I’d like to tell you that there are spoilers below for the NFL 2020 playoffs, but I know that’s not true. It’s incredibly difficult to predict how 13 NFL games will go. Last season, three of the four teams that were favored to win in the wild-card round lost. People were expecting a Ravens-Chiefs fight in the AFC championship game, but Baltimore was easy to send by Tennessee in the divisional round. If you had a perfect playoff bracket until the Chiefs defeated the 49ers in Miami, well, you won.
This year, as a preview for the playoffs, I will present a parenthesis of 13 games and I will predict the winners, up to Super Bowl LV. It will almost certainly be wrong and destroyed until we get through the three opening games on Saturday, which is good. Hopefully there is a perspective here that will give you things to look for before games, no matter how the results actually go.
Let’s start with NFC and the first 7-seed in the history of the playoffs:
Jump to a playoff round:
Wild-card weekend: NFC | AFC
Divisional round: NFC | AFC
Conference Championships: NFC | AFC
Super Bowl LV
Weekend with wild NFC cards
The four-game run from Bears defender Mitchell Trubisky, which won the hearts of NFL directors in December, came against teams ranked 14th (Vikings), 29th (Texans), 31st (Jaguars) and 32nd (Lions) in the DVOA defense. In the game against the Vikings, Trubisky went 15-of-21 for 202 meters, with a touchdown and a choice. A late Trubisky defeat cost Chicago the game against the Lions. The fourth-year passer began and finished his run with games against the Packers, a team with a competent defense for the pass, which requires the other teams to throw to stay in the game. Trubisky averaged 5.6 yards per try, threw three interceptions and buzzed three times in those two games.