Wildcard weekend opens the New Year in NFL

By Karl O'Shaughnessy

The road to the Super Bowl XLIX begins this weekend with four games in a packed NFL Wild Card Weekend. Out of 32 competing NFL teams, only 12 remain with a chance of ultimate Super Bowl glory in Glendale, Arizona, on 1 February.

The NFL playoffs see the top two teams in the AFC and NFC seeded - which means they avoid having to play in week one of the playoffs, known as the Wildcard Weekend.

So it's a weekend off for arguably the four most talented teams in the NFL, all of whom finished the season with 12-4 records – New England Patriots and Denver Broncos in the AFC and the Seattle Seahawks and Green Bay Packers in the NFC.

That means that two divisional champions (seeded 3 and 4 respectively) in both the AFC and NFC must host a Wildcard Game this weekend against the two teams with the next best records in their conference (seeded 5 and 6). The seeds are as follows:

Starting with the AFC, Saturday night sees the sixth seed Baltimore Ravens travel to their AFC North divisional rivals and third seeded Pittsburgh Steelers. The teams split wins in their two meetings earlier this season with both winning at home - perhaps giving Steelers the edge in this battle. Both teams finished the season strongly with Steelers winning their last four games to secure the AFC North title, while the Ravens won three of four to make the playoffs.

The smart money seems to be pointing towards the home team in this one, as the Steelers have a 5-1 record against teams who made the playoffs during the regular season. The Ravens struggled against teams with winning records, only winning one of their seven encounters.

It's not a lost cause for the Ravens though. They boast the quarterback with the most playoff wins on the road in NFL history in Joe Flacco - and with Justin Forsett comfortably taking up the mantle from suspended running back Ray Rice, the Ravens have enough fire power to upset Pittsburgh. The game however may be decided by which team's defence can pass-rush the opposing quarterback better. The Steelers have the best wide receiver in the NFL right now in Antonio Brown and if running back Le'Veon Bell is absent, shutting down Ben Roethlisberger's route to Brown could be the key for Baltimore.

On Sunday, the AFC North's third playoff representative, the Cincinnati Bengals, travel to Indianapolis to face the Andrew Luck led fourth seeded Indianapolis Colts, whose early season form saw their offence run up over 400 yards in almost all of their first nine games. As Fantasy owners of Andrew Luck will verify, that form did not last into the last few weeks of the season and injuries took their toll on the Colts. The Colts do have genuine big game talent in wide receiver TY Hilton and if he and Luck get on the same wavelength, then there's a chance the Colts can rekindle that early season form.

The Bengals on the other hand are the team you'd likely most wish to face in an NFL playoff game given that they haven't won one since 1990 and their coach, Marvin Lewis, has a 0-5 record in post season games. Cincinnati found some form recently with running back Jeremy Hill the leading NFL rusher over the period since he got handed the starting job in Week 9. If star wide receiver AJ Green makes the game and is healthy then the Bengals can certainly come away from Indy with the win. To ensure that happens, they'll need quarterback Andy Dalton to handle the pressure of the game effectively and become the first Bengals quarterback to win a playoff game on the road in their history.

Over in the NFC Conference, the Arizona Cardinals begin their quest to reach a home-field Super Bowl on the road in Charlotte on Saturday. They face NFC South Champions Carolina Panthers.

The 7-8-1 Panthers won the worst division in the NFL this season to gain the right to host a wildcard game against the 11-4 Arizona Cardinals. Arizona fought the Seattle Seahawks - the reigning champions - hard for the NFC West title this season.

The Panthers come into this game in good form following four straight wins, while the Cardinals have had a nightmare spell with injuries to starting quarterback Carson Palmer and then to backup Drew Stanton. This resulted in them losing four of their last six regular season games. The Panthers have found a good rhythm with quarterback Cam Newton looking more like his old self and running back Jonathan Stewart combining well to rush for over 100 yards in 11 consecutive games.

The Cardinals will have to hope that quarterback Ryan Linley can rise to the occasion on the road in the playoffs. He did show glimpses last week, with his first NFL touchdown coming via a brilliantly executed flea flicker play, but he needs more consistency to give the Cardinals any chance of a 'home' Super Bowl appearance.

Finally on Sunday, the Detroit Lions travel to Texas to face Tony Romo and the Dallas Cowboys in arguably the game of the weekend.

There is real elite offensive talent on display from both teams in this game. The Lions have not won a post-season game since 1991, but perhaps it's a good omen that that win came when they convincingly beat a Troy Aikman led Dallas Cowboys 38-6. Like most playoffs, success will likely be derived from good quarterback performances, and if Detroit are to reach the dizzy heights of 1991 again they'll need Matt Stafford to be performing at his best.

There's little doubt the Lions have the quality to disrupt the Cowboys with Calvin Johnson one of the best wide receivers in the game, along with a recently much improved Joique Bell at running back.

The Lions boast the best run defence in the NFL and come up against the best NFL rusher in the Cowboys' Demarco Murray. On seven previous occasions in NFL playoff history, the best rushing defence has met the best rusher - on five of those occasions the best defence came out as winner. Can the Lions make it a sixth time or will Tony Romo and Des Bryant take to the air to carve out a Cowboys victory? It's set up to be one of the most intriguing playoff games of the year.

While the losers in the Wildcard Weekend will be done for the season, the top-seeded victors can look forward to a trip to the AFC and NFC second seeds in Denver or Green Bay next weekend, while the lowest-seeded winners face the daunting task of a trip to Foxboro' to face the bookies' favourites, New England Patriots, or a visit to reigning Super Bowl Champions Seahawks and their fanatical support in Seattle.

@OShaughnessyK

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