Seattle served notice on Saturday that they are the Super Bowl favorites with a dominating defensive performance against the 49ers, a 13-3 win that probably wasn’t as close as the score would indicate. Tampa Bay stayed alive with a win over Carolina, but, alas, the Falcons victory over the Saints on Sunday allowed the Panthers to sneak into the playoffs with an 8-9 record. Both the Eagles and Bears lost on Sunday, so Chicago kept the #2 NFC seed. The Jaguars and Texans both won, meaning the Jags won the AFC South while the Texans are a wild-card seed for the first time in franchise history. The Broncos maintained their #1 AFC seed with a win over the Chargers, and the Pats kept their second seed by beating the Fins. The Rams are the #5 NFC seed, while the Niners slipped to #6. And the Steelers beat the Ravens Sunday night, thanks to a last-second missed field goal which capped a wild fourth quarter. Pittsburgh wins the division and will host a playoff game this weekend.
Here are this week’s lines. All spreads taken from ESPNBet on Monday the 5th at 10:45 am CT.
The lines all seem pretty reasonable to me except Bears/Packers. Even ignoring the last game where the Packers were resting the starters, they’ve haven’t looked impressive in a while. Maybe people are expecting Love to be back at 100%, but they’ll still miss Parsons. I see an easy win for the Bears.
Which obviously happens to me as well. ESPN lists the city, along with a miniscule logo to identify the team. I did the same thing a couple of weeks ago with the Giants & Jets.
No excuse, to be sure, but I am old and getting older.
I got a chuckle reading an article on “what the Pack must do to win”: prevent turnovers, force turnovers, and score early and often. Yeah, that will usually do it. Good to see the sportswriters really digging deep in their analysis.
I STILL have to do mental gymnastics for pretty much every relocated team. If I am told just the city, its former team immediately comes to mind. If I am given the nickname (and it hasn’t changed), it’s always their former city. I’m double buggered if the nick changed during the move.
I agree, it seems like two wild card teams (6 total) per conference was the right amount. But you know those two extra games mean extra money for the NFL.
I have to agree with you. Even earlier in the season, before the injury bug bit them hard, and they lost Parsons, Tucker Kraft, Elgton Jenkins, etc., they were still playing inconsistent ball.
IKR? Though, it pains me to realize that they have now been in Indianapolis for considerably longer (42 seasons) than they were in Baltimore (31 seasons).
Edit: For that matter, the Titans have now been in Tennessee for almost as long (29 seasons) as they were in Houston (37 seasons).
