{"id":2462,"date":"2016-01-07T20:43:53","date_gmt":"2016-01-08T04:43:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=2462"},"modified":"2016-01-07T20:43:53","modified_gmt":"2016-01-08T04:43:53","slug":"nfl-playoff-picture-set-in-stone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/nfl-playoff-picture-set-in-stone\/","title":{"rendered":"Drama and excitement set to begin with NFL Playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"<pre>By: Jamal Smith \r\nSports editor<\/pre>\n<p>The final day of the regular season in the NFL didn\u2019t disappoint, and now after the dust has settled, all of the playoff matches are set in stone. <\/p>\n<p>There are 32 teams in the NFL, and now, after waiting 11 months for the regular season to conclude, the remaining 12 playoff teams face a do-or-die, win-or-go home scenario.  <\/p>\n<p>The first two games, the AFC Wild-Card games, kick off on Saturday, Jan. 9, 2016. <\/p>\n<p>First, the No. 5 Kansas City Chiefs (11-5) travel to Texas to play the No. 4 Houston Texans (9-7). Kickoff is at 1:45 p.m. Then at 5:15 p.m., the No. 6 Pittsburgh Steelers (10-6) travel to Ohio to play the No. 3 Cincinnati Bengals (12-4). <\/p>\n<p>On the final day of the regular season, the Denver Broncos (12-4) seized the No. 1 overall seed in the AFC with a victory over the San Diego Chargers, and with a New England Patriot (12-4) loss to the Miami Dolphins which slid New England into the No. 2 seed. <\/p>\n<p>Both Denver and New England earned a first week bye. Denver will host the lowest seeded victor from the Wild-Card matchups on Sunday, Jan. 17. New England will play the highest ranked victor on Saturday, Jan. 16, 2016.<\/p>\n<p>The NFC Wild Card games will kick off on Sunday, Jan. 10.<\/p>\n<p>The red-hot No. 6 Seattle Seahawks (10-6) travel to the east coast to face the No. 3 Minnesota Vikings (11-5) at 10:05 a.m. Then at 1:40 p.m., the No. 4 Washington Redskins (9-7) host the No. 5 Green Bay Packers (10-6).<\/p>\n<p>After a surprising season, the Carolina Panthers (15-1) dominated the regular season and look to continue their momentum into the playoffs. Because Carolina seized the No. 1 seed in the NFC, they got a first round bye and will host the lowest seed winner of the NFC Wild-Card games on Sunday, Jan. 17 at 10:05 p.m. <\/p>\n<p>The No. 2 Arizona Cardinals (13-3) also earned a first round bye and will host the highest seeded winner from the Wild-Card games on Saturday, Jan. 16 at 5:15 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>What makes this NFL Playoff so exiting is there is no clear-cut favorite. There will be drama and there will be excitement. Twelve teams remain but there will be only one winner.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The final day of the regular season in the NFL didn\u2019t disappoint, and now after the dust has settled, all of the playoff matches are set in stone. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":825,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/825"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}