The two top seeds, Denver and Seattle, come off the bye well rested and both play on Saturday against teams (Buffalo and the 49ers) who both played last Sunday and must travel on a short week.
Former coach Tony Dungy, now an NBC broadcaster, said this week that this is unfair and the league is putting TV ratings ahead of what is fair for the teams. But putting TV ratings first is business as usual for the league. Houston has to play on a short week Sunday because it played Monday night.
Dungy suggested eliminating the Monday night game on the wild card weekend, but the league wants the extra prime time game so teams who travel on a short week have to deal with it.
Here is a look at the four games:
—Buffalo at Denver Bills at 4:30 p.m. Saturday: Denver is a top seed and Buffalo is a wild card team but the game is pick em. That is because the Bills have superman Josh Allen at quarterback and the Broncos have second year quarterback Bo Nix. Allen played with foot, hand and knee injuries and still led the Bills to a fourth quarter comeback against the Jaguars last week. The odds are that Allen will outduel Nix.
—San Francisco at Seattle 8 p.m. Saturday: The key to this game is how the 49ers cope with their injuries. They will have Trent Williams back, who didn’t play in their loss to Seattle two weeks ago in the season finale. But they lost George Kittle last week and Nick Bosa is out for the year and Fred Warner is out at least another week. Still, they beat the Eagles in Philadelphia last week so they could pull off another upset, especially if Sam Darnold makes some mistakes.
—Houston at New England 4:30 p.m. Sunday: The Texans have the better defense, but the Patriots have the better quarterback in Drake Maye so this should be an interesting matchup. The Texans managed to beat the Steelers even though C.J. Stroud fumbled five times while the Texans got two defensive touchdowns. If Stroud plays better and the Texans dominant defense keeps Maye in check, the Texans could pull off an upset.
—Los Angeles Rams at Chicago 8 p.m. Sunday: The Rams were dominating the Panthers last week until Matthew Stafford suffered a finger injury and struggled and gave the Panthers a chance to get back in the game. But Stafford still managed to pull out the game in the fourth quarter. As long as he doesn’t have any lingering effect from the injury, the Rams figure to beat the Bears. The Bears pulled off a victory over Green Bay despite falling behind 21-3, but if they fall behind the Rams, they are not likely to pull off another comeback.
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