Every Saturday morning, I'll take a quick look at all the week's games, offering my own brief take on what I think will happen, as well as touching on significant injury news since our Weekly came out. I'll check in every so often over the course of the day to answer lineup questions, too.
What follows is a brief look at all the games with how I'd react in my own lineups to injury developments or other news. The official rankings are the ones in the Weekly. Those take precedence. But sometimes players are very close, and in those cases I'm glad to offer opinions on how I'd approach those situations. Sometimes I like certain players more or less than Ian, and sometimes I have different risk tolerance with injuries etc. If I don't get to your question, either I missed it (it happens) or the rankings are very clear.
Raiders at Bengals: "Let's take the team that played an overtime game into the wee hours of Monday morning and schedule them for the early game on Saturday." I get it: the NFL makes a determination of what's the weakest matchup with the least interesting national teams and makes that the first game of the weekend, every year. But I think they're underestimating the appeal of Joe Burrow, JaMarr Chase and the rest of the Bengals, who should be a playoff factor for the next few years, with the AFC North's other teams having either considerable questions or possible need for rebuild. While I think the Bengals should win this matchup (they did, fairly comfortably, when these teams met during the season), the Raiders have some ability, playing sound football to get into the playoffs -- almost like they didn't miss Jon Gruden at all, hmm. And these are still the Bengals, whose last playoff win was 31 years ago, with Sam Wyche (who I loved) at coach, Boomer Esiason at quarterback, and over a team that doesn't exist anymore (Houston Oilers, right, they're the Titans, whatever).
The Raiders can get some pressure on the quarterback, and Burrow is just a youngster in his first NFL playoff game (I guess he played in some big games at LSU). In general though, I'm expecting very good numbers from Joe Mixon especially, and probably credible ones from Burrow-Case-Higgins-Boyd. Raiders offense hasn't played at a high enough level for most of the season to think they come up with more than 20 points at a good Cincinnati defense. That won't be enough.
Patriots at Bills: "Mid-January...usually pretty cold in Buffalo this time of year. Maybe we schedule this game in the afternoon, when the bright yellow orb is highest in the sky?" "Nah, let's put this one in primetime!" I know, I'm sure there's a desire to put the Patriots in the primetime slot, and maybe there's an AFC requirement for this game as well. But it's not 40 years ago. Everyone is watching NFL playoff games, many are betting on these things, and many have fantasy playoff leagues. The NFL is making money hand over fist and the networks are shelling out a fortune to air them. Are you really trying to tell me that people wouldn't be watching any of the six games they put in primetime on Saturday night? Instead, they put the absolute coldest one there. It's ridiculous.
As for the game. Because it will be bitterly cold, it will probably be lower-scoring. Also because both defenses are worse against the run than the pass, and because at least one offense wants to run the ball, there will be fewer incompletions and clock stoppages, resulting in longer time-consuming drives, fewer points. Plus we've seen this matchup twice in the last six weeks, and rushing numbers were really good for New England both times and really good for Buffalo the time they figured out maybe it was better to do that than to come out passing the ball a lot in 40 mph winds. I think Buffalo is going to win; only issue is that they do occasionally run out of ideas in the red zone and struggled to finish drives with 7 points in the game they lost. I think we can pretty much say for certain New England won't pass until they have to, and their passing game is best avoided. Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs are great and they'll probably get their numbers, particularly with Allen likely to run a lot. But seems like Devin Singletary and Damien Harris will be the busiest guys.
Eagles at Bucs: Ian has said an Eagles upset seems possible, and I agree. No one has had a lot of success dealing with their ground game for much of the season, between the running backs and Jalen Hurts, and they should be able to control the clock with lengthy drives for long portions of this game. This will not be a blowout, most likely. But on the other hand, the Eagles eased into the playoffs with a ridiculously favorable closing schedule. In their last eight games, after starting out 3-6, they faced Teddy Bridgewater, Trevor Siemian, Daniel Jones, Zach Wilson, Taylor Heinicke (twice), and Jake Fromm, before taking Week 18 off (with Dak hanging 51 points on them). So their running game was key, but so was facing a whole bunch of quarterbacks and offenses way, way below Tom Brady and the Bucs.
