Predicting the entire NFL playoff race, from Wild Card Weekend winners to Super Bowl LIX champion

Recency bias hit us hard when deliberating the winner of this one. Last weekend, Sam Darnold had arguably his worst game of the season -- on the biggest stage to date -- while the Rams’ backups pushed the Seahawks’ starters to the brink, coming up just short of their sixth consecutive win. While it’s hard to shake how shook Sam looked in Detroit on Sunday night, one poor performance doesn’t erase a career-best campaign or the Vikings’ 14 overall wins. Which is why we’re all expecting a tight, gritty contest at SoFi on Monday night. These two teams are extremely well-coached with savvy veterans and legit game-changers at critical positions. Yes, the Vikings lost to the Rams at SoFi earlier this season. And yes, that game was similarly preceded by a Minnesota loss to Detroit. But these teams are both much better and more battle-tested than they were back in October. So we didn’t put too much stock into the final outcome of that midseason meeting. This was the only wild-card matchup that came down to a fifth-vote tie-breaker, with the Rams getting the narrow edge on their home turf. But even the folks who sided with L.A. did not feel great about this pick.  

The juice is abundant here. In one corner, you have the leading MVP contender, Josh Allen, guiding a top-two scoring offense complemented by the league’s No. 11 scoring defense. In the other corner, you have the other top MVP candidate, Lamar Jackson, fueling a top-three scoring complemented by the No. 9 scoring defense. It’s hard to find what will ultimately separate them -- they even have identical net margins of plus-157 points. The Ravens did hand the Bills their most sound defeat of the season, 35-10, back in Week 4, but that was in Baltimore. Can Lamar and Co. do it again in Buffalo, where the Bills have not lost since ... last season’s Divisional Round? Each QB is starved to get over the hump and into the Super Bowl for the first time in their careers, which should make this game -- if it does come to be -- fun to watch and so hard to pick.

The reasons to believe in the Chiefs are obvious. Let's start with the fact that they're the back-to-back reigning Super Bowl champions. And putting aside Week 18, when the team's marquee starters rested, Kansas City lost one game during the regular season: at Buffalo back in mid-November. Head coach Andy Reid and defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo are two of the most revered minds in football. And with Patrick Mahomes under center, the Chiefs have never had a season end before Championship Sunday. So, penciling in K.C. for a seventh straight AFC title game appearance seems like a no-brainer at first blush. But, as odd as it feels to write, the 15-2 Chiefs just weren't overly impressive this season. The offense struggled to protect Mahomes, while the defense failed to flummox opposing quarterbacks. And despite tying Detroit for the NFL's best record, Kansas City's point differential pales in comparison: The Lions comfortably sit atop the league at +222, while the Chiefs rank 11th (and third in their own division!) at +59. Is this a battle-tested juggernaut that simply knows how to win, style points be damned? Or a sagging monarchy susceptible to overthrow at any moment? We're about to find out!

It might be unfair to characterize a 14-win team as a "sleeper." But there is a nagging sense we are about to learn in the harshest terms that the Vikings and Sam Darnold have been playing over their skis. After all, just three of their victories came against playoff teams (one against a suspect Texans squad and two against the seventh-seeded Packers), while all three of their losses were to fellow postseason contenders, including the NFC North-winning Lions and the scrappy Rams. Hence our hesitation to ultimately back Minnesota in the SoFi rematch, as detailed in our breakdown of that game above. Then again, as also detailed in that breakdown, all of us could easily see Kevin O'Connell and Brian Flores prevailing in their second crack at L.A. If those eminently trustworthy coaches can push this talented roster into the Divisional Round, why shouldn't they go further? Sure, the Lions loom, but is it that difficult to believe Minnesota could pull off an upset in a third showdown against Detroit? A Super Bowl title remains in play for the Vikings -- and, perhaps even more importantly, so does a chance for them to embarrass us for dumping them so soon.

The Ravens don't have an easy road to the Big Easy, the place where Baltimore last won a Super Bowl, but they do have arguably the best player in the NFL right now in Lamar Jackson. Naysayers will point to the two-time MVP’s lack of postseason success (2-4), but this is the best version of the Ravens in the Jackson era. He is at the peak of his powers operating an offense that ranks first in rushing and total yards and is third in scoring. The biggest factor, however, in the franchise’s run to a third championship is a defense that has improved drastically down the stretch, ranking tops in the NFL in multiple categories since Week 11. John Harbaugh’s team carries its elite play into the postseason and executes in all three phases to get through the AFC gauntlet, knocking off the No. 2 seed Buffalo Bills and No. 1 seed Kansas City Chiefs on the road in back-to-back weeks -- before shattering Detroit's hopes for its own jubilant end. Baltimore will more than earn this title.