

I'd think Darnold would be a better investment for a Tennessee or New York-- someone affordable that's good enough to see what you have around the rookie QB that you just drafted, but not so good that you can't ultimately yank him when it's time to play your rookie. Pittsburgh or Las Vegas may be other places looking to use him as a bridge-QB.

If I'm Darnold, I'm probably taking a little less to return to a good situation in Minnesota. If I'm him and Minnesota won't pay me, I'd strongly consider sitting out until I found a great fit. Someone with a solid team will eventually have their QB go down, and when they do, he's good enough to step in and keep the team afloat if they have a good line and some offensive weapons.

Since I've digressed, I'll take this post back to the original topic of the NFL Playoffs. The remaining team's QBs are: Mahomes, Stroud, Allen, Lamar, Goff, Daniels, Hurts, and Stafford. The more highly regarded QBs are generally going to be favored in each round from here on.

I'm not saying that Darnold will never be fit into a list like this, but he's still got a ways to go and would still probably require being in a good situation.

There's a pretty exclusive list of QBs who've won a Super Bowl over the past 10 seasons-- Mahomes, Brady, Peyton Manning, Stafford and Nick Foles.

Every decade, there's usually 1-2 QBs that aren't considered first ballot Hall of Famers who'll join the list, but other than maybe Roethlisberger, you won't see any of their names on the list more than once.

Going back to the early to mid-80's, you have winning QBs that are in one of two groups:

Group A:
Mahomes, Brady, (Peyton or Eli) Manning, Rodgers, Elway, Favre, Roethlisberger, Young, Aikman, and Montana;

OR

Group B:
Stafford, Wilson, Flacco, Brees, Brad Johnson, Dilfer, Warner, Rypien, Hostetler, Doug Williams, Simms, and McMahon;

Of Group A, all but Rodgers have at least two rings. Of Group B, Stafford still has a year or two to add to his legacy, and you might argue about where a Warner or Brees ranks on all-time lists, but you largely see a lot of above-average talents that relied on some of the generationally-great defenses (e.g. Flacco, Dilfer, Johnson, Simms, McMahon), offensive lines (e.g. Rypien & Williams), or skill position groups (e.g. Wilson's Legion of Boom & Warner's Greatest Show on Turf).

[plantmanky]

Texans beat Chiefs.