The Wild Card Round watchability rankings
The playoffs start this weekend with six games, some more (much more) appealing than others.
The NFL postseason will have a tough time living up to its completely bonkers regular season finale. That seems particularly true of the Wild Card Round, where every game but one is a rematch from earlier in the year. In fact, in two instances this weekend’s meeting will serve as a rubber match. On paper, that’s not terribly appealing.
But the NFL loves to keep us on our toes, and we know upsets happen in the playoffs. After all, two No. 1 seeds have faced off in the Super Bowl just 13 times in NFL history. And this year’s field — half of which is made up of teams that weren’t in the postseason last year — feels more wide open than it’s been in a long time.
So maybe the first week of the playoffs will be more exciting than it appears at first glance. To be fair, a few of the matchups, even if we’ve seen them before, have the potential to bring chaos. Based on that measure, as well as general watchability, we decided to rank the six games in the Wild Card Round by how much we’re looking forward to them. Let’s dig in.
1. 49ers at Cowboys
Previous matchup: Cowboys 41, 49ers 33 (2020 season)
For NFL fans of a certain age, the return of the Cowboys-49ers rivalry is the most anticipated part of this postseason. Most of the players, however, are not in that particular demographic:
Siiiigh.
Then again, it’s been more than seven years since these teams met when both were decent, and 25 years since they met when both were playoff bound (they did play a year ago, but that QB duel between Andy Dalton and Nick Mullens wasn’t exactly riveting).
Whether you factor in the storied history between the Cowboys and 49ers, or just based on the merits of the game itself, this is the most intriguing contest of the weekend. The two sides are evenly matched and fairly unpredictable.
The Cowboys have lost just once in the last six weeks, while the 49ers have lost just once in the last five weeks (both were to a fellow playoff team). They each have one of the most explosive offenses in the league … when everything’s clicking. They each have a formidable pass rush. Both rank in the top five in weighted DVOA, which emphasizes recent, more than early-season, performances. Neither has won a Super Bowl since the mid-90s; Dallas hasn’t even made an NFC title game in that time.
Whoever wins on Sunday afternoon has the capability to get hot and beat any other opponent in its path. Whoever loses has to go into the offseason unable to escape the narrative that all it does is disappoint, year in and year out, since it’s heyday decades ago.
My advice to both: Rule No. 76. No excuses. Play like a champion.
2. Cardinals at Rams
Previous matchups: Rams 30, Cardinals 23 (Week 14); Cardinals 37, Rams 20 (Week 4)
Kliff Kingsbury and Kyler Murray will finally make their postseason debut, and it’ll come against an NFC West foe. The Cardinals have been excellent on the road this season (8-1), but they’ve been mired in another late-season slump. Since their Week 14 loss to the Rams, they’ve won just one game, a three-point victory over the Cowboys.
The Rams have been on the opposite trajectory: They were riding a five-game winning streak until they let a late lead slip away last week in an OT loss to the 49ers. Still, the Rams won arguably the toughest division in the NFL, and their splashy midseason additions like Von Miller and Odell Beckham have found their footing with their new team. But was their collapse against the 49ers a bad omen, especially since Matthew Stafford — who owns the same number of playoff wins as Murray — has been so inconsistent lately?
Luckily, the Rams still have Aaron Donald, who sacked Murray three times in their previous matchup, and the NFL’s leading receiver, Cooper Kupp. Unlikely for them, J.J. Watt should be back for the Cardinals, and he was able to pressure Stafford the first time these two teams played and should help shore up Arizona’s third-down defense.
A loss would have huge implications for either team. If the Cardinals lose, they’ll face more questions about why they continually fade down the stretch. If the Rams lose, their all-in approach to free agency will have blown up in their faces.
Those stakes, plus the familiarity these opponents have with each other and the potential for fireworks, make the third meeting between these rivals hard to predict — and, of course, much-watch TV.
3. Patriots at Bills
Previous matchups: Bills 33, Patriots 21 (Week 16); Patriots 14, Bills 10 (Week 13)
The Patriots got a win the first time these teams played, but that was in the middle of a windstorm on a night when rookie quarterback Mac Jones threw only three passes. The Bills got a chance at revenge in regular weather three weeks later and nearly doubled their total yardage on a day when throwing the ball wasn’t borderline impossible.
That’s a harbinger of bad news for the Pats in the rubber match, but the weather in Buffalo could once again make this a low-scoring affair: the high Saturday evening is expected to clock in somewhere around seven degrees. We know most of New England’s roster will be ready for a brutally cold night. We don’t know how Jones will respond. This will be his NFL playoff debut and his first start ever where the temperature is below freezing at kickoff.
