Playoff Predictions - all games

DolFan 316 wrote:I suppose it's easy to not care when you know (or at least think) the league will have your back and rig the games for you no matter what you do or don't do. And you can't convince me the Bills players didn't know that was going on.

Just SO refreshing to know that the forces of evil can still be defeated! I've sadly become so used to them winning that when something actually happens the way it's supposed to it blows my mind.

Zac Taylor said it best: "We keep screwing it up. Sorry!"

Are we still doing this?

Bengals over Chiefs: Cincy beat KC in the previous AFC title game, and they beat them in December. That was with with a fully healthy Mahomes, and you CANNOT convince me he's as fine as the Chiefs are pretending he is (he's even off the injury report completely which is complete bullshit). Don't let the Bills game fool you, the Bengals averaged under 100 yards rushing per game and only once all season ran for more yards. But on the other hand they did run for 152 VS KC a month and a half ago...

Eagles over 49ers: If Brock Purdy wins this, he will be the best postseason performer of any rookie QB in NFL history and at that point I will have no choice but to anoint him as the next Brady. You've been warned. IMO this is when he finally comes up short. Barely. It'll be a classic unstoppable force VS immovable object clash as Philly's 5th ranked running game takes on the 49ers' 2nd ranked run D. The 49ers are good at running too. But somehow, some way, the Eagles and their league leading 9 players with a PFR Approximate Value of 10 or more will have just enough to eke by. The ONLY thing keeping me from picking the Niners is Purdy's rookie status, as they've actually got a team built perfectly for outdoor playoff games in cold weather.

Chiefs 27, Bengals 17
The makeshift Bengals OL looked great in the snow against a mediocre Bills DL. That won't be the case against a strong KC DL on a fast surface. KC will get to Burrow early and often and make him dink and dunk all day. On the other side of the ball, Mahomes gets his revenge.

Eagles 17, 49ers 10
I want the Niners to win, but it ain't happening. Purdy has never seen anything like the Philly front 4, and they are going to destroy him. It'll be a defensive battle but the Eagles are just too much to handle.

BTW if it turns out to be a Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl, bet on the Chiefs. There have been four Super Bowl rematches of regular season games in which one team defeated the other by 8 or more, and all four times the same team won again. The Chiefs clobbered the 49ers by 21 this season--which would be the second largest margin of victory in such games.

Oddly enough in the eight rematches in which Team A won the regular season game by 7 or less and was not named the Giants, Team B won the Super Bowl every time. For some reason the Giants are immune to this, having beaten the Broncos and Pats in the Super Bowl after winning the regular season matchups by 3 and 4, but also beating the Bills and Pats after narrow losses to them in the regular season as well.

SO...the Super Bowl Rematch Rules are as follows: if Team A won the first game by 8 or more, they will win again. If they won by 7 or less they will lose every time UNLESS they're the Giants, in which case they will win either way.

Chiefs 27-20
Eagles 34-17

Cincy 24-17 49ers 17-14. Defense heavy games.

I think the Eagles win decisively and the Bengals win a close one. I’ll go 34-15 for the former and 33-30 for the latter.

DolFan 316 wrote:BTW if it turns out to be a Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl, bet on the Chiefs. There have been four Super Bowl rematches of regular season games in which one team defeated the other by 8 or more, and all four times the same team won again. The Chiefs clobbered the 49ers by 21 this season--which would be the second largest margin of victory in such games.

Oddly enough in the eight rematches in which Team A won the regular season game by 7 or less and was not named the Giants, Team B won the Super Bowl every time. For some reason the Giants are immune to this, having beaten the Broncos and Pats in the Super Bowl after winning the regular season matchups by 3 and 4, but also beating the Bills and Pats after narrow losses to them in the regular season as well.

SO...the Super Bowl Rematch Rules are as follows: if Team A won the first game by 8 or more, they will win again. If they won by 7 or less they will lose every time UNLESS they're the Giants, in which case they will win either way.

Posts like this are why you can never stop posting.

JMP wrote:Posts like this are why you can never stop posting.

You have no idea how good that made me feel. Seriously, I almost teared up.

Welp, Chiefs-Bengals more than made up for that desultory depressing dud of a disgrace the NFC title game was.

