Super picks for Super Wild Card Weekend
Three days, six games, and maybe an upset or two? Let's get SUPER excited for the start of the playoffs.
Here’s something I didn’t discover until about 24 hours ago. The NFL is calling the first round of the playoffs “Super Wild Card Weekend” now. I guess it’s a new nickname adopted this year because the games are spread across three days?
I don’t care enough to verify that, but I can get behind the change. Elevating Wild Card Weekend to Super Wild Card Weekend is unnecessary and grandiose, and that makes it perfectly on brand for the NFL. Plus, I’m excited that we’re getting a Monday night playoff game, even if it’s not the fairest situation for the winner of Cardinals-Rams, who will have a shorter turnaround in the Divisional Round.
Speaking of next week, the Packers and Titans are at home resting up for their first postseason opponent. The dozen other playoff teams will take the field this weekend, and the odds for those six matchups are kinda all over the place.
Let’s take a look at the lines, as of Thursday night (via DraftKings). The favored team is in bold, and as you can see, Vegas is all about homefield advantage to open up the playoffs:
Raiders at Bengals (-5)
Patriots at Bills (-4)
Eagles at Bucs (-9.5)
49ers at Cowboys (-3)
Steelers at Chiefs (-12.5)
Cardinals at Rams (-4)
If the bettors are right, then this Wild Card Round will be a departure from recent ones — the road team has won 10 of the last 14 games in this round, including four of six last season. As unlikely as a repeat seems this year, stranger things have happened … like, just about everything from last Sunday. So who knows, maybe this weekend will be more unpredictable than it looks.
Sarah’s picks
I promised that I would return to picking every game for the postseason, and I am a woman of my word … though this first slate is making me regret that decision just a little. I can’t decide if not predicting many upsets is a sound strategy — perhaps this year is an outlier! — or if I’m failing to learn from history. But based solely on the matchups, I’m just not feeling much love for the underdogs.
Here’s how I see the Super Wild Card Round playing out, with my picks in bold:
Raiders at Bengals
Patriots at Bills
Eagles at Bucs
49ers at Cowboys
Steelers at Chiefs
Cardinals at Rams
I’m feeling most confident in this pick
The Steelers are not a very good team, but they are a lucky one. That is, they’re lucky to have made the playoffs in the first place. But they’re unlucky enough to meet the Chiefs, who are a terrible matchup for Pittsburgh. We know that because we just saw this game over Christmas weekend, and it was a bloodbath. The Chiefs built a 23-0 lead by halftime, and the Steelers didn’t get into the end zone until there were three minutes remaining in the game.
In several ways, the Steelers resemble the team that helped send them into the playoffs: the Raiders. They have a middle-of-the-pack defense with a star pass rusher, a mediocre offense that doesn’t do anything particularly well, a kicker who can come through in the clutch, and a knack for winning close contests.
FWIW, the Chiefs also smashed the Raiders. Twice. (Another reason why the Raiders weren’t content with a tie last Sunday. If they had tied rather than beaten the Chargers, the Raiders would be playing the Chiefs this weekend.)
Pittsburgh is still a veteran team with playoff experience and a quality head coach. The Steelers won’t go down without at least somewhat of a fight in what should be (please god) Ben Roethlisberger’s final game. And this year’s version of Kansas City is vulnerable and could as easily exit the playoffs early as it could win the whole thing.
But I haven’t seen any evidence in the past few weeks that suggests the Steelers are capable of pulling off this weekend’s biggest upset. So I hope you’re all excited to watch this unfold:
I’m feeling least confident in this pick
Surprise, but the game with the closest odds is also the one I had most trouble deciding on because both the 49ers and Cowboys run hot and cold. Which Cowboys team will show up: the one that’s won five of their last six and scored 50+ points in two of the final three weeks, or the one that fell to the Cardinals at home (their only decent competition in that span)?
And what about the 49ers? They looked incompetent in the first half against the Rams last week, only to find their spark during a furious fourth-quarter rally and eventual OT win.
