The Wild Wild Card

Aaron Rodgers and Eli Manning both have aspirations for
another Super Bowl ring, but only one can win this weekend.

It's playoff season, and that means that Austen is back for the stretch run.  Happy 2017, blog readers!

Let's get into our playoff breakdown:

Stally's Eight-Point Pick
@Pittsburgh over Miami

Stally: This is the only game of the four that I find easy to pick.  The Pittsburgh Steelers are a good football team with a ridiculous amount of offensive talent, and Miami is headed on the road with a backup QB.  I just don't see the Dolphins winning this game.

Austen: No argument here. Matt Moore is more than serviceable (I would have Miami favored over both the Texans and Raiders), but they got a road game with the most dangerous offense in the league. Tough draw for a Fins team that has not made the playoffs in almost a decade and has only won one playoff game this millennium.

Austen's Eight-Point Pick
@Seattle over Detroit

Week 17: Games Worth Watching

The Lions and Packers are neck-and-neck
in the race for the NFC North.

Stally: Week 17 is usually skipped in most fantasy football circles.  This year, more than most, it might be skipped by many of the NFL teams as well.  The AFC has its six teams with only some seeding scenarios on the line.  The NFC still has a division up for grabs (the NFC North) as well as a Wild Card spot that could, but might not, involve the NFC North loser.

Instead of ranking games by confidence like usual, I'll clump together the games worth watching, and the games not worth watching.  There's no need waste type on some of these irrelevant games, and the draft order really isn't something with which I'm going to concern myself at this time.

If Austen returns to the blog at some point, he's more into the draft than I am, so I'll leave that for him.

Must Watch Games

Green Bay @ Detroit (8:30 p.m. NBC)

This is the one game of the day in which there's an opportunity for either team to win and make an impact on their playoff situation.  The winner of this game wins the NFC North and goes to the playoffs.  These teams will know by kickoff if the loser can make it as a Wild Card or not (see the Redskins game below), which could further add to the intrigue.

The Lions have impressed this season.  The Packers have impressed as of late.  I'm going to give the edge to Detroit at home in this one, as I don't think this is the same old lame Lions team we've seen in the past.

My pick: Detroit (3 confidence points)

Week 16: Santa Claus is Coming to Town

Stally: Who's been naughty and who's been nice?  In the NFL, we're about to find out.  There are several clinching scenarios for the playoffs this weekend, and a lot more elimination scenarios.

Santa came early on Thursday for the Dallas Cowboys, who clinched the division and NFC's best record by virtue of a Philadelphia upset over the New York Giants.  Additionally, the Patriots (division and first-round bye), Seattle Seahawks (division) and Oakland Raiders (playoff berth) can all put an extra log on the fire and relax this holiday weekend, as they'll all be playing football past New Year's Day.

As per usual, Austen isn't going to have time to weigh in this week, so Elf Stally will take care of the write-up. Here's a look at the rest of the league and what I expect to unfold in Week 16 in order of confidence points:

16 - @New England over New York Jets

In Week 16 last year, the Patriots literally kicked away the conference's best record by electing to kick in overtime to the Jets, who promptly scored a game-winning touchdown.  That was last year's Jets, this is this year's Jets, whose poor coach was in the hospital on the night before game day.  That was also in New York, and this one is in New England.  The Jets will be delivering the gifts this year.

15 - @Green Bay over Minnesota

The Packers are back to playing good football, and the Vikings (?!) ... yuck!  Talk about being naughty, the Elf on the Shelf is not giving good reports on the Vikings right now.

Week 15: Two-Minute Drill

Despite a slow start, Aaron Rodgers and
the Packers are gaining confidence each week.

Stally: I've missed kickoff, so it's time to run a two-minute drill.  One sentence maximum per game.

Here are my picks in order of confidence points:

16 - @Atlanta over San Francisco

Stally: The Niners are playing some truly awful football, if you even want to call it that.

15 - @Seattle over Los Angeles

Stally: The Rams have looked terrible for several weeks, so I got this one right on Thursday.

14 - Green Bay over @Chicago

Stally: The Packers are a very confident group despite early season struggles.

13 - @Houston over Jacksonville

Stally: At 2-11, the Jaguars have become an easy team to pick against on a weekly basis.

Week 14: Bye-Bye, Byes

Before we begin, let me just take a minute to play this tribute video to one of the greatest bands to have ever walked this Earth ... and if you haven't listened to their Christmas album yet, then your heart is two sizes too small ...

Now let's get back to football, where we finally get to say "bye-bye" to bye weeks.  There are four weeks left in the NFL and every team is now through its bye, even Cleveland and Tennessee, whom I know we all missed seeing on the field last week.

Matthew Stafford and the Lions take the top pick this week,
which surely is a Stubborn OXen Blog first for Detroit.

There is one bye that continues, as Austen is on an indefinite bye from the blog.  I'll keep plugging along with my own picks, which probably are going to end up a game or two worse than your own (so take them with a grain of salt).  Without the safety net of Austen picking the favorite and letting me hide behind my underdog pick, I tend to get exposed every time I pick the 49ers to win for the first time since early September (which will happen again later in this blog).

Here are my picks in order of confidence points:

16 - @Detroit over Chicago

Stally: The Lions offense is good, we all knew that, but the defense?!  It just shut down Drew Brees in New Orleans, that's far more impressive than most of us thought it would be.  Detroit is shaping up to be a top contender in the NFC, and it's hard to imagine a lowly Bears team picking up this win on the road.