Rooting for Story Lines in the Wild Card Round

We all have our own reasons to pull for or root against individual teams in the Wild Card round this weekend. Maybe you’re a fan of a team involved. Perhaps you’re a fan of a rival of a team playing, so you’re going against them. Or you just plain dislike Ray Lewis, so you hope Baltimore loses by 500 points. Whatever. These are all valid. However, there are those among us who hope for “the best football“ or ”the best storylines”. In my humble opinion, these people should be looking for the following teams to prevail this weekend.
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↵↵NFC: Eagles and Packers↵

↵↵Not only does this scenario make possible a third Packers-Vikings contest (which would make Roger Goodell tingly in his unmentionables), it would also make for an intriguing and likely high-scoring contest between Philly and New Orleans. Remember that those two teams also met in an unexciting 2006 divisional round game which is now probably best remembered for what one female Saints fan had on her shirt (caution: naughty language).↵

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↵↵The Patriots having the third seed prohibits them from advancing to play the rival Colts in the second round, but another second round match in San Diego immediately evokes images of New England’s 2006 playoff upset of the Chargers that ended with an acrimonious postgame scene at midfield between LaDainian Tomlinson and several celebrating Patriots players. Meanwhile, the Jets could test Rex Ryan’s boast that his team should the Super Bowl favorite by going against the consensus favorite to win the Super Bowl, the Colts. There’s also the matter of that game two weeks ago in which Indy pulled Peyton in the second half, which foiled their perfect season and aided New York in picking up a critical win.↵

↵↵Now, for this particular vision to work out, three road teams must win this weekend, which is unlikely but not impossible. It happened in the divisional round just last year. And I can’t say the Jets, Eagles and Packers are so decidedly outmatched in their respective contests that it can’t happen. ↵

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