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NFL Wildcard Preview: The Road to a Lombardi Trophy Starts Here

It’s very fitting that at a time when the world is celebrating the dawn of a new year, twelve NFL franchises are celebrating the dawn of the league’s annual second season. Yes football fans, the post-season is finally here. The drama of Week 17 is in the rear-view mirror, Black Monday has come and gone, division titles have been decided, and now it’s time to get the festivities underway.

The action begins on Saturday afternoon and culminates Sunday evening, as fans will be treated to two glorious days of playoff football. While the Denver Broncos, the New England Patriots, the Seattle Seahawks, and the Carolina Panthers are off this week with first-round byes, their opponents for the Divisional round will be determined in short order. With so much on the line and so many exciting match-ups on the docket, let’s take a look at what we have to look forward to this weekend.

It all begins on Saturday at 4:35 when the fifth-seeded Kansas City Chiefs (11-5) travel to Indianapolis to take on the fourth-seeded AFC South Champion Colts (11-5). A month ago, this would have looked like a slam-dunk victory for the Chiefs, but the tables have turned quickly.

The Colts are currently one of the NFL’s hottest teams, having rattled off three straight victories including an upset win over the very same Chiefs they’re facing this weekend. The Colts have only allowed twenty point in these three games combined, a staggeringly low total, and one that has to be alarming for any Chiefs fan. The Colts have struggled to find consistency this season, but the pieces have come together in recent times. In short, in today’s NFL it is crucial to peak at the right time and the Colts have been doing just that.

The Kansas City Chiefs however, have been doing just the opposite.

After an improbable 9-0 start to the season, the Chiefs have dropped five of their last seven and enter Wildcard Weekend with much less media hype and fanfare than they’d become accustomed to. Resting 20 of 22 starters in a Week 17 tilt against the San Diego Chargers was a risky proposition and while the team enters the post-season relatively healthy, it will be interesting to see what effect the week off had on Andy Reid’s bunch.

If the Chiefs hope to re-discover their winning ways they’ll need to make some defensive adjustments. After allowing only 111 points during the nine-game winning streak, the Chiefs “D” has been gouged to the tune of 194 points over their final seven contests. Keeping the score down was a huge element of this team’s early good fortunes, and will be essential to finding similar success in the post-season. It’s nearly impossible to win shoot-outs against the Broncos and the Patriots.

Additionally and unsurprisingly, the Chiefs will need Jamaal Charles to continue playing the best football of his career (Hint: he likely will). Charles was sensational this year, compiling 1,980 scrimmage yards to go along with 19 total touchdowns in only 15 games this season. He would be a legitimate MVP candidate this year if not for some fella named Peyton Manning having a pretty good year in Denver.

This is a game that could genuinely go either way. A reasonably low-scoring affair is likely in the offing, and a memorable contest is almost assured.

On Saturday night, the NFC portion of the post-season commences in grand fashion with a match-up that has legitimate shoot-out potential when the sixth-seeded New Orleans Saints (11-5) head to Philly to tangle with the third-seeded NFC East Champion Eagles (10-6). On paper, it’s always difficult to bet against a team led by Drew Brees and Sean Payton, especially when you take into account the Saints’ vastly improved defense, but the circumstances of this game raise numerous issues to consider.

Put simply, the Saints have not been very good on the road this year. While “Who ‘Dat Nation” has compiled a perfect 8-0 record in the Super Dome this year, they’ve only managed a 3-5 road record to this point. There is reasonable cause to question what this team can accomplish in front of a passionate and vocal Philadelphia crowd. There is even more reason to wonder how this dome team will fare in what projects to be unfavorable temperatures on Saturday night.

Yes, it’s tough to bet against the Saints, but certainly not impossible. Chip Kelly’s Eagles are no joke. The winners of seven of their last eight games, this is another team that is heating up when it counts most. While the Eagles defense allowed the fourth-most yards per game (394.2)  on average this season, the Chipster’s offense more than picked up the slack. Led by the NFL’s leading rusher Le-Sean McCoy (1,607 yards) and NFL quarterback rating leader Nick Foles (119.2 QB rating), this team is as dynamic as any team in the NFC. There’s no doubt about it, this is a potential “game of the week.”

