There are only four teams left standing in the NFL and just like we all predicted before the season, the Washington Commanders are one of them. Just kidding, no one predicted that. Not even Commanders fans.
For the first time since the 1991 season, the Commanders are in the NFC Championship. If you’re wondering how long ago that was, let me put it this way: There was only one website available to the public on the ENTIRE internet (and we might have been better off if had kept it that way), Vanilla Ice somehow managed to get his own movie (Cool as Ice) and Joe’s Crab Shack was getting set to open its first location. Try to imagine living in a world without Joe’s Crab Shack. You can’t. It’s impossible. I mean, where else is there to go when you’re in the mood for seafood at a family-friendly price?
Back in 1991, the Commanders won the NFC title game and then faced the Buffalo Bills in the Super Bowl. So is history going to REPEAT itself? Glad you asked.
To figure out if that’s going to happen, I decided to do something I never do: Research.
So what did I find out?
If there’s one reason to like the Commanders this week, it’s because they played on Saturday in the divisional round. Teams that play on Saturday — which means they get one extra day of rest — have gone 20-10 in the conference title round over the past 15 years. To add to that, at least one team that played on Saturday in the divisional round has advanced to the Super Bowl in 17 of the past 19 years, so I guess that means it’s almost guaranteed that the Chiefs or Commanders will be winning this week.
The one-day-rest advantage doesn’t sound like much, but just think about it like this: While the Eagles were busy fighting for their lives in a blizzard during a wild one-score win over the Rams that went down to the wire, the Commanders were sitting at home making fun of the Lions for losing.
Despite the extra rest, I can’t automatically pick the Commanders, though, and that’s because they’re playing on the road, which has been a death wish in the NFC Championship.
In nine of the past 11 years, the home team has won the NFC title game and that includes two wins by the Eagles where they outscored their opponents 69-14. In the AFC, the home team has also had a big advantage in the playoffs, but hasn’t been quite as dominant, winning in eight of the past 11 seasons (Advantage: Eagles and Chiefs).
During this year’s postseason, road teams have gone 2-8, but both wins have come from the Commanders, so if any team can win on the road in this round, it’s probably them.
Am I actually going to take any of these stats into account or am I going to go rogue?
Let’s get to the picks and find out.
NFC Championship pick
Washington (14-5) at Philadelphia (16-3)
3 p.m. ET (Fox) Stream: fubo
I’m almost glad Philadelphia won in the divisional round because this means we’ll get to continue the greatest rivalry in sports: Me vs. Eagles fans.
There’s no fan base that calls me out faster when I pick against their team than Eagles fans. For instance, my divisional round picks went up at 10:30 a.m. ET on Jan. 14 and 18 MINUTES later, an Eagles fan had already called me out for picking against Philly.
Honestly, Eagles fans respond so fast that I’m actually impressed. Now, Vincent makes it sound like I pick against the Eagles all the time, but that’s not exactly the case. I only picked them to lose six times in 19 games this year, and I went 0-6 with those picks. On the other hand, I actually picked them to WIN in all of their losses so maybe I’m subconsciously holding that against them.
On the flip side, we have the Commanders, who are now my favorite team because they made me look smart. Last week, I picked them to beat the Lions and well, we all so what happened.
Am I already talking myself into picking the Commanders? Am I actually willing to go down in flames by picking against the Eagles again? Let’s find out, and let’s start by looking at Washington.
Not only are the Commanders in the NFC title game, but they’ve gotten this far with a rookie quarterback. Getting to a conference title game is hard enough, but getting to one with a rookie quarterback is almost impossible. It’d be like running a marathon in flip flops while holding a baby in your arms. The degree of difficulty is high.
When Jayden Daniels takes the field on Sunday, he’ll become just the sixth rookie QB in NFL history to start in a conference title game (Brock Purdy, Shaun King, Ben Roethlisberger, Joe Flacco and Mark Sanchez are the others). If history is any indication, things could get ugly for Daniels against the Eagles. Not only did those five other rookies go 0-5 in their starts, but they also combined to throw nine interceptions compared to just four touchdowns.
Those other five rookies lost even though they all had the advantage of having something that Daniels definitely does NOT have: A great defense.
If the Commanders defense has struggled with one thing this year, it’s stopping the run and if you can’t stop the run, the last guy in the world you want to be facing is Saquon Barkley. The Eagles running back is averaging 125.3 yards per game this year, which led the NFL, and that doesn’t even include the fact that he went off for 205 yards against the Rams in the divisional round, which was the fifth-most rushing yards in a playoff game in NFL history.
