NFL picks for a not-so-super Wild Card Weekend

RIP, Super Wild Card Weekend. Welcome back, regular ol' Wild Card Weekend.

Playoff football is upon us, and the good news is there’s a reason to cheer for every team on (no longer Super) Wild Card Weekend.

The Chargers have never won a Super Bowl. The Texans have never been to the Super Bowl.

Lamar Jackson has done everything in his career but win a Super Bowl. The Steelers haven’t won a playoff game since 2016, meaning T.J. Watt has never won a playoff game.

The Broncos are back in the postseason for the first time in nine years. The Bills might be the team most capable of stopping the Chiefs from making the Super Bowl again.

Jordan Love is the only likable full-time starting Packers quarterback in the last 30 years. Saquon Barkley has helped lead a running back resurgence in his first season with the Eagles.

The Commanders are fun for the first time in years. The Bucs are resilient.

The Vikings have been one of the most pleasant surprises of the season. The Rams bounced back from a 1-4 start and so many injuries.

The bad news is that half of those teams will lose, and like Drew Allar throwing a late-game interception, I’ll end up feeling sorry for them.

Which six will gain my sympathy this weekend? Well, the first round of the postseason is always hard to predict. In recent years, we’ve usually gotten at least a couple of upsets (three last year!) in the Wild Card Round.

Following that logic, I knew I had to pick at least one underdog, and maybe more. I went back and forth on which one(s) I wanted to take. Ultimately, I settled on just one and don’t feel super confident in my choice!

My picks are below in bold, with the odds from DraftKings.

Chargers at Texans (+3)

Steelers at Ravens (-9.5)

Broncos at Bills (-8.5)

Packers at Eagles (-4.5)

Commanders at Buccaneers (-3)

Vikings at Rams (+2.5)

For a second opinion, be sure to check out Christian’s picks at FTW.

Wild Card Round picks

Chargers over Texans

I know the Chargers have a bleak postseason history, while the Texans were in a similar spot last year — a home underdog in the Saturday at 4:30 p.m. ET time slot, of course — and pulled off the upset. But Houston has struggled since midseason. The Texans are 4-5 in their last nine games, with none of those wins coming over fellow playoff teams. The last time they did that was in early October, when Ka′imi Fairbairn hit a 59-yard field goal as time expired to top the Bills.

The Texans have lost several key players to injury since then, especially weapons for C.J. Stroud, who has seemingly been under constant pressure in the pocket this season. And now here come the Chargers, with their eighth-ranked sack rate (7.53 percent).

I certainly don’t think this is a slam-dunk for LA, which hasn’t had all that much success against opponents in the playoff field either. Houston’s defense could give its inconsistent offense fits, too. But based on how both have played lately, I’ll go with the Chargers and hope the Texans can get better injury luck, and offensive linemen, next year.

Ravens over Steelers

The Steelers beat the Ravens in November, and the two rivals have basically been headed in opposite directions since. Pittsburgh has dropped four in a row, including a rematch with Baltimore, while the Ravens have gone 4-0 in that same span.

The best thing the Steelers have going for them in the rubber match is their history with Lamar Jackson, who only just picked up his second win as a starter against Pittsburgh. But Jackson and Co. are rolling right now, and the Steelers just seem like they’re out of gas.

Bills over Broncos

The Broncos have been better than I thought they’d be this year, and Sean Payton does have a great track record against bald coaches.

I like how Buffalo has been playing, though. The Bills’ only real loss (aka, with their starters) in the last three months came in a high-scoring thriller with the Rams in early December. That doesn’t mean they won’t step on some rakes against the Chiefs or whoever later in the playoffs, but it does mean I believe that they can take down the Broncos and rookie Bo Nix.

Eagles over Packers

These two teams met in Week 1 in Brazil, and I incorrectly picked the Packers to win that game. Maybe I saw the future? I mean, Matt LaFleur’s team has proven it can win on the road in the postseason, just as it did last year in Dallas and almost did (and probably should have) in San Francisco.

The problem for the Packers, besides their 2-5 record against playoff teams, is that I just don’t think they’re healthy enough to beat the Eagles in Philadelphia. Jordan Love is banged up, and deep threat Christian Watson and corner Jaire Alexander — who picked off Jalen Hurts in the opener — are both out for the year. The Eagles should be rested, and assuming Hurts is cleared to play, healthier.

Commanders over Bucs

My first instinct was to pick the more experienced Bucs, but then I thought about how seasoned the Commanders are, outside of rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels. Dan Quinn, Bobby Wagner, Dante Fowler, and Zach Ertz have all been to the postseason (and Super Bowl) plenty of times before. Terry McLaurin caught six passes the last time Washington was in the playoffs — and the team gave the Bucs, who went on to win the Super Bowl, their toughest test that postseason.

The Bucs have been pretty hit or miss lately, and they needed a big second half to put away the Saints at home last week. Their defense hasn’t been as good, or as healthy, this season as in the past, either. So while I’m not 100 percent sold on this upset pick, it’s the one that makes the most sense to me, in theory anyway.

Vikings over Rams

The Rams opened as favorites, but the line has since moved toward the Vikings after the game was relocated to Arizona due to the devastating wildfires in LA.

When the Vikings lost to the Lions last Sunday, I thought I would definitely end up siding with the Rams. Sean McVay is such a good coach, and the Vikings looked completely out of sorts in Detroit, that it seemed inevitable that their playoff hopes would end in wild-card disappointment again.

But this isn’t the same Vikings team as the one that fell a couple of years ago to the Giants in the postseason. The defense is a lot better, and the Justin Jefferson/Jordan Addison duo is lethal.

The Rams beat the Vikings earlier this season, but LA’s offense has low-key struggled lately, other than that point explosion against the Bills. I also think the stress of the wildfires could take its toll on the players, and understandably so. The X-factor here is Sam Darnold and whether he can bounce back from his shaky performance against the Lions. But I’ve picked against the Vikings enough times lately that I think I owe them a little bit of faith. After all, they’ve looked like a good team every other week this season.