The 2025 NFL Playoffs started off with a bang! An amazing and entertaining season ended with a great week 18 and as coaches were fired or walked away (nine openings out of 32 teams, wow!) and the Wild Card Weekend brought a slate of entertaining games.
The College Football Championship kicked off the weekend with a pair of fun games on Thursday and Friday night as the opening act for the NFL Playoffs. On Saturday, the 8-9 and reeling Carolina Panthers gave the alleged “most dangerous team”, the Los Angeles Rams, more fight than they expected.
Carolina kept clawing back after falling behind 14-0 early, and with less than three minutes to play they took a four point lead. Unfortunately, or I guess as expected, they left too much time for the Rams who drove down the field and took the lead and the defense stood up and stopped Carolina from getting into field goal range to tie the game in the last 38 seconds and win 34-31.
Saturday night saw the NFC North grudge-match between the Green Bay Packers and the Chicago Bears in historic Soldier Field. The Packers went into Chicago and took a 21-6 lead into the fourth quarter. Despite scoring to push the lead back to 11 points with less than seven minutes to play, it didn’t stop Caleb Williams.
The fantastic cardiac kid led the Bears on two scoring drives sandwiched around a Brandon McManus missed field goal to take a 31-27 lead with 1:43 to play. The Packers came charging back down the field and fell short as the Bears’ defense held on for a wild win.
Sunday’s triple-header of games saw the Bills going into Jacksonville and outlasting the pesky Jaguars. The two teams went back-and-forth all game with no team leading by more than six points the entire game. At the end, it was too much Josh Allen and just when it seemed Trevor Lawrence had one more magic one-minute drive to move on, his pass was deflected and intercepted as Buffalo won 27-24.
The champs were dethroned on Sunday afternoon as the misfiring offense of the Philadelphia Eagles stalled out against the walking wounded San Francisco 49ers. The Eagles were holding a six point lead going into the fourth quarter and the 49ers, on the arm of wide receiver Jauan Jennings, took a 17-16 lead.
The Eagles’ defense intercepted Brock Purdy and drove down to field goal range to take back the lead with eight minutes to play. The 49ers came back and marched down the field to take a 23-19 lead with less than three minutes to play. The Eagles offense drove down the field but stalled out and turned the ball over on downs for a wild win for San Francisco.
Saturday night saw the Los Angeles Chargers coming cross-country to play in the cold and wind of frigid Foxboro as the playoff returned to New England for the first time since some Fox television announcer/Las Vegas Raiders minority owner was under center. For fans of hard-hitting defense, this was your game.
The Patriots led three field goals to one field goal in the fourth quarter before second-year quarterback Drake Maye found former Chargers tight end Hunter Henry for the only touchdown of the game. The New England defense closed out the game with a brutal pass rush led by former Eagle Milton Williams sacking Herbert for a sixth time to end the game and give New England a 16-3 win.
Finally, the weekend of amazing football ended on Monday night with the Texans traveling to Pittsburgh where the Steelers hadn’t won a playoff game in a decade and Aaron Rodgers hadn’t won a playoff game since he was lying to the media about vaccination status in an empty stadium without fans during the pandemic.
In another hard-hitting and defensive battle like the New England game, the score was 7-6 in favor of the Texans heading into the fourth quarter. Suddenly, the wheels fell off in Pittsburgh as the Steelers’ offense went Fumble, Punt, Interception and all of a sudden the Texans had two defensive scores sandwiched around a touchdown drive as they ran the ball down an exhausted Pittsburgh defense.
The final score was 30-6 in favor of the Texans, but this game was three quarters of a defensive battle with both defenses harassing the opposing offenses.
Now, with the divisional round down to the elite eight, these games should match that entertainment value again.
Each week during the season, I make my picks with my buddy David on his SportsKrunch with DKrom podcast as we’ve done regularly for the past five years (and many appearances pre-pandemic as well).
Check out this week’s episode as we recapped week sixteen, handed out our weekly awards and rated the playoff teams, checked in on the head coaches on the hot seat, and of course all the game predictions and prognostications with our bold predictions--it is available here.
Please give a listen each week on your preferred podcast provider. All back episodes are available here at Apple podcasts.
PLAYOFFS AND REGULAR SEASON RECORD:
Wild Card Weekend Last Week: Straight up: 5-1; Against the Spread: 5-1
Playoffs Totals: Straight up: 5-1; Against the Spread: 5-1
Regular Season Totals: Straight up: 168-103-1; Against the Spread: 130-139-3
Playoff and Season Totals: Straight up: 173-104-1; Against the Spread: 135-140-3
Now, on to the Divisional Weekend picks!
2025 NFL Divisional Round WeekPicks
Saturday 4:30PM:
No. 6 Bills 17 @ No. 1 Broncos 20
Spread: Bills -1.5: Broncos
Moneyline: Bills -105, Broncos -115: Broncos
O/U: 45.5: Under
Saturday 8:00PM:
No. 6 49ers 20 @ No. 1 Seahawks 30
Spread: Seahawks -7: Seahawks
Moneyline: Seahawks -340, 49ers +270: Seahawks
O/U: 44.5: Over
Sunday 3:00PM:
No. 5 Texans 13 @ No. 2 Patriots 17
Spread: Patriots -3: Patriots
Moneyline: Patriots -170, Texans +142: Patriots
O/U: 40.5: Under
Sunday 6:30PM:
No. 5 Rams 27 @ No. 2 Bears 28
Spread: Rams -3.5: Bears
Moneyline: Rams -198, Bears +164: Bears
O/U: 48.5: Over
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