No more messing around now. It’s time for the big boys to play. After the first round of playoff games, the stage is set for the final eight teams. And out of four Wild Card games this Sunday, there were a couple of surprises…
The AFC
Okay, so the Bills-Jags game wasn’t actually that surprising. As expected, the Bills were unable to topple the Jaguars, so the brief glimmer of that long-awaited postseason has come to an end for them. (Nice effort though.)
The Jags will now have to play the Steelers in Pittsburgh, which is never an easy feat. But hey, they did beat the Steelers 30-9 earlier this season. While Vegas considers Jacksonville a 7.5-point underdog in their rematch on Sunday, we wouldn’t sleep on ’em. And thinking about it, we haven’t seen the Jags play the Patriots this year… okay, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
The Titans pulled off perhaps the biggest upset of the weekend against the Chiefs. They came back from a huge halftime deficit of 21-3 in Kansas City. Unfortunately, the prize for winning isn’t that great – they’ll now have to head to New England to play the Patriots. Vegas has them as s 13.5-point underdog against the defending Super Bowl champs. Sigh…
The NFC
It was a game until the very end, but the Panthers did not turn it up enough to beat New Orleans. (For some post-game funnies trolling, Saints defensive end Cameron Jordan actually sent Cam Newton a bottle of wine so he could “enjoy the offseason.”)
Now the Saints and Drew Brees will be shipped off to play the Vikings – who they lost to back in Week 1 – in freezing Minnesota on Sunday. The Vikings are favored by 4.5 points.
In a shocking turn of events, the Falcons knocked off the Rams. We thought the Falcons were just happy to be in the playoffs, but it looks like Atlanta is taking this postseason thing seriously. And now they’re actually 2.5-point favorites against the Eagles in Philadelphia next week. Because they’re the NFC’s sixth seed, the rest of their games in the playoffs will be road games. So if they keep winning, they’ll head to New Orleans or Minneapolis.
By the way, the Eagles are seriously getting no respect. They’re hoping all this trash talk and naysaying will just motivate them. But I guess we’ll see…
The top seeds are back in the action next week!
Updated Super Bowl Odds
The Patriots are still big favorites. Nothing’s changed there. They’ve got home-field advantage through the AFC playoffs, and they’re going for their third Super Bowl win in four years. But the Vikings now have a leg up by Vegas standards. Seems everyone still has their fingers crossed for that Super Bowl home game… And the team’s even started the hashtag #BringItHome.
The poor one-seeded Eagles are ranked only sixth out of eight on the odds totem pole after their past couple of games with backup quarterback Nick Foles proved ho-hum. And the Saints are actually a pretty solid (what Vegas calls “good value”) bet at this point.
Team |
Odds |
| New England Patriots | +200 |
| Minnesota Vikings | +375 |
| Pittsburgh Steelers | +500 |
| New Orleans Saints | +550 |
| Atlanta Falcons | +700 |
| Philadelphia Eagles | +1400 |
| Jacksonville Jaguars | +1800 |
| Tennessee Titans | +5000 |
How about some things we know for sure are happening at the Super Bowl?
Super Bowl Performances
Basically, everybody is pretty pumped that Justin Timberlake is performing at the halftime show of this year’s Super Bowl. (He confirmed it alongside Jimmy Fallon in October.) We haven’t seen him on that stage since Janet Jackson’s #nipplegate in 2014 – holy cow, that was 14 years ago? – but JT never fails to put on a good show.
He’s working on a new album right now, but hopefully he’ll stick with the hits. No word yet on whether members of N’SYNC will make a surprise appearance.
And it’s just been announced that Pink will sing the national anthem before kickoff at the big game. Even though we’re pretty sure they won’t let her try out all those aerial stunts she’s so amazing at, Pink is excited to be following in the footsteps of last year’s Luke Bryan (and before that, Lady Gaga, Idina Menzel, Billy Joel, Christina Aguilera, Whitney Houston, Garth Brooks, and lots of other uber-famous people).
Now if only we knew which teams would be playing in the Super Bowl…
If you want to start browsing tickets – ya know, just in case – you can do that here.
We do not sell your information to third parties