Even before the Los Angeles Rams & Arizona Cardinals take the field tonight in the final Wild Card game of this playoff cycle, the pairings for the quarterfinal (divisional) round are now set.
Saturday's doubleheader will start with the AFC North & South champions colliding in Nashville, as top-seeded Tennessee hosts Cincinnati (4:30 pm EST, CBS). Titans coach Mike Vrabel, having seen his mentor, Bill Belichick, and the New England Patriots get blown out of the tournament, knows his Titans are the only ones who can keep "The Patriot Way" in vogue in these playoffs. 2nd year QB Joe Burrow returned in time to lift the Bengals past Las Vegas, and now faces another veteran QB in the Titans' Ryan Tannehill. Should be fun.
The nightcap is a rematch from September, with Green Bay hosting San Francisco. The Packers defeated the 49ers in Week 3 in Santa Clara. This time, though, with the Packers holding the top seed in the NFC, the game will be at Lambeau Field. Do the Niners have another upset in them? We'll soon see, because revenge might not be enough of a motivating factor, although you can count on a number of fair-weather fans betting against Green Bay and State Farm shill Aaron Rodgers, whose stance on COVID vaccines have turned him into a pariah. Kickoff is set for 8:15 pm on Fox.
Defending champion Tampa Bay will play the winner of tonight's game on Sunday (3 pm, NBC), and you'd think Tom Brady and friends would welcome a rematch with the Rams, who beat Tampa Bay, also in Week 3. Arizona could spoil things if they can find their mojo and upset the applecart.
Finally, a rematch of last year's AFC title game gets the Sunday headline spot (6:30 pm, CBS), as Buffalo, fresh off blowing out New England, will look to make it two in a row over Kansas City, which similarly dismissed Pittsburgh last night. These two teams met in October, with Buffalo catching the Chiefs at a bad time. This time, based on what we've seen, this could wind up a track meet, with the final score adding up to somewhere around 90+ points.
Predictions on Friday.
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No one player should be above his sport.
Novak Djokovic found this out the hard way when he was finally deported from Australia over the weekend before the start of the Australian Open tennis tournament. Why? He's unvaccinated. Period.
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Wrestlers from both WWE & AEW had some interest in two of Sunday's games.
WWE sent Sheamus (Stephen Fennelly) and Bayley (Pamela Martinez), the latter recovering from a torn ACL, to Arlington, site of this year's Wrestlemania, for the Dallas-San Francisco game. Sheamus is known to football fans as Notre Dame's biggest celebrity booster. Bayley, who grew up in Northern California, was clearly rooting for San Francisco, I'd think, and was a happy camper going home. Fans are hoping she'd be recovered enough to compete in the Royal Rumble on January 29, but I don't think she'll be cleared in time.
AEW women's champion Dr. Britt Baker, DMD, who grew up in Pittsburgh, being the latest wrestling champion to come out of the steel city, after Bruno Sammartino, Larry Zbyszko, & Kurt Angle, was rocking a Steelers replica jersey in a publicity photo, opposite Kansas City fan Matt Lee of the 2.0 tag team. She better hope her beau, Adam Cole, doesn't have any Tampa Bay gear.......!
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Speaking of WWE, Mustafa Ali (Adeel Alam) has requested his release from the company.
The 35 year old wrestler, a former police officer in his hometown of Chicago, has been horribly misused by WWE uncreative, largely because Chairman-CEO & head nutcase Vince McMahon, taking advice from brown-nosing sycophants Bruce Prichard & John Laurinaitis, wanted Ali to be a generic foreign heel, and Ali pushed back. McMahon and his new stooges are stuck in the late 20th century, and that keeps WWE from progressing forward in the 21st century.
For what it's worth, it'll be karma to see Monday Night Raw tank in the ratings again opposite Rams-Cardinals.
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Just when you think you've seen it all, there's a Bud Light commercial out now with a beer tap molded in the image of Peyton Manning. STOP THE PAIN!!
We previously noted the Manning family appearing in an ad for Caesar's SportsBook. Turns out Cleopatra's a familiar face, too, a totally unrecognizable Halle Berry, acting opposite J. B. Smoove (from the Spider-Man movies) as Caesar.
What's next? Lord only knows.
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