NFL Predictions For The NFC And AFC Championship Games

You know the saying ‘past performance is no guarantee of future results’? That disclaimer is included in every disclosure you’ll see in the investment world, but it might apply even more to the NFL playoffs.

So far, the postseason has been a Bizarro World from what we witnessed in the regular season — at least when it comes to previous meetings between teams. In the wild card round, the Chargers avenged a Week 15 loss to the Ravens by dominating them in Baltimore, the Colts throttled a Texans team that had played them tough in two AFC South affairs and Dallas knocked off a Seahawks squad they lost to in Week 3. And last week in the divisional round, a late interception thrown by Nick Foles may have been all that prevented the Eagles from stunning the Saints in New Orleans, the same stadium where Philly was blown out 48-7 a couple of months earlier.

Before you do, just remember: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. (I hope that rule isn’t the case for these NFL predictions, however, as we look to improve on a 10-5 run since the start of Week 15.) With that in mind, let’s dig a little deeper on each of these conference title affairs to see where we should be investing our money.

All odds that are referenced in this article were taken from Bovada.lv at 8:30 p.m eastern on January 16, 2019. These odds may have changed since the time of this writing.

Again, the knee-jerk instinct when you hear the Rams and Saints mentioned in the same sentence is to want to bet the Over. Just a couple of months ago on this same field, New Orleans jumped out to a huge first-half lead, then held off a Rams comeback attempt down the stretch to pull out a 45-35 victory. The two quarterbacks combined for nearly 750 passing yards and the game had nearly gone over the 57.5-point total by halftime (when New Orleans led 35-17).

However, when you dig a bit deeper into the statistics, you’ll notice a couple of trends that have stayed under the radar recently. Let’s start with the Rams and discuss just how much better their defense has been on the road this year. When LA has been the visitor, they’ve allowed more than 20 points in a game just twice — at New Orleans and at Seattle). Five times, they allowed 16 points or less in enemy territory, including a pair of times when they allowed 10 or less.

While the Rams have been at their defensive best when on the road, New Orleans has actually been rock-solid regardless of the field it’s been playing on lately. After a flat start last week in which they allowed the Eagles to score a pair of first-quarter touchdowns, the Saints defenders held Philadelphia scoreless the rest of the way, icing the victory with an interception at the two-minute warning. It also marked the seventh time in nine games that the Saints have allowed 17 points or fewer, and you can put an asterisk beside one of the times they allowed more points than that — a meaningless loss to Atlanta in the regular-season finale.

If you were one of the many who doubted the Patriots last week, you certainly got burned. Count me in for some aloe treatment, even though I went a bit more conservative with my New England fade last week and teased the Chargers up to +10 instead of taking LA on the spread. Technically, the Chargers only missed covering that +10 teaser by a field goal, succumbing 41-28. But if you watched that game at all, you know that 13-point final margin of victory was incredibly misleading. New England absolutely dominated the Chargers from the opening whistle. In fact, CBS aired a graphic late in the first half detailing how the Chargers had as many first downs at that point (five) as the Patriots had touchdowns.

First, New England’s streak of being favored shouldn’t have anything to do with this matchup, since the Patriots aren’t nearly as good these days as they’ve been over the past four years. Gronk is a shadow of his former self as a receiving threat, the defense might be the weakest Belichick has had in the past 10 years, and even Brady has shown his age at times. The Pats have also been roadkill on the highway this season, going 3-5 both against the spread and straight-up (including blowout no-shows at Jacksonville, Tennessee and Detroit).

Second (and I’m kicking myself for not fully appreciating this before kickoff of last week’s game), the Chargers were in a horrific situational spot against New England. It was LA’s third straight road game and its second straight early start on the east coast, meaning the Chargers players had been flying back and forth across the country for nearly the past month. And while the Chargers were sweating out a victory over the Ravens in the wild card round, Brady and the Patriots had their feet up relaxing, nursing any nagging injuries and coming up with a game plan to shred the Chargers defense. To make things worse, LA came out with the exact same defensive back-heavy game plan that it used to beat Baltimore, and Brady picked apart the soft zone with the precision of a surgeon. The bottom line is that the Patriots aren’t that much better than the Chargers: a combination of factors favoring New England and hurting LA simply made the Pats look that much better last week.