The NFL season has come to a close and Week 18 certainly has delivered quite a few change-ups to the Playoff Bracket. Here are some notable seeding changes and previews heading into the NFL Wild Card Weekend.
NFL Wild Card Weekend Texans Vs. Browns: Let's Get Stroud!
KIcking off the NFL Wild Card Weekend is the Houston Texans Vs. the Cleveland Browns on Saturday at 4:30 pm Eastern Time. Like most other games this weekend, this game holds two unlikely contenders with extremely interesting stories behind their playoff journeys.
Due to a last second crumble of the Jacksonville Jaguars season, the Houston Texans will host the Cleveland Browns in the first Wild Card Playoff game. The Texans ended up winning the AFC South Division Title thanks to their win over the Indianapolis Colts and the loss of the Jaguars to the Tennessee Titans. The Jaguars went from at one point in the season being 8-3 to ending the season at 9-8, missing out on the playoffs. As the Browns have already clinched the Wild Card spot the week prior in a win over the New York Jets.
Now, this game holds a story of young and old, offense and defense, rushing and passing. This game will shake up to being quite an exciting one given that these teams in essence are opposites.
Let's begin with the young and the old. Young, being the rookie star quarterback for the Texans, C.J. Stroud. Stroud, in his impressive rookie year, finds himself in the upper portion of quarterbacks statistically while leading the Texans to a Division Title, let alone the playoffs, in his rookie campaign. While on the other side of things, Browns quarterback Joe Flacco has been around the block a few times. At the age of 38 and a Super Bowl MVP under his belt, Flacco comes into this matchup with a bit more experience compared to his younger adversary.
Offensively, the Houston Texans rank closer to the top in production, but watching their games you can see this team has a lot of young talent ready to erupt. Although the Texans do not commit to their rushing attack as often as the Browns do, they can still move the ball down the field efficiently through the air. Now for the Browns, even without both their starting quarterback in Deshaun Watson and running back Nick Chubb, they have been productive in scoring points. It also helps that Cleveland's defense ranks number one in the NFL and will definitely look to make the young Texans offense commit some rookie mistakes.
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NFL Wild Card Weekend Chiefs Vs. Dolphins: Hill's Return to Arrowhead
The second game scheduled on Saturday for the NFL Wild Card Weekend is the Kansas City Chiefs Vs. the Miami Dolphins at 8:00 pm Eastern Time. After the outcome of last Sunday night's football game between the Buffalo Bills and the Miami Dolphins, we saw the Bills hang around in a close game till they eventually outlasted Miami and closed out the game. Being that the Bills defeated the Dolphins and stole the AFC East Division Title, the Dolphins were bumped down to the wild card spot and now have to travel to Arrowhead to face Kansas City.
As fans, we were cheated earlier in the season of super star wide receiver Tyreek Hill's return to his former team's home stadium; as these teams met back in Week 9, but instead played at a mutual stadium in Germany. In this game we saw Hill not put up impressive numbers like we are used to, as Miami fell to the Chiefs in this game.
Going into this game, the Dolphins may look to Hill more often than not as they are a little banged up on offense. Tyreek was seen limping during portions of the Sunday night game and Miami had to play against the Bills without their lead running back Raheem Mostert and second option wideout Jaylen Waddle.
The Chiefs also have problems of their own as well. Their defense ranks second in total defense, but their offense has been the story of Kansas City's struggles. Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes has been boiling with frustration all season dealing with inconsistency at the wide receiver position; seemingly the Chiefs wideouts catch yellow flags more often than passes from the electrifying quarterback.
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NFL Wild Card Weekend Bills Vs. Steelers: Who Would've Thought?
Moving on to Sunday in the NFL Wild Card Weekend, we have the Buffalo Bills Vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers at 1:00 pm Eastern Time. What a wild ride it has been for these two teams. The Steelers snuck into the playoffs with a win against the Baltimore Ravens, as the Ravens opted to rest their starters, and at the demise of the Jaguars in their loss to the Titans.
The Bills soldiered their way into the playoffs as the AFC East Division Title holders despite the wheels of the team seemingly to have fallen off in Week 10. After their Week 10 loss to the Denver Broncos, the Bills fired offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey and elevated Joe Brady to the coordinator spot. Their offense began to click as they won seven of the remaining eight games left in the season. The Buffalo Bills have become one of the hottest teams in the NFL and if Josh Allen can minimize his turnover tendencies, they have a chance to really go on a run.
