NFL playoff preview

If you go by the playoff brackets, you'd think there would be a changing of the guard in the NFL when playoff action begins Saturday with the Wild Card round. Outside of, say, New England, for example, that may be true.

That's because this time, the road to the Super Bowl goes through Baltimore and San Francisco, the top seeds in each conference. Consider the AFC field:

1. Baltimore.
2. Kansas City.
3. New England.
4. Houston.
5. Buffalo.
6. Tennessee.

The Ravens rested superstar QB Lamar Jackson and some other key players, and still beat Pittsburgh, leaving the Steelers out of the playoffs for the second straight year, and for the fourth time in the last eight. Tennessee and coach Mike Vrabel will try to upset New England for the second straight season, and this time, it means way more than it did in the 2018 regular season. Vrabel, remember, won three rings with the Patriots as a player, and that might be motivation enough for the Titans to upset the applecart, if you will.

We know, also, that the last thing the Patriots want is to go up against Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City again, after the Chiefs upset New England earlier this year. Time is creeping up on Tom Brady, and already, there are the headlines suggesting that maybe, finally, it's time for Brady to move on after 20 years. A 6th round draft pick out of Michigan in 2000, Brady has six Super Bowls, and the only man with more brainwashed followers than Brady and the Patriots is in Washington, and you know who I'm referring to.

Brady's refusal to allow the Patriots to better diversify the offense led New England to trade former understudy Jimmy Garoppolo to San Francisco, and now, Garoppolo is being seen as the savior of the 49ers, the one to take them back to the days of Bill Walsh, Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, et al, of the 80's. Let's look at the NFC field:

1. San Francisco.
2. Green Bay.
3. New Orleans.
4. Philadelphia.
5. Seattle.
6. Minnesota.

The Eagles, two years removed from upsetting the Patriots to win the Super Bowl, avenging a loss more than a decade earlier, locked up the NFC East by beating the Giants, despite Dallas blowing away the Washington Trumpets. What killed Dallas wasn't so much a mid-season losing streak or questions about coach Jason Garrett, but the fact that the Wild Card spots were already secured before play began on Sunday. That meant that for all his usual bluster, Jerry Jones, who still refuses to hire a general manager to ease his burdens, was already S-O-L.

Here's a thought. Why not hire on ESPN bloviator Screamin' A. Cosell (Stephen A. Smith) to handle public relations? Then again, why make the Dallas fans suffer any more than they are now?

Consider this. The AFC field's top three teams have 9 Super Bowls between them. The top five in the NFC have 13 Super Bowls among them. That'll make for some water cooler talk over the next month.

Wild Card predictions on Friday.