NFL Playoffs 2019

The Pittsburgh Steelers season began with a tie that felt like a loss, and it ended yesterday with a win that also felt like a loss.  In all honesty, I was almost relieved when the Ravens held off the Browns to win that game and eliminate the Steelers from the playoffs.  When you have to struggle so hard to beat a crummy team like Bengals 16-13, you just know that a Playoff Run by the Steelers this year would have been short-lived, and, frankly, I'll be glad not to suffer the stress that Steelers playoff games always give me, win or lose. 

The Grandstander will be doing a post-mortem analysis of the Steelers season at some point this week, but for today, let's look forward to the upcoming NFL Playoffs.

Throughout the NFL season, I have been doing a weekly Top Four (College Football Playoff-style) ranking of all NFL teams.  For today, I am going to expand upon that and give you my confidence ranking of all 12 playoff teams with a ranking of 12 being "most confident" down to 1, which would be "least confident".  Call it the "Grandstander Confidence Rankings", or GCR:

12. Saints

11. Chiefs

10. Chargers

9. Rams.

8. Patriots

7. Texans

6. Ravens

5. Cowboys

4. Bears

3. Eagles

2. Colts

1. Seahawks

Agree or disagree?  Would love to hear your comments and opinions.

Anyway, using these confidence rankings, here are my predictions to NFL Wild Card Weekend coming up on Saturday and Sunday:

• Texans over the Colts
• Cowboys over Seahawks
• Chargers over Ravens
• Bears over Eagles

Actually, the only one of these picks where I might be a bit shaky is the Chargers over the Ravens.  Baltimore beat the Chargers a few weeks ago in LA and this game is in Baltimore, so if there is to be an upset as defined by the GCR, this would be the one.

I will be redoing the GCR after each Playoff weekend.

Oh, and you know how I always say, "watch but don't bet"?  Well, I will be visiting the Rivers Casino on Wednesday, so I may get a wager down one or two of these games, just to make it interesting.  I wonder if I can get a bet down on the Over/Under for the number of times "Phillip Rivers Whines To The Officials"?  I would for sure bet the OVER on that one.