Wild Card Weekend was just that - wild - and I went 2-2 on my picks.
Let's move on to this week's matchups:
Saturday at 4:30pm ET -
Baltimore (5-seed) @ Pittsburgh (2-seed)
A huge matchup against one of the best rivalries of football right now. These teams are virtually mirror images of each other, built to punch each other right in the mouth and keep punching. I think the Ravens are on the rise with their retooled offense and while they're a great playoff road team, I find it hard to go against a gamer like Ben Roethlisberger, who is one of those guys who goes out there and puts it all on the line to win the game. Defensively, they have Troy Polamalu doing the same thing. I love the intensity of Joe Flacco and Ray Lewis for Baltimore, but at the end of the day, I think Ben can make the big play in the big moment and Joe isn't quite there yet.
Saturday at 8:00pm ET -
Green Bay (6-seed) @ Atlanta (1-seed)
The two best teams in the NFC are matched up here and I have zero doubt that the winner goes to the Super Bowl. They played a close match in the regular season and while part of me thinks momentum can carry the Packers through the Falcons, I'm sticking to my guns on one of my steady rules of picks over the past two years - don't go against the Falcons at home. I think Aaron Rodgers is a better gamer than Matt Ryan, but I think the healthy Falcons team is better overall than a Packers team ravaged by injury over the season. The Falcons play mistake-free football and their home-field advantage gives them the edge here for me.
Sunday at 1:00pm ET -
Seattle (4-seed) @ Chicago (2-seed)
I don't like either team in the playoffs. As I think about these teams, I see one who stumbled into the playoffs due to a weak division and another who stumbled into the playoffs due to lucky break after lucky break. But one of them has to win and go to the NFC Championship. This is less about which team is better, to me, than it is which team is less worse. It boils to to which I like less... the Seahawks on the road, or Jay Cutler in a pressure situation. Given that it's going to be absolutely freezing out there, I'm going with the home team, perhaps against my better judgment.
Sunday at 4:30pm ET -
NY Jets (6-seed) @ New England (1-seed)
All week long, the Jets have yap-yap-yapped. And the Patriots maintain their usual business-like silence. I'm not sure how a team can yap-yap-yap when the last time these teams played, it was a 45-3 obliteration that made one team look like they were still playing high school ball. I consider Tom Brady one of the top-5 all-time QBs and one of the best playoff QBs - I'm not going against him in the playoffs after he's had the most masterful regular season of his career. I don't expect 45-3 to be the score again, but I think this will still likely be the widest margin of victory of the weekend... I get the feeling that Belicheck and the Patriots like rubbing the Jets' nose in it after all the yap-yap-yap... and to be honest, I don't blame 'em.
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