Friday Afternoon Quarterback: NFL Conference Championships

By BetOnline January 17, 2020

0 Comments

BY ADAM GREENE

We’ve arrived at our penultimate week of real NFL football and there’ve been no surprises, right? These are the four teams we all picked when this started to make the NFC and AFC Championships. I mean, you could have written these out in stone three weeks ago after the field was set.

In all seriousness, three of these teams were all but givens when the field was announced. What no one was expecting, especially me, was to see the 9-7 Tennessee Titans sitting here in the AFC title game after beating both the New England Patriots and Baltimore Ravens.

I’ve delivered my apologies to Titans head coach Mike Vrabel, already, and would love nothing more than to see another shocking week of NFL postseason football play out.

Will it happen? Let’s take a look.

TENNESSEE TITANS AT KANSAS CITY CHIEFS (-7.5, O/U: 53)

The Titans’ run in the postseason has been nothing short of magical as they have simultaneously won the hearts of the good, heroic people that hate the Patriots and the horrible turd bags that actually rooted against Lamar Jackson for whatever stupid, racist or pre-conceived (he should play wide receiver/running back!) reason they settled upon.

Tennessee has united us, monsters and angels alike, in a way no other team has in recent memory.

Can they keep it going against the vastly superior Chiefs?

The short answer is no.

Here’s the longer one. Now, I’ll admit that not only have I been wrong about the Titans this whole postseason, I’m glad I was. No one, and I can guarantee you NO ONE, on planet Earth was happier than I was to see the despised Patriots get knocked out of the playoffs in the first round.

I was less stoked about the Ravens, but if you followed me this year, you know I didn’t think they would make the Super Bowl anyway.

Nope, all along as the postseason headed our way I told you the Chiefs had this slot filled. I haven’t changed my mind. I know Tennessee beat Kansas City 35-32 in early November, but in playoff history, all that means is the results flip in the postseason. The same thing happened last week to a Houston Texans teams that also claimed a Chiefs victory in the regular season.

They were blown out after one of the greatest choke jobs in playoff history.

I don’t think the Titans will choke, but I do think they’ve maxed out what they can do. Chiefs 36, Titans 24

GREEN BAY PACKERS AT SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS (-7.5, O/U: 46.5)

Does that mean I’m going chalk like I did last week in the divisional round? Oh no, my friend.

Again, if you’ve been reading, you know who I picked to face off in Super Bowl LIII the second the field was set. You also know the historic significance of it. The San Francisco 49ers benefited this season by actually being good, facing a cupcake schedule and getting lucky when it counted.

One of those strokes of luck was facing off against the Minnesota Vikings in the divisional round. Are the 49ers in this game if they hosted the Seahawks in what would have been a rubber match between the two NFC West teams? Seattle beat the 49ers 27-24 earlier in the season and San Fran won 26-21 in Week 17. It would have been a coin flip game and, frankly, I would have picked the Seahawks.

Since Kyle Shanahan took over the 49ers, they’ve gone 1-1 against Green Bay, but the loss in 2018 was without Jimmy Garoppolo. When they played this year, S.F. dominated, winning 37-8 at home.

But, like I said earlier, if you’re a student of the game many times you get opposite results flip in the postseason. The team that won tries to use the same gameplan that worked. The team that lost changes it up and unleashes some surprises. That’s why the games flip.

Aaron Rodgers was instrumental in getting Mike McCarthy run out of town and into the loving, tingling hands of Jerry Jones in Dallas. This is his team and his coach with Matt LaFleur. It’s time to prove why that was all the right move.

I like Green Bay. I like a Super Bowl I rematch in Super Bowl LIII in the NFL’s Centennial season. Packers 27, 49ers 24