NFL picks 2020, Wild Card Round: Our experts like every home team — except one

Playoff time is here in the NFL.

Twenty teams failed to make the cut, leaving 12 to battle for a chance to play in Super Bowl 54. And it all starts with Wild Card Weekend.

First up is a pair of AFC matchups on Saturday. The Bills will travel to face the Texans, and then the Titans will attempt to dethrone the defending champion Patriots. The NFC battles will happen Sunday when the Vikings go to the Superdome to face the Saints, and the Seahawks take on the Eagles in Philadelphia.

None of the four matchups have our panel very split, however.

There’s only game of the weekend with everyone in agreement. While the Saints have a knack for losing in the most painful way possible in the playoffs — including the Minneapolis Miracle loss to the Vikings two years ago — New Orleans is a tough place for visitors.

The Saints’ loss to the Rams in the NFC Championship Game last season is the only time a road team has beat New Orleans in the playoffs in over a quarter-century. And that loss comes with a sizable asterisk. The entire panel thinks the Saints will handle the visiting Vikings, who went 2-3 in December.

Our experts also like the Patriots and Texans to defend their home turf Saturday. New England blew an opportunity to earn a first-round bye by inexplicably losing to the Dolphins in Week 17. Now for the first time in a decade, the Patriots can’t host a Divisional Round matchup. But they at least get one home game, and that means the Titans will have to snap the Patriots’ nine-game playoff win streak at Gillette Stadium.

The Titans won the last meeting back in November 2018, although that was played in Nashville. That win has Titans coach Mike Vrabel 1-0 against his old team. Only a couple on our panel think Vrabel can get to 2-0.

There are also just a handful of experts who believe the Bills can travel to Houston and beat the Texans. Buffalo’s last postseason victory was in December 1995, but the Bills finished a season with double-digit wins for the first time in 20 years. The Texans don’t have a great postseason history either, with just one playoff win in the last seven years and zero AFC Championship Game appearances. Still, the experts are mostly siding with the Texans, who also posted a 10-6 record in 2019.

The only home team that doesn’t have the backing of our crew is Philadelphia. That’s not too surprising considering the NFC East was an uninspiring bunch all year and the Eagles suffered a laundry list of injuries. The Seahawks probably don’t mind hitting the road, either. They were 7-1 in games outside of Seattle in 2019.

While the Seahawks ended the regular season with three losses in their last four games — one by a literal inch — Geoff Schwartz is the only one picking the Eagles to beat them.

For the playoffs, we’re bringing back our most successful and prophetic dogs of the year. Ramsey earned a postseason return by compiling a 10-5 record back when he was the canine picker in Week 4. That was better than all nine of our human experts in an upset-filled week.

So if this 3-year-old Australian cattle dog mix says a team is going to win, he’s got the track record to back it up:

Like last time, Ramsey chose between two balls to make his picks. A blue ball represented the away team and there was an orange ball for home teams. The only time he touched the blue one was when he picked the Titans to upset the Patriots.

Other than that somewhat bold guess, Ramsey stuck with chalk. He sided with the majority and picked the Texans, Saints, and Seahawks.

Like the dogs, we’re bringing back our most successful guest pickers of the season. Back in Week 9, Lester Wiltfong from our Bears blog, Windy City Gridiron, schooled the panel with a 13-1 record. He’s returning for the first round of the postseason and sticking with the favorites.

Here are all our picks for Wild Card Weekend, although they’re subject to change by Friday if injury news changes any minds.