Saturday, January 28, 2023

Now, we are down to 4.......

 Tomorrow, the NFL's conference championships will decide who heads to the Super Bowl on February 12. Form has held, as the top two seeds in the AFC, and the 1st & 3rd seeds in the NFC, have reached their respective conference title games.


NFC Championship: San Francisco @ Philadelphia (Sunday @ 3, Fox): Six Super Bowl wins between these two teams. A little luck, and the Eagles would've had two already in hand before the beat New England a few years back. Philadelphia rediscovered its dominant defense in blowing out the Giants one week ago. The next day, the 49ers put away ancient rival Dallas for the 2nd straight year. San Francisco's defense will key on Eagle QB Jalen Hurts, and keep him contained. Rookie Brock Purdy is unbeaten as a starter (8-0), and it's gotten to the point where wrestling personality Paul Heyman cut a promo prior to the Dallas game last week because Purdy shares his first name with former WWE & NCAA champion and long-time Heyman friend Brock Lesnar. Then, on Monday, in Philadelphia, where he remains a beloved figure to wrestling fans, Heyman "heeled" on the crowd, and invoked Purdy's name in advance of the pending game.

If it was anyone else, I'd go with the Eagles, but you gotta go with the hot hand here.

Pick: San Francisco.

AFC Championship: Cincinnati @ Kansas City (6:30 pm, CBS):  Since Bengals QB Joe Burrow entered the league out of LSU, he's never lost to the Chiefs (3-0), including last year's playoffs. You have to believe that KC QB Patrick Mahomes and coach Andy Reid took time after filming that ridiculous State Farm commercial to go over film of that game to see if they can find some weakness in the Bengal defense, and also to find weaknesses in Burrow's game. Of the four teams remaining, Cincinnati is the only one that hasn't won a Super Bowl (0-3). That may soon change.

Again, you have to go with the hot hand, and a 3rd meeting, albeit a different generation, with the 49ers awaits.

Pick: Cincinnati.

Of course, I could be wrong.

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