There’s nothing cooler than saying “win or go house” with regards to the NFL playoffs. Everyone knows and have identified without end that that is the case, however truly saying it out loud rocks.
Throughout the following few days we are going to watch six playoff video games that carry this distinction. Twelve groups will enter, six will go away and legacies shall be altered without end. Drama. Chaos. Magnificence.
With regards to issues like these the chalk consequence is hardly the commonest one. Sooner or later we’re certain to see an upset or two with the favored staff getting bounced.
Listed here are two prospects of that all through Wild Card Weekend.
Houston Texans over Los Angeles Chargers
For the needs of our dialogue we shall be defining upsets alongside the traces of how our associates at FanDuel Sportsbook have these video games listed. That’s the most goal means in my thoughts and you’re caught right here so right here we go.
The Houston Texans are the most important house underdogs of the Wild Card Spherical as, on the time of this writing, they’re simply narrowly edging out the Los Angeles Rams. Houston is +3 whereas the Rams are +2.5, though clearly the Rams recreation just isn’t working below regular circumstances so defining their “house area benefit” this week is inconceivable.
It goes with out saying that this Texans staff has limped to the end line and finished in order AFC South Champions. You might recall that they dropped a literal deuce on the scoreboard on Christmas Day of all issues. Put merely, it has been unhealthy.
However can we actually belief the Chargers that a lot? I admit that a few of my tentativeness right here is needing to see it to imagine it. Possibly that’s the place I’m coming from deep within the recesses of my thoughts.
I’d simply say although that I feel we’ve got taken who the Texans have been recently, which has been very unhealthy and actually issues, and forgotten that they had been at one time limit a staff we believed enormously in. And whereas I acknowledge that the Chargers of Jim Harbaugh usually are not the Chargers of outdated… they continue to be the Chargers. If anybody can discover a solution to breathe life right into a down Houston staff… it’s them.
Inexperienced Bay Packers at Philadelphia Eagles
I’d prefer to suppose that I’m a really unbiased individual round right here, however it is best to know that I’m SB Nation’s resident Dallas Cowboys individual as I oversee our Cowboys web site Running a blog The Boys. Moreover, this time final 12 months the Cowboys had been getting ready because the No. 2 seed within the NFC and winners of the NFC East to host the No. 7 seed Inexperienced Bay Packers. Dallas misplaced that recreation, in embarrassing style, and have become the primary No. 2 seed to ever lose within the Wild Card spherical in NFL historical past (this has solely been potential since 2021 to be clear).
Can the Eagles fall sufferer to Jordan Love and Co. in the identical means that the Cowboys did? I feel that Philadelphia runs a a lot better soccer group than Dallas does so I’m not making an attempt to equate them in that sense, however past the Cowboys meme-ness of final 12 months’s lesson it did serve for example that this will certainly be finished.
I’d enterprise to say that we’ll suppose the Packers are some form of paper tigers what with how they haven’t overwhelmed any good groups. Isn’t that essentially the most predictable narrative, although? Oh! The staff who couldn’t beat anyone confirmed up within the playoffs! That’s such an in fact factor to occur.
Let me be very clear in saying that I feel the Eagles are the staff to beat within the NFC. In reality, let me be much more clear and say that I feel that is their most troublesome recreation standing between them and a visit to New Orleans. The Eagles could be an underdog in all chance to the Detroit Lions which might put them in a harmful area. It’s a very completely different factor to be the staff with nothing to lose, the way in which Dallas was final season, and that’s not precisely a job by which I feel all of us belief Nick Sirianni to tread flippantly.
If pushed I’d say that I really feel twice as assured in my Texans decide because the Packers one. However each stay potential in my thoughts. Let’s dance.