I feel beyond horrible for Joseph Ossai. Clearly not a dirty play, the action was just moving too fast for him to stop. Knowing how the modern world works, he's probably already getting death threats from his own team's fans It's disgusting, revolting, nauseating and I don't condone it in the slightest, but that's just how people are today--and these same people genuinely believe and claim they're the GOOD ones.

I thought the Bengals had it won when they converted that 3rd and 16. Told the GF that was a sign the Chiefs deserved to lose. It seemed all game long that Boyer had somehow been hired as their DC when I wasn't paying attention. But somebody forgot to tell the Chiefs' D they were supposed to fold.

Hard fought game. Enjoyable. Tragic ending.

Philly Chiefs should be good but it’s so hard to predict. Could just as easily be a blowout

Man, the NFC game was a joke. The "great" 49ers D could not stop making dumb penalties at the worst possible times, and Shanahan kept complaining to the refs despite the penalties being legit. And of course, Purdy gets hurt, then Josh Johnson comes in, plays like crap and also gets hurt...what a disaster! That was just too easy for the Eagles.

The AFC game was great. Mahomes is an absolute beast...he could barely walk and still managed to have a near-perfect game, with no help at all from a non-existent run game. As I expected, the Chiefs D gave the Bengals OL fits all game. Burrow made a few big plays, but he was under pressure all day and had to rush a lot of throws. Definitely an interesting and exciting game.

Ossai made a stupid play at the worst possible time and cost his team the game. I don't feel bad for him, but of course he is not deserving of the hatred he is undoubtedly going to receive from the fans.

i'm satisfied with the outcomes. however, did anyone else get the sense that the NFL was punishing the Bengals for having the audacity to obliterate their anointed champion Bills?

the Bengals got 9 flags dropped on them to the Chiefs 4 - that's more than double. and some of those flags were very iffy - there was one very ticky tack PI that even the TV rules official disagreed with. not to mention that KC extra 3rd down (which ended up not mattering).

Yes, there were some very questionable penalties in that Bengals-Chiefs game. The extra third down was ridiculous...how does that happen???

mercury22nathan wrote:i'm satisfied with the outcomes.  however, did anyone else get the sense that the NFL was punishing the Bengals for having the audacity to obliterate their anointed champion Bills?

the Bengals got 9 flags dropped on them to the Chiefs 4 - that's more than double.  and some of those flags were very iffy - there was one very ticky tack PI that even the TV rules official disagreed with.  not to mention that KC extra 3rd down (which ended up not mattering).

A lot of people are saying that, but as you know I'm very sensitive to this sort of thing and I saw nothing extraordinary that would indicate any sort of game rigging. I did see a first half Chiefs TD called back. PFT is attempting to shit stir as usual by yammering about an uncalled hold on the final, fateful Mahomes scramble, and looking at it they have a point, but since it's PFT I can't take them seriously because of all the obvious cherry-picking they do over what they "feel" like being outraged about and what they deliberately ignore. The uncalled hold wasn't an anti-Bengals thing, it's been going on all season.

Even the 3rd down thing was more an example of miscommunication and incompetence than officials suddenly deciding "Hey, let's give the Chiefs an extra down right now just to make sure they win!" It all started when the clock operator screwed up, for one thing.

Now the NFC title game, where the Eagles got a whopping SEVEN first downs due to penalty and what I heard was a Devonta Smith non-catch that was ruled a catch, might be a different story. But I watched maybe 10 minutes total of that dumpster fire so I'm not at liberty to really say.

EDIT: The bottom line is, the Bengals had the ball with just over 2 minutes left in a tie game. Victory was theirs for the taking, and they just couldn't seal the deal. Nobody's even arguing that the last penalty wasn't legit, it clearly was.

IN FACT...and I literally just checked this out thanks to Merc, Eagles-Niners was just the SECOND PLAYOFF GAME SINCE 1999 in which ANY team had as many as seven first downs due to penalties. So if you're looking for something shady, that's the game to do it. (Apparently, first downs via penalty were not recorded for games before then for some reason.)

https://stathead.com/tiny/zkI9C

In the regular season, just 13 games since then have had teams gain more than 7 first downs via penalty.

https://stathead.com/tiny/5NcGB

So yeah, this is...kind of a big deal that everybody's sweeping under the rug because of the QB injuries and the game that happened afterwards.