If you’re now wondering how bad the Commanders are at stopping the run, they surrendered 137.5 yards per game on the ground, which was the third-worst number in the NFL. Since the Commanders have now won two playoff games, you’d think that the defense has gotten better at stopping the run, but nope. In their two playoff wins, the Commanders have surrendered 150 rushing yards per game. Yes, they won those games, but that’s because Daniels and the offense were able to carry them against two bad defenses. The Lions and Buccaneers both surrendered more than 340 yards per game during the regular season and Washington took advantage of that, but this week, the Commanders will be facing a brick wall in an Eagles defense that surrendered the fewest yards in the NFL in 2024.
When these two teams met in Week 11, the Commanders tied their lowest scoring output of the season in a 26-18 loss, and eight of those points came on a touchdown with under 30 seconds left to play. When these two teams met again in Week 15, Jalen Hurts missed the final three quarters due to a concussion, but despite that, the Eagles still almost won. Daniels threw a touchdown pass with six seconds left to win the game 36-33.
Barkley ran for 146 yards and two touchdowns in the first game before topping that with 150 yards and two touchdowns in the second game. I thought the Eagles were the better team in both games — again, they almost won the second game with Kenny Pickett as their QB for three quarters — and I’m not sure anything is going to change this time around.
At this point, I think Eagles fans would prefer if I picked against their team in this game, but the joke’s on them, because the prediction here is that the Eagles will be flying to their third Super Bowl in eight seasons.
And since no Eagles pick is complete without a video of the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra performing “Fly, Eagles, Fly,” here is the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra performing “Fly, Eagles, Fly.”
That song is starting to grow on me.
The pick: Eagles 27-24 over Commanders
Record picking Commanders games this season: 13-6
Record picking Eagles games this season: 10-9
Record picking Commanders-Eagles games this season: 1-1 (Picked Eagles to win both games)
Note: If Hurts (knee) doesn’t play, I’ll be updating my pick. During the regular season, I usually just make two picks when a QB is dealing with an injury — one for if he plays and one for if he doesn’t — but this is the CONFERENCE TITLE GAME, so I’ll offer an actual explanation if I change my pick. But again, this only applies if Hurts doesn’t play.
AFC Championship pick
Buffalo (15-4) at Kansas City (16-2)
6:30 p.m. ET (CBS) Stream: Paramount+
If you watch any TV this week or jump on the internet at any point, there’s a good chance you’ll see several commercials promoting this game, but there’s really no need for any of them because this game sells itself: We have Patrick Mahomes vs. Josh Allen with a spot in the Super Bowl on the line.
If you have plans on Sunday evening, then cancel them, unless you’re scheduled to deliver a baby, then maybe keep those plans. In that case, you could probably just use the Paramount+ app to watch the game on your phone while you deliver the baby. Speaking of new babies, Mahomes and his wife just had one last week.
When you have a newborn in your house, you’re lucky if you get just one hour of sleep per night, so the fact that Mahomes looked a little rusty in the divisional round (he threw for just 177 yards) doesn’t concern me all.
What kind of concerns me about the Chiefs is that they’re 0-1 against the Bills this season. Back in Week 11, the Bills beat the Chiefs 30-21, but now that I’m thinking about it, I’m not sure that result actually means anything because the Bills ALWAYS beat the Chiefs in the regular season.
As a matter of fact, the Bills have won four straight regular-season games against the Chiefs and in two of those seasons, they ended up playing Kansas City again in the playoffs. Guess who won in the playoffs? Not the Bills.
Let’s take a look at their past seven games against each other:
2020 postseason: Chiefs 38-24 over Bills (AFC title game)
2021 regular season: Bills 38-20 over Chiefs
2021 postseason: Chiefs 42-36 in OT (divisional round)
2022 regular season: Bills 24-20 over Chiefs
2023 regular season: Bills 20-17 over Chiefs
2023 postseason: Chiefs 27-24 over Bills (divisional round)
2024 regular season: Bills 30-21 over Chiefs
If you’re scoring at home, the Bills have gone 4-0 in the regular season, but 0-3 in the postseason.
I’m almost starting to think that the Chiefs are losing the regular-season game on purpose just so that they’re extra motivated to beat the Bills in the playoffs.
If this was a regular-season game, that would be enough to convince me to pick the Bills, but this isn’t a regular-season game. It’s the playoffs and like they do every year, the Chiefs always seem to look unbeatable once the postseason starts.
A big reason the Chiefs beat Houston in the divisional round is because Travis Kelce finally decided to show up after taking off the final few weeks of the regular season. Over the final four games of the year, Kelce averaged just 46.5 yards per game with one touchdown, not to mention, he caught just two passes for 8 yards against the Bills in Week 11. However, I don’t expect a repeat of that performance and that’s because “Playoff Kelce” is here. “Playoff Kelce” is unstoppable and he proved it once again against the Texans when he caught seven passes for a season-high 117.
