VITO'S VIEWS

The Kansas City Chiefs take the first step in their bid for a repeat when they face the Browns.

The Chiefs figure to take that step and beat the Browns, but the surprising thing is they’re 10-point favorites. This is a team that has posted its last seven wins by one score. And last year they had to come from behind in all three playoff wins.

You might think the oddsmakers would be wary of all their close wins and be concerned they could be vulnerable against an up and coming Browns’ team.On the other hand, they are not likely to overlook the Browns after the Browns upset the Steelers last week.

Still, Andy Reid had two weeks to prepare. Look for the Chiefs to advance to the AFC title game.

–The Saints-Bucs game is all about Drew Brees, who will likely retire at the end of the season, vs. Tom Brady. The Saints will be trying to beat the Bucs for the third time, which isn’t as difficult as one might thing. Since 2002, seven teams went for the three-game sweep and five of them pulled it off. Brady figures to return next year win or lose and the odds are that he will lose. Brees has the better matchup against the Bucs’ defense. The last three years the Saints have lost in the playoffs on the final play so the Saints fans will be nervous if it is close at the end.

–The Packers have a big advantage at home against a warm weather team in January. Although they are dealing with injuries in the offensive line, Aaron Rodgers also gives them an edge over the Rams Jared Golf. He is back practicing full time, but has an injured thumb. The Packers should advance to the NFC title game.

–The Bills-Ravens game should be the feature attraction of the divisional around with a lot of emphasis on both young quarterbacks. Josh Allen has taken a major stride forward this year while Lamar Jackson finally won his first playoff game last week and now wants to show he can take the team deep into the playoffs. The Bills have the edge with the home field advantage.

–The big question this week is whether there will be an upset with all four home teams favored.

The Kansas City Chiefs and Lamar Jackson were the big winners during the NFL’s first tripleheader wild card weekend.

The Chiefs didn’t even play, but got a break when the Browns upset the Steelers. That means they will play against the Browns in the divisional round and if they beat the Browns, they will play the winner of the Bills-Ravens game. If the Steelers had won, they might have had to beat both the Bills and Ravens to get to the Super Bowl.

Jackson, meanwhile, doesn’t have to deal with the “can’t win in the playoffs” scenario after leading the Ravens to the victory over the Titans with the help of a defense that contained Derrick Henry.

Now he’s got a tough game at Buffalo. He also overcame a 10-point deficit after losing the first six times he was down by 10.

—The big losers were the Steelers. After going 11-0, they lost five of their last six games and were blown out by the Browns. They now haven’t won a playoff game the last four years and have to wonder whether Ben Roethlisberger has anything left in the tank. They had beaten the Browns 17 times in a row in Pittsburgh.

—Tom Brady showed his tank isn’t empty as he led the Bucs to the win over Washington. Among other things, he became the oldest player at 43 to throw a touchdown pass.

—Mike Tomlin, Frank Reich and Mike Vrabel all made questionable game management decisions that help cost their teams games. Vrabel faced a 2nd-and-2 at Baltimore 40, the Titans coach didn’t give Henry the ball. Instead, he dialed up two passes. Both were incomplete and he punted. Reich passed up a field goal to go for it on 4th-and-2 and Tomlin punted on 4th and one early in the fourth quarter. All three decisions backfired.

—Green Bay had the first-round bye and now has the home field edge in January. They get to host the Rams in their first game and if they win that one, they play the winner of the game between two aging quarterbacks – Brady and Drew Brees.

The NFL unveils its new playoff format this weekend with tripleheaders Saturday and Sunday.

Seven teams qualified from each conference with only the top seeds in each conference having byes. But the attractions probably aren’t as good as the league had hoped.

For example, the Bucs are favored by 10.5 points over the Washington football club and the Saints are favored by 9.5 over the Bears.

Adding more playoff games doesn’t mean they are better games, but the idea is to make more money.

—Two other games, Pittsburgh hosting Cleveland and Seahawks facing the Rams, also figure to be easy wins for the home teams although the spreads are only 3.5 and 4.5 points. Cleveland has been hit by the virus and the Rams don’t know the condition of quarterback Jared Goff. And the Bills are 6.5-point favorites over the Colts. The Bills appear to be the hottest team and figure to advance.–That leaves just one really good attraction – Ravens at Titans. Both teams are 11-5 and both teams like to run. The Ravens are the hotter team as they closed out the season with five consecutive wins. And they are favored by 3.5 points even though they are on the road and Lamar Jackson is still looking for his first playoff win after losing the last two years. Another first round loss would raise questions about whether Jackson can win in the playoffs. There may be more pressure on Jackson than any other player in the playoffs. The winner of this game and Buffalo are the two teams with a realistic chance of keeping the defending champion Chiefs out of the Super Bowl.