DolFan 316 wrote:It all started when the clock operator screwed up, for one thing.

that's actually not true. it wasn't the clock operated. he did exactly as he was instructed. the refs mis-spotted the ball and the line judge noticed and informed the head ref. the ball was re-spotted and the head ref instructed the clock operator to restart the clock on his signal - which he did. but the previous play had been an incomplete pass, so the clock should have restarted at the snap of the ball, not on the refs signal. the field judge realized this and supposedly tried to stop the play but was ignored by the incorrect head ref. after the play was run, the field judge informed the head ref of his error and the head ref then decided to give KC another shot at it because the clock should not have been running before the snap - as he had instructed. and then the subsequent play resulted in a ticky tack PI which gave the Chefs a new set of downs.

again, i think KC was the superior team and deserved to win - Mahomes is on a different level - but whether through neglect, incompetence or whatever, it sure seemed the Bengals got the short end of the stick more often than not.

mercury22nathan wrote:

DolFan 316 wrote:It all started when the clock operator screwed up, for one thing.

that's actually not true.  it wasn't the clock operated.  he did exactly as he was instructed.  the refs mis-spotted the ball and the line judge noticed and informed the head ref.  the ball was re-spotted and the head ref instructed the clock operator to restart the clock on his signal - which he did.  but the previous play had been an incomplete pass, so the clock should have restarted at the snap of the ball, not on the refs signal.  the field judge realized this and supposedly tried to stop the play but was ignored by the incorrect head ref.  after the play was run, the field judge informed the head ref of his error and the head ref then decided to give KC another shot at it because the clock should not have been running before the snap - as he had instructed.  and then the subsequent play resulted in a ticky tack PI which gave the Chefs a new set of downs.

again, i think KC was the superior team and deserved to win - Mahomes is on a different level - but whether through neglect, incompetence or whatever, it sure seemed the Bengals got the short end of the stick more often than not.

Everything about that situation just seems like a typical modern day clusterfudge of incompetence to me, right up to the PI call. And I've certainly seen worse. Anything else ya got? One kinda dubious call and one uncalled holding that's been par for the course in pretty much every game all season doesn't really add up to anti-Bengals game rigging to me. Also, IMO if the officials really were out to get Cincy they wouldn't have called back the first Chiefs TD. I don't remember any other glaring incidents that would suggest the fix was in.

I'm certainly not saying BTW that this incident should be glossed over. You definitely can't be having multiple incidents next season where teams are randomly awarded 3rd down do-overs. But in a court of law that would be what's called circumstantial evidence.

oh, i wasn't trying to make a further case for game rigging. and i mostly agree the biggest culprit was incompetence. i was just trying to let you know you had incorrectly assigned blame to the clock operator.

i've seen you get "outraged" at much less and am impressed with your restraint in this case. i just wanted to make sure you had your facts straight.

do you have an early lean for the Super Bowl? i'm thinking KC, but that might just be recency bias.

mercury22nathan wrote:oh, i wasn't trying to make a further case for game rigging.  and i mostly agree the biggest culprit was incompetence.  i was just trying to let you know you had incorrectly assigned blame to the clock operator.

i've seen you get "outraged" at much less and am impressed with your restraint in this case.  i just wanted to make sure you had your facts straight.

do you have an early lean for the Super Bowl?  i'm thinking KC, but that might just be recency bias.

I'll put it this way. The Chiefs had 23 first downs, 357 total yards and one turnover VS what I thought was a very good Bengals D, in a game that IMO they constantly seemed on the verge of blowing in the second half.

The Eagles on the other hand had 25 first downs, but just 269 total yards VS a team that was essentially fighting blind with one hand tied behind their back. And again, 7 of their first downs were awarded via penalty which is literally almost unprecedented in any playoff game in the last 23 years or so.

Yes, even in a 31-7 win from what I saw the Eagles still managed to look less impressive and weaker to me. I just can't pick Hurts over Mahomes, and NFL playoff games always seem to come down to which team has the better QB, or which team's QB plays the best. Period. I'm also pretty sure Andy Reid knows how to scheme around Philly's pass rush, or will by the time the game rolls around.

It might not be easy or pretty, the Chiefs might have to come back to do it a la their win over the 49ers, but they will win one way or another.