For the Steelers, this season should be a testament as to how good of a coach Mike Tomlin is, as he holds a 15 season streak in coaching a team with a winning record. And bringing this year's team to a winning season was definitely no easy feat. Like the Bills, the Steelers also let their offensive coordinator Matt Canada go during the season. A season in which the Steelers saw three different starting quarterbacks until ultimately sticking with Mason Rudolph. Adding to Pittsburgh's struggles, it looks like their defensive leader linebacker T.J. Watt will be out for this game with a MCL sprain; making it even harder for them to game plan against the dynamic Bills quarterback Josh Allen, as he demonstrated to be very difficult to slow down in Sunday night's game against Miami.
NFL Wild Card Weekend Cowboys Vs. Packers: Times are Changing
It seems as if a wave of NFL "revenge games" have taken over the Wild Card Weekend, and this may even leak over into the Divisional round as well depending on the outcomes. On Sunday during the 4:30 pm Eastern Time slot, we have the Dallas Cowboys Vs. the Green Bay Packers. This game doesn't miss out on the drama, as it is built up to be Dallas' head coach Mike McCarthy facing his former employer in the Green Bay Packers. The Packers, in the first year removed from quarterback Aaron Rodgers, made the playoffs; being led by young quarterback Jordan Love during his first year starting under center.
Both teams seem to be red hot as the Cowboys look every bit, if not even more so, like the contenders they usually are each year. Green Bay after a shaky first half of the season caught onto a three game win streak late to close out a wild card playoff spot. As Dallas hosts the Packers, McCarthy might be on the hot seat if he were to fall to his former team in yet another Cowboys playoff blunder. If the Cowboys coach were to lose to a youthful Packers team, he could be seeing himself searching for a new coaching job after what would be another disappointing playoff run.
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NFL Wild Card Weekend Lions Vs. Rams: Homecoming For Matthew Stafford
The NFL script writer should really be tipped some money after writing up these matchups, especially this one. The Sunday Night Wild Card Playoff game is the Detroit Lions Vs. the Los Angeles Rams at 8:00 pm Eastern Time. The only match comparable to the magnitude of this game would be if Cleveland advances and Joe Flacco returns to Baltimore. With an aura revolving around Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford, he now returns to his former team's stadium as an opponent in a much anticipated playoff matchup masterpiece.
In the 2021 trade between the Los Angeles Rams and the Detroit Lions involving a quarterback swap of Jared Goff and Matthew Stafford, one can argue that all parties benefited greatly from this exchange. The Rams went all in with a great defense as they were a quarterback away from being major Super Bowl contenders and Detroit was looking towards the future as they unfortunately wasted much of Stafford's career by not building a competitive team around him in his time there.
The Rams were looking to move on from their number one overall picked quarterback as well, Jared Goff; as the Lions seemed to have revitalized his career in Detroit. The Rams won the Super Bowl in the year they made the move for Stafford and the Lions dug themselves out of irrelevancy behind coach Dan Campbell. Now these two teams face off in a game that feels like a revenge game, but holds every bit of respect between the two teams and their quarterbacks.
NFL Wild Card Weekend Buccaneers Vs. Eagles: Two Teams Going South
To complete the NFL Wild Card Weekend we have the NFC South Division Title winners Tampa Bay Buccaneers Vs. the Philadelphia Eagles. This game kicks off on Monday night at 8:15 pm Eastern Time and will close out this week's exciting series of matchups.
Now we have an interesting matchup ahead of us between these two teams. The Eagles, after going through three fourths of the season red hot, found a way to drop five of their last six games of the season. As the Buccaneers stumbled their way out of the season as the NFC South Division Title holder, although this division title is not as illustrious as it sounds.
The Buccaneers held off the Carolina Panthers in a game they won 9-0. Tampa Bay needed a win to seal the division while the Atlanta Falcons and New Orleans Saints were playing against each other for a chance to snatch the division if Tampa were to lose. Maybe the Saints were hoping they could lend the Panthers some points as they stirred up some controversy throughout the week. Philadelphia limps their way into this game as both their top wide receivers and quarterback Jalen Hurts are battling through some injuries. Both the Birds and the Bucs have been the picture of inconsistency this year, so we can be in for either a really exciting or a really uneventful game between the two.
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