And then there were four.
On Sunday, the teams for Super Bowl LX will be set. Our picks for the Conference Championships — we disagree on both games — appear below.
Last week, I went with all four underdogs. None could pull it off. I went 0-4; Simms went 2-2.
Against the spread, we both were 1-3.
Simms has clinched the straight-up title for the year, at 187-94-1. I’m 177-104-1. Against the spread, I’m still holding a two-game lead, 142-136-4 and he’s 140-138-4.
Check out our picks. One of us is bound to be right, for each game.
Patriots (-4.5) at Broncos
For the Patriots, it’s the toughest game of the year. For playoff games in Denver, history isn’t on their side. In four prior tries, the Patriots have never beaten the Broncos on the road. Can quarterback Drake Maye minimize mistakes?
For the Broncos, can Jarrett Stidham step up? The Broncos believe in him. He needs to believe in himself. He needs to run the offense, staying within himself and letting the others do their jobs.
The extra benefit for the Broncos is that they can legitimately play the “nobody believes in us” card. Most will pick the Patriots. (Not me.)
Florio’s pick: Broncos 27, Patriots 23.
Simms’s pick: Patriots 24, Broncos 17.
Rams at Seahawks (-2.5)
They split a pair of great regular-season games, capped by an epic Thursday night overtime thriller. In that one, the Rams gained 581 yards, while blowing a 16-point fourth-quarter lead.
Seattle needs to commit to the run, taking advantage of an undersized Rams front and softening things up for quarterback Sam Darnold. The Rams will have receiver Davante Adams this time around. Both he and Puka Nacua had a hard time against man-to-man coverage in Chicago. Will Seattle play less zone and more man in round three?
The difference could be the experience and skill of Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford and Rams coach Sean McVay. They’ve been there, done that.
However it goes, here’s hoping for another great game.
Florio’s pick: Rams 34, Seahawks 30.
Simms’s pick: Seahawks 28, Rams 20.
Sunday night’s epic, snowy, overtime thriller between the Rams and Bears ended in a win for L.A. And a win for the NFL.
The game drew an audience of 45.4 million, on average, for NBC and Peacock. Viewership peaked at 52.6 million, in the closing minutes of the contest.
It was the biggest division-round number for NBC since 1988. It beat the prior high-water mark (Oilers-Chiefs January 1994) by more than four million viewers.
Of that amount, 5.3 million watched via streaming platforms.
Last year’s Sunday night division-round playoff game between the Ravens and Bills averaged 42.2 million on CBS. This year’s audience reflects a 7.58-percent increase.
The coach of the year field has been narrowed to five. That’s the relatively easy part.
The hard part is narrowing it to one.
Of course, that happened more than two weeks ago, when the 50 AP voters (whose names and votes will be disclosed after the awards are announced in two weeks) submitted their ballots on the day after the end of the regular season.
The five finalists, as announced by the NFL, are (in alphabetical order): Jaguars coach Liam Coen, Bears coach Ben Johnson, Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald, 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan, and Patriots coach Mike Vrabel.
Fortunately, none of the five finalists were among the 10 coaches who are no longer with their teams.
The most obvious omissions from the list are Broncos coach Sean Payton, whose team secured the No. 1 seed in the AFC, and Rams coach Sean McVay, whose team was arguably the second best in the NFC, seeding notwithstanding.
But putting them in the top five would require removing one of the others. Good luck with that exercise.
The two favorites, in our view, are Coen and Vrabel. We’ll find out in 14 days who gets the fancy trophy. Vrabel surely hopes he won’t be able to attend the NFL Honors ceremony, because he’ll be preparing for the far more important prize. Especially as it relates to a coach’s legacy.
The NFC West landed three teams in the playoffs this season and all three of those teams have a finalist for the league’s offensive player of the year award.
Seahawks wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba is the favorite to take the prize at sportsbooks after being a unanimous selection to the All-Pro team and he is one of the five finalists. Smith-Njigba had 119 catches for a league-high 1,793 yards while scoring 10 touchdowns for the NFC top seed.
Rams wide receiver Puka Nacua led the league with 129 catches. He had 1,715 yards and 10 touchdowns on those receptions and he also ran for one score.
49ers running back Christian McCaffrey had 1,202 rushing yards and 924 receiving yards to post the third 2,000-plus scrimmage yard season of his career.
Patriots quarterback Drake Maye and Falcons running back Bijan Robinson are the other finalists. Maye is also an MVP finalist while Robinson led the league in scrimmage yards.
The NFL has announced the finalists for this year’s most valuable player award.
Patriots quarterback Drake Maye and Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford have been seen as the two favorites for the award for some time and both men make their expected appearance on the list of five finalists. The award will be handed out at the NFL Honors event during Super Bowl week.
If Maye and Stafford both lead their teams to wins this weekend, they’ll square off in the Super Bowl days after finding out if they were named this season’s MVP. Stafford beat Maye out in first-team All-Pro voting and that’s usually predictive of the MVP vote. One exception came last year when Bills quarterback Josh Allen won MVP after Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson was voted All-Pro.
Allen is a finalist again this year. Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence and 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey round out the group of finalists.
