Football

Friday, Sep 5, 2008 04:00 PDT

NFL playoff preview

It's never too early. Plus: Divisional predictions in one place for ease of ridicule.

Now that this column's divisional picks have been doled out in eight easy-to-ignore bites, we come to the good stuff. Playoff picks! If you think I have no idea what's going to happen starting this weekend, wait'll you get a load of how little I know about what's going to happen starting Jan. 3.

Then again, you don't know either. But do you put all your picks in one place for ease of ridicule?

Oh. Well, good for you. Here are mine:

NFC

West: Arizona Cardinals
South: New Orleans Saints
North: Minnesota Vikings
East: Philadelphia Eagles
Wild cards: Green Bay Packers, Dallas Cowboys

AFC

West: San Diego Chargers
South: Jacksonville Jaguars
North: Cleveland Browns
East: New England Patriots
Wild cards: Indianapolis Colts, Buffalo Bills

Conference Championship Games: Green Bay over New Orleans, New England over Jacksonville

Super Bowl: Green Bay over New England

That's right, the Favre-less Packers. Go ahead and write those e-mails. "Do you really think Aaron Rodgers will lead the Packers to the championship that eluded Brett Favre for the last 11 years?"

No, not really. I think the Packers have, like, an 8 percent chance of winning the Super Bowl, about 10 other teams have a 7 percent chance and maybe a half-dozen teams have a 3 percent chance. All the other teams combined also have about a 3 percent chance.

Wait, new e-mail just came in: "That's only 99 percent, dummy."

Right. I think there's a 1 percent chance they'll just forget to play the Super Bowl. Roger Goodell would have to fire his secretary. "You were supposed to write it on the calendar!"