By: Jamal Smith Sports Editor
Now there are eight. Eight teams remain in the NFL playoff picture and will face off this weekend to determine who will advance to the conference championship games.
The Wild Card play-in games lived up to the hype. For the first time in the history of the NFL playoffs, all four road teams advanced and will play the top-two teams from the AFC and NFC, who earned a first week bye and got an extra week of preparation.
The first game of the weekend pits last year’s champions, the New England Patriots, against the red-hot Kansas City Chiefs. The game will kick off on Saturday, Jan. 16 at 1:35 p.m.
The Chiefs are the hottest team in the NFL. After going 1-5 at the start of the season, Kansas City won their last 10 games and is coming off a 30-0 beat down of the Houston Texans in the Wild Card play-in game.
New England on the other hand, won their first 11 games, but since then has gone 2-4 in their last six, dropping their last two games of the regular season. Although Kansas City appears to have the advantage, New England has three things that the Chief’s lack: Bill Belichick, Tom Brady and four NFL Championships in the last 15 years.
The Saturday evening game, which has a start time of 5:15 p.m., is an NFC rematch between the Arizona Cardinals and the Green Bay Packers. In that week 16 matchup, Arizona destroyed the Packers 38-8, sacking Packer’s quarterback Aaron Rodgers eight times; two of which resulted in fumbles returned for Arizona touchdowns.
Green Bay defeated the Washington Redskins 35-18 last week in the Wild Card round, while Arizona had a first round playoff bye.
On Sunday, Jan. 17 at 10:05 a.m., the Seattle Seahawks travel to Carolina to face off against Cam Newton and the Carolina Panthers. Seattle was victorious in their Wild Card play-in game, barley squeezing by the Minnesota Vikings in sub-zero temperatures because of a last-second field goal miss from 27-yards out by Viking’s kicker Blair Walsh.
The Panthers dominated the regular season, only losing one game the entire season and earning a first round playoff bye. Don’t count Seattle out though; they won the championship two years ago and would have been victorious last year if not for a controversial play call in the final minute of last year’s Super Bowl.
The Divisional Playoff Rounds close out on Sunday, Jan. 17 at 1:40 p.m. when the Denver Broncos host the Pittsburg Steelers. Pittsburg is coming off an 18-16 win over the Cincinnati Bengals in last week’s Wild Card match.
Payton Manning is slated as Denver’s starting quarterback after replacing backup Brock Osweiler late in Denver’s final regular season match up. The big question coming into the game is whether Manning has one last playoff run.
All questions will be answered by Sunday. Eight teams will turn to four, and the weak will be separated from the strong.