The man now has more 100-yard receiving games in NFL playoff history than Jerry Rice. And for you younger people out there, Jerry Rice isn’t just an Uber Eats spokesman, he actually used to play in the NFL.
Anyway, the Chiefs beat the Texans even though DeAndre Hopkins, Hollywood Brown and JuJu Smith-Schuster combined to catch exactly zero passes. Basically, the Chiefs played one of their worst offensive games of the season and still won by two scores. I doubt we’re going to see them play two bad games in a row in the playoffs, because that NEVER happens (The Chiefs have never scored under 25 points in consecutive playoff games in Mahomes’ career)
On the Bills’ end, they’re playing some of their best football of the year, but problem for them is that this game is on the road. Yes, the Bills are 15-4 on the season, including the playoffs, but that breaks down like this:
- 10-0 at home
- 5-4 on the road
The Bills played four road games against teams that eventually made the playoffs (Ravens, Texans, Lions, Rams) and they went 1-3 in those games. Allen hasn’t played as well on the road as he has at home, and let’s not forget about Buffalo’s defense. The unit only gave up 35 points or more in three games this season, and all of them came on the road. The Bills only gave up 425 yards or more in four games this season, and you guessed it, they all came on the road.
The Bills have had a great season, but I just can’t trust them on the road against a team that has ZERO home losses this year. Allen has the most playoff wins (7) of any QB in NFL history without making it to the Super Bowl and he could put an end to that streak with a win here, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.
Every time the Bills have been to a Super Bowl, they’ve played an NFC East team and with the Eagles and Commanders in the NFC title game, I think the football Gods are trying to nudge me to pick Buffalo, but I can’t pick against history and the Chiefs seem hellbent on making NFL history this year by becoming the first team ever to win three Super Bowls in a row.
The pick: Chiefs 26-23 over Bills
Record picking Bills games this season: 11-8
Record picking Chiefs games this season: 16-2 (My best record picking any team)
Record picking Bills-Chiefs games this season: 1-0
Last week
Best pick: Last week, I predicted that the Lions would score exactly 31 points and lose to the Commanders and guess what happened? The Lions scored exactly 31 points and lost to the Commanders. Now, did I know that Jared Goff was going to have a total meltdown and give the game away? Of course, I did. It’s Jared Goff.
An NFL team literally traded him away because they didn’t think they’d ever be able to win a Super Bowl with him and then that team ended up winning the Super Bowl in its first year without him. To be fair, Goff wasn’t the only high-priced QB who suffered a total meltdown in the playoffs. The three highest-paid quarterbacks in the postseason — Jordan Love ($55 million per year), Goff ($53 million) and Justin Herbert ($52.5 million) — went 0-3 with a combined 10 interceptions. That’s a big yikes.
Worst pick: The Ravens have a long history of choking in the playoffs and for some reason, I still picked them to win their divisional round game over the Bills and the joke was on me, because the Ravens once again choked. Lamar Jackson choked away the first half with two turnovers, but then he remembered he was Lamar Jackson and played a nearly perfect second half, but that didn’t matter because Mark Andrews choked away the final two quarters with a fumble and a dropped pass on a two-point conversion that would have tied the game with 1:33 left to play.
To add insult to injury, the Ravens clearly jinxed their own guy by tweeting this out before the game.
On the all-time list of tweets that didn’t age well, that’s probably in the top three.
Alright guys, unless I decide to do a Pro Bowl pick — and I probably won’t — I’ll be on a one-week hiatus, which means you should circle Feb. 4 on your calendar (or tattoo it on your inner-lip), because that’s when my Super Bowl LIX pick will be rolling out. If you can’t wait that long, then I suggest following me Twitter or even Instagram. I’ll be in New Orleans for Super Bowl week and I promise to take a picture of every bizarre thing I see in the French Quarter.
If you don’t want to wait until Feb. 4 to hear from me, you can sign up for the daily NFL newsletter that I write for CBSSports.com. Just click this link and enter your email and then BAM, I’ll be in your inbox five days per week throughout the year.
Picks record
Straight up in divisional round: 2-2
SU overall in playoffs: 6-4
Against the spread in divisional round: 3-1
ATS overall in playoffs: 4-6
Final 2024 regular-season record
Straight up: 180-92
Against the spread: 140-126-6
You can find John Breech on Facebook or Twitter and if he’s not doing one of those things, he’s probably watching the Vanilla Ice movie.