On Sunday at 1:00 p.m, the action continues with another AFC contest. The sixth-seeded San Diego Chargers (9-7) bolt into Cincinnati for a showdown with the third-seeded AFC North Champion Bengals. As proud as I am to have worked the word “bolt” into a sentence about the Chargers, it’s important to note what this team has accomplished this year.

Entering Week 17 as with one of the longest shots at a playoff berth, and buoyed by defeats suffered by the Miami Dolphins and the Baltimore Ravens, the Chargers edged past the short-handed Kansas City Chiefs in controversial fashion last weekend. While the events of that game have been replayed ad nauseum, it’s clear that rookie head coach Mike McCoy has earned his stripes this year, and that this team deserves to be here as much as any other.

The revitalization of Philip Rivers’ career has been nothing short of monumental. Coming off of a couple of down seasons, everyone was counting out the veteran signal caller entering 2013. There was talk that he just wasn’t the same player anymore. His arm strength supposedly wasn’t what it needed to be. There was chatter that this could be his last year in San Diego.

Doubting Rivers proved to be a huge mistake.

The veteran quarterback was brilliant this season (69.5% completion percentage, 32 touchdown passes, only 11 interceptions) as his team “charged” into the post-season. A legitimate contender for Comeback Player of the Year, it will be interesting to see what happens when Rivers and company match up with Mike Zimmer’s defense.

The Bengals have always seemed to be one of the NFL’s most under-rated teams. While multiple recent playoff berths haven’t amounted to much success, this team is built to contend year-in and year-out. The aforementioned Zimmer has maintained a great defense in spite of injuries to key players like Leon Hall and Geno Atkins, and play-makers like A.J. Green and the electric Giovani Bernard make the Bengals’ offense an exciting unit as well. While no one should sleep on the Chargers to pull of the upset here, this Bengals team is ready to silence its critics with a big home playoff win.

Wildcard Weekend concludes Sunday afternoon at 4:40 p.m. when the fifth-seeded San Francisco 49ers (12-4) travel to “Title Town” to face-off with the fourth seeded NFC North Champion Green Bay Packers (8-7-1). Without a doubt, the Packers are the league’s most unlikely and improbable division winner this year, not just because of their record but because of the fact that Aaron Rodgers missed seven games (and barely played in another) with a broken collarbone. When any NFL team faces an extended stretch without its franchise quarterback, its playoff hopes are usually crushed.

That wasn’t the case in the 2013 iteration of the NFC North.

The Packers managed a 2-4-1 record without their superstar, but that was enough to close the gap between the Pack their divisional rivals. After a dramatic Week 17 win over the Chicago Bears that featured one of the more exciting finishes of the season, the Packers find themselves hosting a home playoff game. Although Clay Matthews’ figures to be out for a while, the impactful returns of Rodgers and Randall Cobb have given the team a lift when it needed it most.

To defeat the team the dealt them a humiliating Divisional round loss a year ago however, they’re going to need all the help they can get.

The San Francisco 49ers are one of the best teams in the NFL, and it’s been that way for the better part of three years now. While the ‘9ers finished one game back of the NFC West champion Seattle Seahawks, you could argue that ‘Frisco enters the post-season as the hotter team. Closing out the season with six straight wins, this team is going to be very dangerous going forward.

During the winning streak, the 49ers have experienced something of a defensive renaissance, and on the other side of the football the return of Michael Crabtree has been beneficial to Colin Kaepernick and provided a nice offensive spark for the offense down the stretch. After suffering heart-breaking defeats in the NFC North title game in 2012 and the Super Bowl in 2013, this is a team that has a very real shot at winning it all in the 2014 post-season. They certainly have the talent to take that step. Even though they are very unlikely to host a home playoff game, the 49ers sparkling 6-2 road record this year makes them a legitimate contender to get it done.

This figures to be one of the most exciting weekends of football of the season. With four playoff games on the slate that could genuinely go either way and powerhouse teams waiting in the wings, high drama and higher stakes are the theme of the day. With just a little more than a month to go before history is made and the Lombardi trophy is hoisted once again, this is the week that will set it all in motion.

Happy New Year, everyone. Enjoy this week’s insanely exciting slate of games.

 

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Main Photo Credit: Ed Zurga

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