So we’ll get to see what wins out:
The league’s top defense vs. a shaky rookie quarterback on a frigid night with a rabid home crowd behind it, or
The league’s No. 2 defense vs. the team it owned for two decades thanks in large part to the strategy of head coach Bill Belichick.
Buffalo needs a cathartic win to fully slay the dragon and prove Tom Brady was their biggest demon, not Belichick. New England needs a win to prove it’s found a franchise quarterback and that its glory days aren’t over yet. It could be a great game. It could be a sloppy, frozen mess. Either would be a fitting next chapter for this rivalry.
4. Raiders at Bengals
Previous matchup: Bengals 32, Raiders 13 (Week 11)
The Raiders snuck into the playoffs behind a four-game winning streak and a stellar record in close games. Las Vegas went 7-2 in contests decided by six points or fewer and 4-0 in overtime games.
The Raiders’ midseason matchup with the Bengals was not one of those games. Cincinnati turned a 10-6 lead at halftime into a 32-13 victory in which Joe Burrow only threw for 149 yards and Ja’Marr Chase had only three receptions. Those two turned on the jets to finish the season, locking down the AFC North with wins over the Ravens and Chiefs before cruising into the postseason in a meaningless Week 18 loss to the Browns.
That means the Raiders and their 21st-ranked passing defense will have to face a quarterback who has thrown for 971 yards and eight touchdowns in his last two games and a rookie wideout who accounted for 391 of those yards. And we haven’t yet gotten into Tee Higgins, Tyler Boyd, or Joe Mixon.
Las Vegas has responded well to being counted out. The Raiders, playing behind interim head coach Rich Bisaccia after Jon Gruden stepped down for being an idiot and without their WR1 after he killed a woman in a fatal car accident, weren’t favored in any of those games in the four-win streak that pushed them to their first postseason appearance in five years. Now Derek Carr, who missed that 2016 Wild Card game with a broken leg, will finally make his playoff debut in his eighth season as a pro.
That’s a massive chip on his shoulder, and while the Bengals are the more talented team, there’s no accounting for the fire Vegas is going to bring to Cincinnati Saturday afternoon.
5. Eagles at Buccaneers
Previous matchup: Bucs 28, Eagles 22 (Week 6)
Tom Brady vs. the Eagles in the postseason, you say? Mwahahaha:
OK, so that was a totally different Eagles team and Brady now plays for, literally, a totally different team. He is, however, still Tom Brady, who continues to set records in his mid-40s.
In October, the defending champions held on to beat the Eagles in a one-score contest. The Bucs built a 28-7 lead, but Philly never surrendered and closed the gap to 28-22 before Brady led a nearly six-minute drive to close out the game.
Earlier this week, Brady praised the Eagles for their toughness, and while it’s possible he’s just talking up an opponent, they might be a more challenging out than they look — just like the Bucs’ first-round matchup against another NFC East team, Washington, in last season’s Wild Card Round.
The Eagles are not particularly entertaining, in part because they run the ball more than any other team in the league. Meanwhile, Tampa has had a lot of distractions lately (mostly injuries, but also AB’s nonsense). But it’s the playoffs, and we know how this will go. Brady will have his team focused, and even if the product is ugly like Tampa’s win over Washington a year ago, there’s little chance it won’t end in another postseason victory for TB12.
6. Steelers at Chiefs
Previous matchup: Chiefs 36, Steelers 10 (Week 16)
This game didn’t need to happen. Brandon Staley could have saved his timeout, the Chargers and Raiders could have tied in Week 18, and the world would have been rid of Ben Roethlisberger forever. Instead, the Chargers kinda/sorta found a way to call a game-losing timeout and the world will be forced to once more watch the Weeble-shaped quarterback who runs in hitching slow motion like all of us do in our nightmares.
These two teams met in Kansas City the day after Christmas and the Chiefs took a 36-3 lead in the fourth quarter. Any hope Roethlisberger will rise to the occasion for a storybook, miracle run through the playoffs has thoroughly been dispelled by awful showings in his Heinz Field and regular season finales. There is no switch he can flip to be good again and leave Pittsburgh on a high note. Instead he’s going to throw the ball 40 times for something like 168 yards and make us all feel like we’re watching an elderly stray dog being led to the euthanasia room at the local pound.
T.J Watt will be pretty fun to watch, though.