12 bold predictions for the 2018 NFL playoffs

No more Thursday Night Football (at least for a few months). No more 12 games crammed into a single time slot on Sunday afternoon. It’s January in the NFL. Games matter now, and we get the pleasure of focusing on one at a time. The playoffs are here.

The arrival of the postseason compels us to offer some predictions. Our panelists are picking the games every week, which you can find here. This space is reserved for bolder predictions — the kind of things that will tell us what to watch for in the weeks ahead.

To get the best predictions possible, we turned to the experts at SB Nation’s team sites. You can find all of those predictions here. These are a few of the big ones I pulled together to spotlight, because these are the kind of prognostications that in one way or another will go a long way toward explaining how the playoffs unfold this year.

Check back, because we’ll revisit these on the way to the Super Bowl.

Joel Thorman from Arrowhead Pride cautions us against underrating the Chiefs defense:

We’ve talked about the pressure problems and the run defense problems. We’ve talked about the No. 2 cornerback and what’s been lost with Eric Berry’s injury and Derrick Johnson’s decline.

Here’s the thing though: The Chiefs defense is actually good right now. Here’s how many points they’ve allowed in recent games (not counting the backup-fest in Denver): 13, 13, 15, 38, 16 and 12.

The 38 points scored by the Jets is a clear outlier in the last two months. Look at those points allowed numbers and then come back and tell me the Chiefs are a bad defense. They’re not.

Those numbers don’t include their Week 17 win over the Broncos, with a number of starters resting that week. In three of those games, the Chiefs held opponents under 100 yards rushing. They’ll have to do that again every week for the rest of the month if they’re going to stay alive.

It always comes back to Bortles for the Jaguars. Ryan Day from Big Cat Country explains the way around it:

Bortles has not been good the past two weeks. His three interceptions against the 49ers was the most he’s had in a single game since Week 3 of the 2016 season and his 44.1 completion percentage against the Titans was the second-worst of the year.

He just has to take a deep breath and stop thinking he has to do it all on his own.

Bortles was one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL in December, right up until that 49ers game, throwing seven touchdowns and no interceptions in a 3-0 stretch. A lot of it is confidence. It should never come down to Bortles “putting the team on his shoulders and trying to win by himself.” So if they avoid that, the Jaguars could surprise some people.

There’s never any shortage of that when it comes to Newton, fair or not. Bradley Smith from Cat Scratch Reader will take all the doubt you can throw Cam’s way:

It’s no secret that Cam Newton plays better in the face of adversity, and after his terrible, no-good performance last week against the Falcons he’s facing plenty of it. Somehow, when he sees everyone start throwing around words like “average” and “not as good as Blake Bortles” it flips a switch in his brain and he turns into the best football player on the planet.

Our panel is unanimous in picking the Saints to beat the Panthers in the NFC Wild Card Game, so we’ll know soon if this holds up.

Broncos fans know plenty about Wade Phillips, the team’s former defensive coordinator, and bad quarterbacks. The crew at Mile High Report channeled that knowledge into identifying a champ:

If the Rams can get past a strong Falcons squad, I think they charge all the way through to the Super Bowl. The Minnesota Vikings are probably the best team in the NFL, but at some point Case Keenum is going to become Case Keenum. Or Sam Bradford will be Sam Bradford.

Plus, Wade Phillips winning a Super Bowl after being run out of town in Denver would kind of be fitting for the type of decisions John Elway made this past offseason.

I wouldn’t rule out the Saints either. They have a great formula for winning big games in January.

The Patriots’ running backs never get much attention, but Lewis could be the exception to that rule in the playoffs. Pats Pulpit explains:

Did you know that Lewis finished the season No. 1 in Football Outsiders’ DYAR metric for rushes? No running back gained more yards over expectation than Lewis. Now when you add in value from receptions, Lewis falls behind Saints running back Alvin Kamara (532 yards over expectation) and Rams running back Todd Gurley (500 yards over expectation), but Lewis is still one of the best in the NFL with 361 yards over expectations.

Talk about timing, Lewis is a free agent after the season ends, so he could really cash in now that the market for running backs has seen some correction upward. But will it be with the Patriots?