To me, this matchup comes down to two factors: quarterback play and turnovers. Dallas has the edge in both.
Dak Prescott, like Jimmy Garoppolo, has struggled with injury and consistency in the second half of the season, but he’s been in Comeback Player of the Year form again lately. Over the last four weeks, Prescott has completed 71.6 percent of his passes for 13 touchdowns, zero interceptions, and a 124.1 passer rating. In his last four games, Garoppolo has five touchdowns to four interceptions (yet two game-winning drives against playoff-bound teams!).
Although Garoppolo has more playoff wins than Prescott, Prescott has been the steadier quarterback, not just in recent weeks but throughout their careers. If I’m going to put my faith in one, it has to be Prescott.
The Cowboys finished the regular season ranked No. 1 in the league in turnover margin and takeaways (the 49ers were in the bottom third in both categories). I think Dan Quinn’s defense can force the Niners into making a costly mistake or two, especially considering Quinn’s familiarity with Kyle Shanahan’s offense.
I also know that believing in the Cowboys in the postseason has been a futile exercise in the last quarter of a century, so I can’t be too optimistic about their chances in what should be the weekend’s best game.
Why I made this upset pick
It’s always dangerous to count on a team that’s limped into the postseason. The Cardinals have just one win in their last five tries, a three-point victory over Dallas. In that same timeframe, the Rams’ only loss came in overtime to the 49ers last week.
But Matthew Stafford’s shakiness in recent weeks — not to mention his zero-win playoff record and toe injury — makes it tough to trust him with so much on the line for his team.
The Cardinals have sorely missed DeAndre Hopkins since he was injured in their previous loss to the Rams, and he won’t be back to save them this week either. But I think Kyler Murray, in his playoff debut, will rise to the occasion, just like he has almost every time Arizona has been on the road this season (the Cards finished the year with a league-best 8-1 away record). And just like he’s done through most of his football career, dating back to high school.
It also helps his cause that LA’s secondary is so banged up that the team just signed 37-year-old Eric Weddle, who had been retired since 2019.
The last time these two rivals met in December, Murray didn’t have a great game, statistically, but I remember watching and thinking he didn’t play as poorly as his box score looked. His problem then was 1) Aaron Donald and 2) turning the ball over. There’s nothing much he can do about the former, but if Murray can clean up the mistakes this time, then that should be enough for the Cardinals to win the rubber match.
Christian’s Picks
The bad news: I fell off the regular season pace that earned me back-to-back Pickwatch straight-up regular season titles the past two years.
The good news: I still rallied over the final three weeks of the season to hit 66 percent of my picks and finish tied for 19th among ~400 NFL writers. That’s the rough equivalent of going from 2018 Clemson to 2021 Clemson, which isn’t ideal but I’m still cool with it.
Now here comes the tough part: the playoffs. Traditionally I spend the postseason overthinking picks and trying to cram upsets where there shouldn’t be any. I feel like that’s not going to change in 2022, but hell I’m willing to give it a shot. As a football fan I love the new expanded playoff format, but as an NFL writer I’m not thrilled about back-to-back 14-hour work days followed by a primetime game on Day 3. The NFL never thinks about the people who truly get hurt by its product: the writers.
Welp, let’s dive into the breach once more and see if we can’t get some playoff picks right. My breakout picks are below and my full slate, along with a roundtable I did with two other experts, can be found over at Pickwatch.
Pick I like the most
Kansas City Chiefs (-750) over the Pittsburgh Steelers
Listen, let’s start our playoff picks off on the right foot. We know how this game is going to turn out. We saw the Chiefs take a 36-3 lead the last time these teams met a mere three weeks ago. Even Ben Roethlisberger knows how this all looks.
