King Kaufman's Sports Daily
NFL playoff preview: Cannon fodder for the Pats, Colts, Cowboys and Packers sort themselves out.
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Jan. 4, 2008 | The NFL playoffs get going this weekend with the wild-card round, the sorting out of all those teams that aren't the New England Patriots, Indianapolis Colts, Dallas Cowboys or Green Bay Packers, the four clubs that separated themselves from the rest of the league during the regular season.
But "the rest" has a different meaning in the AFC than in the NFC. The Pittsburgh Steelers, San Diego Chargers and Jacksonville Jaguars have at one time or another played for a while like a legitimate member of an AFC Big Three. In the NFC the Seattle Seahawks, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, New York Giants and Washington have left little doubt that there's a trench between them and the Big Two.
Seattle hosts Washington and Tampa Bay hosts the Giants in the NFC. Jacksonville visits Pittsburgh and the Tennessee Titans travel to San Diego in the AFC.
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The four-game wild-card round dates to 1990, and as you'd expect in a format in which home games are awarded to division champions over runners-up, home-field advantage has been pronounced. Home teams have gone 47-21.
For a long time, picking the wild-card round was easy. From 1993 through 2003, home teams went 3-1 every year but one. That year, 2000, home teams went 4-0. All you had to do was write down the four home teams and take your gentleman's 3-1 record into the divisional round. Plus you got a millennial lagniappe.
But it's been a pipe dream of mine to go 11-0 picking playoff games some year. I've never come close. Maybe I should put down the pipe. But what I tended to do was guess which road team would win. This usually resulted in a gentleman's 2-2.
In the last three years, though, things have gone haywire. Home teams have gone 1-3, 1-3 and 4-0. Of course you know what that means. And if you do, please tell me.
Here's a look at the four games this weekend, with my picks and those of my daughter, Daisy, the coin-flippinest 2-year-old in the NFC. My son, Buster, is withholding his playoff picks in a contract dispute.
Next page: The Seahawks' home-field advantage, the surprising Giants and the slugging Chargers and Titans