With San Francisco’s game-winning field goal moments ago, it solidified the NFL playoff setup.
Saturday will have two games, both on NBC (cable channel 11 locally).
At 4:30 #6 seed Kansas City (9-7), a winner over Jacksonville today, takes on AFC foe and #3 seed Indianapolis (12-4) and tangles with Peyton Manning and company after the Colts knocked off Miami to finish an 8-0 home season. The two teams did not meet this season, their last go-round was a 45-35 victory for the Chiefs in 2004. They also met in the 2003 playoffs when Indianapolis upset the favored Chiefs 38-31 – both these games were in Kansas City. A Kansas City win would send them out to San Diego to face the Chargers, but if Indianapolis takes the contest they’ll travel to their onetime home in Baltimore.
After that’s over, the 8:00 game begins the NFC playoffs as #5 seed Dallas (9-7) goes up to the Pacific Northwest to face the fourth seed Seattle (9-7). The Cowboys limp into the playoffs after losing two straight at home to eventual NFC East champion Philadelphia last week and the 2-13 Detroit Lions today. (Now why couldn’t the Lions play this well the WHOLE SEASON? Of course, now they don’t get the #1 draft pick. Oh well.) Seattle got into the postseason on a winning note by dusting off Tampa Bay down in Florida. Last season in Week 7 these two teams met in Seattle with the Seahawks winning 13-10. The winner will either face Chicago or New Orleans depending on Sunday’s result.
On Sunday the playoffs shift to the conference’s “home” networks with the early (1:00) game locally on WBOC 16. This game features a divisional rematch between AFC East foes as the #5 seeded New York Jets (10-6) make the short trip up I-95 to square off with #4 seed New England (11-5). These teams met twice this year and both won on enemy turf – last meeting was week 10 at Foxboro and the Jets prevailed 17-14. Most interesting about this game is the fact Jets coach Eric Mangini was a longtime assistant to Patriots coach Bill Belichick until New York hired him away for this season, Mangini’s first stint as an NFL head coach.
Lastly at 4:30, Fox 21 will have another game between East Coast rivals as ancient NFC East foes collide. The #6 seeded New York Giants (8-8) renew hostilities with the third seeded Philadelphia Eagles (10-6). Once again, these rivals spilt the two regular season games and both won on opponent’s home fields – most recently just two weeks ago as the Eagles throttled Eli Manning’s team 36-22. After being left for dead at 5-6 this season, Philadelphia’s won five straight including a three game run where they won consecutively against all three NFC East rivals (Washington, New York, and Dallas) on their turf. Mostly backups played as Philadelphia won over Atlanta today, while the retiring Tiki Barber extended his career by carrying the Giants to a win at Washington last night. If the Giants do win in Philadelphia, they face the Chicago Bears next week, but a Philadelphia win sends them down to the Superdome to play New Orleans.
The other thing that was set up today was next season’s opponent schedule as the final two opponents for each team were made official based on this season’s standings.
Locally, Baltimore will get home games against their three AFC North rivals (Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh); two teams from the AFC East (New England and New York Jets), two teams from the NFC West (Arizona and St. Louis), and the first-place AFC South team (Indianapolis). They’ll travel to Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Miami, San Francisco, Seattle, and San Diego (AFC West first place team.)
Meanwhile, the Redskins will host their three NFC East rivals (Dallas, New York, Philadelphia); two teams from the NFC North (Chicago and Detroit), two teams from the AFC East (Buffalo and Miami), and the fourth place team from the NFC West (Arizona). Their road games will be at Dallas, New York (for both the Giants and the Jets), Philadelphia, Green Bay, Minnesota, New England, and Tampa Bay (4th place in the NFC South.)
Being a Lions fan, one trivia note is that they’ll get to try again next season to win at Washington, which they never have. The other oddity is that this has to be the longest streak of playing an opponent outside your division – for the seventh season in a row they’ll play Arizona because both teams finished 4th in their division. There’s only been two times (including this season) where the entire divisions played (i.e. the entire NFC North played the entire NFC West), the other five were based on both teams finishing in the same divisional slot (usually last.)
All right, now I can get back to politics and other stuff since I don’t have a horse in the NFL playoff race. In these cases I generally root for teams who have never been to the Super Bowl – that will apply only to New Orleans in this case. I suppose Indianapolis would be the other team since that city hasn’t been there (although the Colts franchise has.) However, Kansas City has waited 36 years for a repeat appearance and the Jets 37 so they’ve been starved for a long while as well.