Is there a chance the Steelers win Sunday night? Sure! Most of the elements of 2020’s swarming defense remain and if the key to toppling Patrick Mahomes is truly quarterback pressure, there’s no one you’d want on your side more than T.J. Watt. But Roethlisberger is playing as though he’s roughly a decade older than he looks, and he already looks like a guy who’s a few years away from retiring from the plant and moving his permanent residence to a corner stool at a townie bar.
Kansas City’s revived defense still has holes in its secondary, but Roethlisberger isn’t the quarterback to exploit them. His average completion happens just 4.6 yards downfield — second-lowest in the NFL and far, far away from where he’d be able to burn Daniel Sorensen for a touchdown. Pittsburgh will likely dial up a steady dose of Najee Harris handoffs to counter that, but settling for three yards at a time is a rough strategy against an offense as explosive as the Chiefs.
Kansas City has looked more mortal in 2021 than in either of its last two AFC-winning seasons. There are several teams who could exploit that in the postseason. It’s a pretty safe bet Pittsburgh won’t be that team.
Pick I overthought, so you should probably fade it
Buffalo Bills (-205) over the New England Patriots
New England has crashed back to earth over the last month — it’s 1-3 en route to falling out of the AFC’s top seed and into sixth place. Each of those games has seen the Patriots dig an early hole before climbing out to make things somewhat competitive in the second half before losing by double digits. Their only win since December 6 came against the Jaguars, which barely counts.
But New England also has Bill Belichick in a playoff game. While Buffalo has homefield advantage, Bills fans don’t seem super excited about the primetime matchup; Saturday’s get-in price of $23 is by far the lowest of any game this weekend. The Patriots already have one awful-weather win in western New York this season, and another could be on deck.
That’s what we’re getting Saturday night; frigid, awful temperatures and a high of around 7 degrees at kickoff. That’s a concern for Mac Jones, who has never played a football game in college or the pros where the temperature has been below freezing to start things off. He donned a wetsuit for that December 6 game in Orchard Park (official temperature: 36 degrees), then threw three passes in a windstorm. How’s he going to react if he has to play from behind like he has in three of his last four games?
Josh Allen can probably handle this. He scorched the Pats for 378 total yards and three touchdowns in Week 16 while converting 9 of 16 third- or fourth-down attempts. But he also threw three interceptions in a home win against the woeful Falcons in his coldest start of 2021 in Week 17, leaving room for doubt.
Ultimately, the Bills are the hotter team and field the only defense in the AFC better than New England’s. I’m rolling with Buffalo by virtue of its ability to handle the Patriots in Foxborough less than a month ago, but there’s always a significant chance Belichick makes me feel stupid for doubting him.
Upset pick I like the most
Arizona Cardinals (+160) over the Los Angeles Rams
Speaking of teams that backed into the postseason, the Rams had a chance to clinch the NFC West with a win in Week 18 and instead allowed the 49ers to rally from a 17-0 deficit. They still won the division because the Cardinals, facing a 6-10 Seahawks team, found a way to lose by eight.
So here we are, staring down a matchup between a quarterback who has yet to win a playoff game in his 13-year career (Matthew Stafford) and a head coach who has gone 5-10 over the final five weeks of the regular season in his short NFL career (Kliff Kingsbury). This is a battle of a very movable object and an extremely stoppable force.
Stafford has become a concern for the Rams. Since the season’s halfway mark, he’s regressed from a viable MVP candidate to a middle-of-the-pack passer:
Unfortunately for the Cardinals, Murray has been worse. Arizona has skidded from 8-1 to 11-6, which includes a loss to the Rams in that gruesome finish. But Murray’s offense outgained LA by nearly 100 yards that day. The Cardinals threw a red zone interception and had two drives into Rams territory end via turnover on downs. Los Angeles won the turnover battle 2-0 and turned those two opportunities into 14 points.
My hope is Arizona has learned from those mistakes. On a play-by-play basis they’ve been the better team in each matchup with the Rams this season. Betting on the Cardinals to play up to their potential late in the year is usually a fool’s errand. Welp, call me stupid for this one.