King Kaufman's Sports Daily

NFL divisional round preview: Patriots lead a Pack of heavy favorites.

Read more: Sports, Football, NFL, King Kaufman, NFL Playoffs, Sports Daily

Jan. 11, 2008 | The opening acts have done their thing, and now here come the headliners of the NFL playoffs, the New England Patriots, Indianapolis Colts, Dallas Cowboys, Green Bay Packers and New England Patriots.

The undefeated Patriots are so good they get mentioned twice.

All four teams, the top two seeds in each conference, are favored by at least a touchdown in their divisional-round home games this weekend. The visiting teams are the Jacksonville Jaguars at New England, the San Diego Chargers at Indianapolis, the New York Giants at Dallas and the Seattle Seahawks at Green Bay.

The wide point spreads mean that my son, Buster, the contract-holding-outest 4-year-old who ever said it's not about money but about respect, is unable to withhold his picks because he's still bound by the terms of his old deal, which stipulates that he and his coin-flippinest 2-year-old sister, Daisy, both take all favorites of six or more points. He's seeking an injunction -- actually just holding his breath -- to prevent this column from using his name.

Here's a look at the divisional round in chronological order.

SATURDAY

Seattle (10-6) at Green Bay (13-3)
4:30 p.m. EST, Fox
I don't know if you've heard about this lately, but it seems that a few years ago, the Seahawks and Packers were playing a playoff game in Green Bay, and it went to overtime, and the Seahawks won the toss, and quarterback Matt Hasselbeck said to the official, "Shall I never see a bachelor of three score again?"

Wait, that's not what he said. He said, "We want the ball and we're going to score!" And a few minutes later he threw an interception to Al Harris, who ran it in for a touchdown and the Packers won. And you know what that means.

Nothing. But we all agreed to mention it at the big media conspiracy meeting last month, when we also agreed to continue ignoring Wantagate.

Far more important is the fact that the Packers are a much better team than the Seahawks are. Seattle's a so-so team that walked into the playoffs from a crashingly bad division, then beat a Washington club last week that, however impressive and inspiring it was in the aftermath of Sean Taylor's death, wasn't that good. And the Seahawks struggled a bit before putting the game away.

Next page: Patriots to stay undefeated, Colts to avoid six-pick loss to Bolts, Cowboys to sweep Giants