—The Chiefs have the bye but are not overwhelming favorites to repeat because they won seven one score games in a row before they lost their finale to the Chargers after they had clinched. They are three wins – two at home – away from repeating. The last team to repeat was the 2003-2004 Patriots. Can they do it? Stay tuned.

The two quarterbacks to watch in the playoffs are two veterans – Tom Brady and Drew Brees. This is probably Brees last season regardless of whether the Saints win or lose. He is likely headed towards the announcer’s booth. But Brady, trying to win his seventh Super Bowl and first without Bill Belichick, appears likely to keep playing.

The regular season comes to a close with all games on Sunday.

There wasn’t a Thursday night (New Year’s Eve) game and won’t be a Monday night game. The only primetime game is the Washington-Philadelphia game on Sunday night, which isn’t much an attraction.

Philadelphia has nothing to play for while Washington can clinch the NFC East with a losing record at 7-9. If the Washington team loses, the winner of the Dallas-Giants game will win the division with a losing record.

Dallas is 6-9 and the Giants are 5-10 and can host a playoff game and win the division at 6-10 with a victory over the Cowboys.

–In the AFC, three teams, the Chiefs, Steelers and Bills are in the playoffs and five teams are fighting for the other four spots, the Ravens, Browns, Dolphins, Colts and Titans. Tennessee, which plays Houston, Baltimore, which plays Cincinnati, Miami, which plays at Buffalo, and Cleveland, which plays Pittsburgh, are all in if they win. The Colts need a win over the Jaguars and help. A win gets them in if Baltimore, Cleveland or Miami lose.

–With the Titans playing Houston and Baltimore playing Cincinnati, those two teams are close to locks and that leaves Miami, Cleveland and the Colts fighting for the last two spots. The Miami-Buffalo and Pittsburgh-Cleveland games are the hardest to handicap because Buffalo and Pittsburgh have clinched playoff spots.

–In the NFC, Green Bay, New Orleans, Seattle and Tampa are in. The fifth spot goes to the NFC East winner with Washington, Dallas and the Giants fighting for that spot. That leaves two spots open. The Rams-Arizona winner gets one of them and Chicago gets the other one with a victory over Green Bay, which clinches the first-round bye with a win. If the Bears lose, they get in if Arizona loses. And the Rams get in if they lose to Arizona if the Bears lose.

–With seven teams in the playoffs in each division, there was speculation a wild card winner could get in with a losing record. As it turns out, the NFC East winner will be the only losing team in the playoffs.  

The NFL may relive some history this year.

In 1966, the Chiefs beat the Bills in the AFL title game to go to the first Super Bowl to face Green Bay. Kansas City is top seed in the AFC this year and Buffalo is looking like the second-best team, so they could play in the AFC title game.

 And Green Bay at 12-3 looks like it will get the home-field edge in the NFC. Green Bay beat Dallas in the 1966 to get to the Super Bowl, but that is not likely to be repeated even if Dallas wins the NFC East with a losing record. Seattle or New Orleans at 11-4 are more likely to make the NFC title game against Green Bay if the Packers make it.

–The 14-1 Chiefs don’t get many style points but they keep winning. They won another close one – seven in a row by one score – when Atlanta’s Younghoe Koo missed a late field 39-yard goal attempt that would have sent the game into overtime. Of the Chiefs’ last seven wins, three were by three points and one by two. The victory clinched the top seed so if an AFC team is going to keep the defending champion Chiefs out of the Super Bowl, they will have to do it at Arrowhead.

–Buffalo has looked more impressive lately than the Chiefs. They lost to the Chiefs in October but have won eight of nine since then. And they crushed Denver 48-19 a week ago and then routed the Patriots Monday night 38-9. The Bills will have to play a first-round game but it will be at home.

–The Bills’ rout of New England gave them a sweep of the Patriots for the first time in two decades. And showed there is a new king of the hill in the AFC East. The Patriots now face a rebuilding program under Bill Belichick starting with finding a quarterback of the future now that Tom Brady has departed.

–The Jaguars loss to Chicago and the Jets victory over Cleveland handed the Jaguars the top pick in the draft for the first time in their history. So, they get to draft Trevor Lawrence, who is supposed to be a once in a decade quarterback. They have yet to make the Super Bowl but they will be getting a new GM and coach with the goal of building a Super Bowl team around him.

–The NFC East winner will have a losing record after Washington lost to Carolina to drop to 6-9. But they can win the division at 7-9 if they beat the Eagles. If they lose to the Eagles, the winner of the Cowboys-Giants game wins the division. If the Giants win and Washington loses, the three teams would be 6-10 and the Giants would win the division on the tie break.

–The Steelers, the first team to start off 11-0 and then lose three in a row, are now the first team to start off 11-0, lose three in a row and win a game to go 11-4 and win the division. They rallied to beat the Colts, who remain tied with the Titans at 10-5 in the AFC South going into the final week of the season.