Conference Playoffs NFL Predictions: Both top seeds gone

Well, my Divisional predictions were shot down and destroyed. But on the flip-side, we were treated to some interesting football. While there were two blowouts, there were also two pretty good match-ups last weekend. And honestly, I don't think we could have asked for more interesting Conference championships games. My notes for this week:

1. 

   The Packers' 48-21 win over Atlanta shows they are getting hot at the right time.

   The Bears did what the Saints could not: Eliminate the still-losing-season Seahawks. Glad to see them exit.
2. How often do we see BOTH top seeds go down in the Divisional weekend? Not often... All those suckers saying that it was going to be a for-sure Falcons-Patriots Super Bowl must be confused right about now.
3. Going with the above statement, my pre-season prediction of Super Bowl teams, Atlanta and Baltimore, is also dead. Kinda makes me sad, but hey, it was still pretty damn good as a preseason prediction.
4. The New York Jets are cheaters - the New England Patriots are cheaters. Poetic justice for one cheater to go down to another.
5. Green Bay is playing the best football as I've seen them play all season. If they can keep this up, I can easily see the Championship going to them.
6. The Baltimore Ravens need to learn that, by rule, you have to play the 2nd half.
7. This has been a pretty exciting and unpredictable playoffs, at least for me. My playoff record is only 3-5 this season so far... hopefully I can turn things around for the final 3 games.

Predictions for Next Week

Prediction accuracy for Last Week: 1-3 (25.00%) 
Overall prediction accuracy: 125-77 (61.88%)

Green Bay (12-6) @ Chicago (12-5): Green Bay by 7. Surprisingly, the Packers and the Bears have not had many post-season meetings in the past. This probably has to do with a odd generality that when the Packers are good, the Bears are not and when the Bears are good, the Packers are not. Either way, I love divisional games in the playoffs. In the last matchup in Week 17, the Bears decided to play to try to eliminate the Pack from post-season contention and this is why... the Packers have become the hottest team in the NFL. If the Bears could not stop them in Week 17, I do not think they stop them here. Despite Chicago winning the division, I said it all season, I believe the Packers are the better team. And now can you not root for them considering all the adversity they had to fight through this season?

New York J (13-5) @ Pittsburgh (13-4): Pittsburgh by 3. The Jets may have won the last matchup, but I still have a strong belief that the Steelers are the better team and ought to win this matchup. It will likely be a close slugfest, but I just do not see how the Jets offense will be able to move the ball very effectively against the Steelers. Pittsburgh, on the other hand, showed last week that they are quite capable of moving the ball down the field against an elite defense. Should be a great game... with quite a lot of trash-talking coming before the game is played.

Results of Last Week's Poll

Last week, I asked my readers "Which home team is most likely to get upset in the Divisional Playoffs?" between the Chicago Bears by the Seahawks, Pittsburgh Steelers by the Ravens, New England Patriots by the Jets, or the Atlanta Falcons by the Packers?

The poll ended in a two way tie between the Chicago Bears and the Pittsburgh Steelers with 40% of the vote, but neither of those teams were eliminated last week so I guess my readers were wrong (as was I). On the other hand, the other two teams, the Atlanta Falcons with 20% of the vote and the New England Patriots with 0% of the vote lost so I guess it goes to show you that anything can happen in the NFL playoffs.

This week's poll is "Which Super Bowl would you most like to see?" between Chicago Bears vs Pittsburgh Steelers, Chicago Bears vs New York Jets, Green Bay Packers vs Pittsburgh Steelers, or Green Bay Packers vs New York Jets?

Vote on the right-sidebar of my blog!