If Leonard Fournette is out, which looks very possible, Tampa Bay will need to pass more, and they'll probably have success. Brady, Evans, Gronkowski, Perriman, Brate, KeShawn Vaughn; those guys should lead the way. For the Eagles I like Hurts, DeVonta, and Goedert, but am wary of the running back committee. I think it should be a 28-20 type of win for the Bucs, but allow I'm a little nervous about this one (not that I like the Bucs, but I've got some playoff teams that sort of rely on them winning a couple of games).
49ers at Cowboys: I'm surprised there is not more support nationally, it seems, for San Francisco winning this game. Game's in Dallas; big deal, lesser teams have won there this year. The Cowboys have the better quarterback and passing game, but San Francisco as the better running game, and one of the players of the year in Deebo Samuel. George Kittle is a difference-making tight end who could step up here. The Dallas defense was way better in opportunism during the season, but San Francisco was better in yards and points -- will get some stops along the way. Two talented teams, and since my formative years involved watching these teams meet in three straight championship games (which were always way better than the ensuring Super Bowl), I'm looking forward to what really ought to be one of the primetime games.
But let's be clear: Mike McCarthy, while I'm sure he has some offensive know-how to advance in his career and win a Super Bowl (one, despite 15 years of having Favre, Rodgers and now Prescott as his quarterbacks), is an idiot. Maybe that's too strong a word, but whatever, neither he nor his Mom is reading this column. He will not bring anything clever or creative to this close, competitive matchup of strong, talented teams. Maybe Kellen Moore will, but Kyle Shanahan will likely bring more. That's San Francisco's edge. Maybe it's not as much of an edge as Dak Prescott versus Jimmy Garoppolo, I'm not promising the 49ers will win. But I think they'll win. Weather won't be a factor and both offenses are really talented, so it should be a high-scoring affair. I'm not using many Cowboys in my playoff leagues, though.
Steelers at Kansas City: At some point a team is such a longshot it starts to look like it might shock the world. Ben Roethlisberger and the Steelers leaned into that this week -- "We don't have much chance." Realistically, on paper, they don't. Their best chance would involve Kansas City stubbornly emphasizing the pass, even with Pittsburgh being godawful against the run, giving T.J. Watt and company a chance to harass Patrick Mahomes into a couple of mistakes and swing the game that way. Andy Reid has, on occasion, been stubborn in a surprising playoff loss or two in his past. So maybe.
But I don't see how Pittsburgh's offense does much here. Their best receiver drops some key passes, their quarterback is old and crotchety, their running back will probably see a lot of stacked fronts. And if Kansas City just gives the ball to Darrel Williams (and Derrick Gore, and Jerick McKinnon) a ton, they'll move the ball regularly, mixing in some key shorter throws to Kelce and Hill and company. Anything is possible, but I'm expecting Pittsburgh to get checked out by 10-plus points. It's a shame we don't have Justin Herbert and the Chargers in the playoffs, but I guess we can all wait a year.
Cardinals at Rams: So how are we feeling about the NFL scheduling a Monday night playoff game? I think it's clear I'm a bit of a traditionalist, so I'm not entirely fond of it. I hope at least they put the winner of this game into a Sunday time slot next week, rather than sticking them in Green Bay at 4 p.m. on Saturday or something. (No, they'll put them there at 8 p.m. on Saturday, so as to embrace the likely 0 degree wind chill.) But I had nothing else going on next Monday night, so sure, NFL football, what the hey.
The Cardinals might not have James Conner or Chase Edmonds, making it seem like the 17-game season has taken its toll on some players, go figure. Probably Edmonds plays, with Eno Benjamin mixing in, but it should be a pass-happy game plan. Too bad Arizona doesn't have its difference-making wideout DeAndre Hopkins available, just No. 2 Christian Kirk and mostly washed A.J. Green. And Zach Ertz, who should be very busy in this game. For the Rams, only Matthew Stafford disintegrating into a sea of Pick Sixes seems to be a concern. But I'm all in on Cooper Kupp, Odell Beckham, Van Jefferson and Tyler Higbee -- I don't care if J.J. Watt is playing, I think the Rams are going to pass the heck out of the ball and have some success at it. Another higher-scoring game, but should be the Rams (who then get checked out next week).
Let me know where you think I'm wrong in these predictions. Feel free to post questions, if you have any, and I'll answer as best I can. Enjoy the games.