NFL Playoffs, Week #1, and the GCR, plus a CFP Prediction

Thoughts and comments after Wild Card Weekend.....

• With final scores of 24-22 and 23-17, the Cowboys-Seahawks and Chargers-Ravens games would appear to have been close contests.  They weren't.
• Biggest Egg Laid on Wild Card Weekend:  The Houston Texans who fell behind 14-0 in the first quarter against the Colts at home, and were never for a moment in that game.
• If Andrew Luck isn't the comeback player of the year, then they ought not to even have that award.
• Indy HC Frank Reich - who may well be the NFL Coach of the Year - needs to lose that beard.  Not to be insensitive, but he looks like a guy who stands at a busy intersection during rush hour and asks for your spare change while the light is red.
• Lamar Jackson may well be the Next Great Quarterback in the NFL, but his performance yesterday shows that he is still very much a work in progress.
• The poor kicker for the Bears is taking all the heat for that clanger off the upright at the end of the game yesterday, but this should be remembered: With the season and playoff future on the line, the vaunted Bears defense allowed the Eagles to march down field with under four minutes to play and score the winning TD on a fourth down pass with under a minute to play.  So, yeah, it was all the kicker's fault.
• I fear that if the Super Bowl ends up being Patriots vs Cowboys, the TV viewers will miss at least  third of the game because network cameras will be overloading us with owner's box shots of Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft.
• On at least three occasions during these four games, I saw punts and/or kickoffs returned for significant and meaningful yardage, something that I cannot remember seeing the Steelers do in all of this past season.

The GCR (Grandstander Confidence Ranking) only went 50/50 in picking the winners for Wildcard Weekend (right on Cowboys and Chargers, wrong on Colts and Eagles).  2-2 headed into next week.

And speaking of the GCR, here's how those rankings look after the first round.  Note that I have decided to go to a more conventional 1 through 8 ranking, rather than the higher confidence number through the lowest as I did last week.

1. Saints
2. Chiefs
3. Chargers
4. Rams
5. Patriots
6. Colts
7. Cowboys
8. Eagles

I know that I should be giving more love to the Eagles, but somebody had to be Number 8.  There are twenty-four other teams who WISH that they were #8 in the GCR.

That leads to the GCR predictions for next weekend:

• Chiefs over Colts
• Patriots over Chargers*
• Saints over Eagles
• Rams over Cowboys

* You will note that I have one variance in my predictions with the GCR.  According to the rankings, the Chargers should beat the Patriots, but I just can't bring myself to pick against the Pats.  Yeah, I know people have been saying that the Pats dynasty is beginning to crumble, that Tom Brady is showing his age, but until it actually happens, I just can't allow myself to pick against the Patriots in the Divisional Round of the Playoffs. Plus, I don't trust Phillip Rivers in this spot.

So there you are.  As always, watch, but don't bet.

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There is also another significant football game to  be played tonight, Alabama vs. Clemson for the national championship in the final of the College Football Playoff.  An entire season of college football was played, we sat through weeks of hype and discussion as the CFP rankings were released each week, we saw two absolute stinkers played in the semi-finals of the CFP last week, so we could come down to this:  Alabama vs. Clemson for the fourth straight year in the CFP, the third year in the Final game.  Perhaps we could save ourselves a lot of angst and melodrama by just penciling in these two teams for this same game next year as well.

Well, if it is repetitive, we are assured of one thing -  a competitive and exciting game, as each of their meetings in the past three years' CFP games have been.  On can only hope after seeing those two clunker semi-final games, and some less than compelling NFL games this weekend.

I am calling for an Alabama win, but I have discarded my usual "watch, but don't bet" advice.  While at the Rivers Casino last week, I visited the new sports book and  placed a $15 wager on Clemson getting +5.5 against the Tide.