Who do you want?
Which groups will find yourself in Tremendous Bowl LVI, and which would be the final one standing on Feb. 13?
As Week 18 involves a detailed on Sunday, marking the tip to the 2021 NFL common season, 11 of the 14 playoff berths have been clinched. Three spots stay open, with seven groups nonetheless alive: two spots within the AFC with 5 groups in chase and one within the NFC with two groups battling.
Provided that no workforce has asserted itself as dominant this season, these NFL playoffs may be essentially the most wide-open in current reminiscence. There actually isn’t a no brainer favourite in both convention. The closest factor to that could be the Packers, who've the league’s finest document at 13-3 and quarterback Aaron Rodgers, the probably NFL MVP.
The Buccaneers started the season with all 22 starters from their Tremendous Bowl championship workforce returning and regarded like as a lot of a lock as any within the league. But, because the playoffs start subsequent week, even with Tom Brady, do you actually belief the Bucs, who regardless of their 12-4 document are within the throes of the Antonio Brown mess they helped create and are short-handed at receiver?
The Titans (11-5) are the present No. 1 seed within the AFC, however are they a workforce you completely, positively count on to be within the Tremendous Bowl — even with it probably they may have operating again Derrick Henry again for the postseason?
The Chiefs (11-5) entered the season because the Tremendous Bowl favourite within the AFC, having performed within the earlier two Tremendous Bowls, successful one and shedding one. Kansas Metropolis was 3-4 at one level this season earlier than righting itself and successful eight in a row earlier than shedding to the Bengals final Sunday.
The Payments (10-6) have struggled at occasions this season regardless of being one of many preseason favorites with quarterback Josh Allen one of many league’s rising stars. And the Brady-less Patriots (10-6) are again within the match and a possible robust out, however hardly dominant.
I consider this postseason would be the 12 months of the darkish horse — not less than within the AFC. That’s why I really like the Bengals (10-6), who since their bye in Week 10, are 5-2 with wins over the Chiefs, Ravens, Broncos and Steelers and a median margin of victory of 15.6 factors. Their two losses in that stretch got here to the Chargers, in a detailed sport, and the 49ers, in time beyond regulation.
Joe Burrow, the victory-cigar-smoking Bengals quarterback, seems to be like an even bigger star by the day, and his high receiver, Ja’Marr Chase, is the almost certainly NFL Offensive Rookie of the 12 months. As AFC North champions, they’ll host not less than one playoff sport, and I consider they’ll win a postseason sport for the primary time because the 1990 season — greater than 31 years in the past.
The Bengals are 0-8 within the postseason since their final playoff victory, a 41-14 win over the Houston Oilers on Jan. 6, 1991.
The Bengals have been 2-14 in 2019 and 4-11-1 final season. Good story. However not adequate to make it to the Tremendous Bowl. I nonetheless assume Invoice Belichick and the Patriots are a harmful workforce and can emerge to symbolize the AFC within the Tremendous Bowl.
If a Patriots-Buccaneers Tremendous Bowl showdown pitting Belichick and Brady sounds too scrumptious to return true, that’s in all probability as a result of it's. I don’t assume Tampa Bay will get previous Rodgers and the Packers, who've home-field benefit.
So, it’ll be the Packers and Patriots enjoying on Feb. 13 at SoFi Stadium with the Packers rising because the champs.
That’ll ship us all into an offseason of extra “As Aaron Rodgers’ World Turns’’ drama and intrigue.
Will he retire and experience off into the sundown? Does he need out of Inexperienced Bay to show he can win elsewhere? Or did this season make him fall again in love with the Packers’ entrance workplace?
That saga, together with free company and the draft, will carry us to coaching camp 2022 so we are able to begin this once more.
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