—There should be more drama in the NFC than the AFC in the wild card weekend. The second and third AFC seeds, the Bills and Ravens, are heavily favored to beat the Broncos and Steelers this weekend. But the NFC games figure to be closer although the top seeded Lions are favored to go to the Super Bowl after getting the bye this weekend. The top seeded Chiefs will get the AFC bye but cud face a tougher road to the Super Bowl as they go for a three peat.
–The weekend starts with the Chargers at the Texans on CBS at 430 p.m. Saturday with the Steelers at the Ravens in the second game at 8 pm on Prime. There will be a tripleheader on Sunday with Denver at the Bills at 1 p.m on CBS, the Packers at the Eagles at 4:30 pm on Fox and the Commanders at the Bucs at 8 p.m.on NBC and Peacock. The Monday nightgame on ESPN and ABC will have the Vikings at the Rams although the game may be moved because of the wild fires in Los Angeles.
–The Bills figure to beat Denver, the seventh seed in the AFC, while the Ravens, the third seed, are expected to beat the sixth seeded Steelers. The Ravens and Steelers usually play close games but the Steelers lost their last four games of the season and Mike Tomlin doesn’t have a good history in the playoffs in the last decade.The teams split the two regular season games, but the Ravens won the second game 34-17 in Baltimore and again have the home field edge. If the Bills and Ravens both win, they will play next weekend. The fourth seeded Texans have a tough assignment against the fifth seeded Chargers. The winner of this game will go to Kansas City if both the Bills and Ravens win.
–In the NFC, the second seeded Eagles virtually had last week off after they rested several starters last week, including Saquan Barkley who lost a chance to break Eric Dickerson’s single season rushing record. But the Packers could be a tough test even though they are a seventh seed because three teams from the NFC North made the playoffs. Last year the Packers were the seventh seed and knocked off the Cowboys in their first game. But the Packers are 0-5 against the Eagles, Lions and Vikings this year. The third seeded Tampa Bay Bucs take on the sixth seeded Commanders as rookie Jayden Daniels makes his rookie debut for the Commanders.
–Minnesota isn’t happy about being the fifth seed despite winning 14 games and will be favored to beat the fourth-seeded Rams, who lost their homefield edge when the game was shifted because of the wildfires in Los Angeles.
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