I hate to stick TWO Patriots-related predictions in here, but Brady throwing picks is something that most people will appreciate.

From Pats Pulpit:

Since winning three out of four Super Bowls to open his career, Brady’s interception rate has exceeded 2.0% in 10 of his next 11 trips to the playoffs. The lone exception was 2013, when he didn’t throw a single pick.

His interception rate from the last five regular seasons is just 1.3 percent. The only question is whether the Patriots can overcome those turnovers.

There’s not really a weakness at any level of the Vikings’ defense. They’ll get even better with home-field advantage, according to Daily Norseman:

The defense should also have the advantage of some of the most raucous home crowds in recent memory. Yes, regular season games at U.S. Bank Stadium have been loud, but that should serve as a baseline for what we see in the postseason when the other team has the football. Quarterbacks aren’t going to be able to change plays, tackles aren’t going to hear snap counts, and those things could give the Vikings an even greater advantage. In addition, I think we can assume that Mike Zimmer and George Edwards haven’t completely emptied the proverbial bag of tricks yet. This defense is going to hit teams from every conceivable direction in ways they haven’t even thought about yet.

Opponents are averaging just 15.8 points per game against the Vikings, the best mark in the NFL. Just imagine them playing better than that.

This is an important prediction because ...

That’s what Seahawks fans over at Field Gulls are predicting. Now, imagine playing in the Super Bowl with home-field advantage:

Minnesota is the deserved favorite to win the NFC, and I believe that they will ride their excellent defense, raucous home field advantage, and the spirit of Prince to a Super Bowl appearance. They’ll first defeat the Los Angeles Rams in the divisional round, and then win a thriller against the New Orleans Saints (who will beat both the Carolina Panthers and Wentz-less Philadelphia Eagles) in the conference title game.

Do they even have a weakness at this point? Why, yes, they do ...

KICKERS!!! [Shakes fist.]

The good people at Pride of Detroit are here to remind Vikings fans about the Blair Walsh experience from a couple of years ago:

The Vikings have since rid themselves of Blair Walsh, but if Kai Forbath is their true savior at kicker, he sure hasn’t acted like it this season.

Forbath is just converting 84.2 percent of his field goals this year (16th), but even worse... he’s already missed some chip shots. Forbath has already missed two field goals from under 40 yards and he leads the league in missed extra points with five.

I can’t imagine anything worse than losing a playoff game because of a kick, except for maybe losing one because of the catch rule.

It’s not as tough as you might think finding optimism among Eagles fans despite the loss of Carson Wentz. Bleeding Green Nation says the defense is key to winning with Nick Foles at quarterback:

I also think about how the Eagles led the NFL in pressure generated this season. The pass rush was expected to be a major strength of the team. It lived up to the hype, so far, and it’ll need to be strong moving forward. Fletcher Cox needs to be the absolute monster the Eagles are paying him to be. Same thing for Tim Jernigan. Brandon Graham, Vinny Curry, Chris Long, and Derek Barnett have all proved to be forces off the edge this season. They need to keep that up.

The Eagles have been a top-three defense at home the last two seasons. If they can keep that up, they’re not the easy out everyone’s predicting.

That’s good news for the Bills and Falcons, the final seed in both the AFC and NFC. Our Colts site, Stampede Blue, explains:

This scenario, where both six seeds move on through Wild Card Weekend is nothing new though. In the past 10 seasons, this very situation has come to fruition five times. These two teams are very different in their makeup and experience, and this is what will take the amazing season that the Rams have put together and unfortunately bring it to an early end despite their roster’s talent.

We’ll know soon enough if this happens again.

I don’t think anyone doubts what the eventual AFC Championship Game will look like. The folks at Gang Green Nation, our Jets blog, are familiar with both teams, so we can take them at their word to expect an amazing game:

Even though the Patriots own the Steelers, this is not a vintage Pats defense. With Tom Brady, it still might be good enough to win a championship, but there is a path for the Steelers to win. We saw in December the difference between these teams is razor thin.

And just imagine if it’s decided by something resembling a catch.