On NFL Thursday today, we revisit the predictions we made back on January 8 for the NFL playoffs. All’s well that ends well, right? The ends justify the means? Oh, whatever. We may have gotten the final two teams right, but we didn’t exactly predict their journeys correctly. Yet here we are with the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. We already projected the winner, and we stand by that now. There’s no need to revisit that process again.

What we do want to look at is the results of the other games played that did surprise us. We will break this down, team by team, so we can understand what happened. On with the show … starting with the teams eliminated in the wild-card round games first.

  • Carolina Panthers (8-9): The fact the Panthers lost at home by only three points to the Los Angeles Rams says more about L.A. than Carolina. The Rams offense, led by an alleged MVP candidate, struggled thanks to Matthew Stafford completing less than half his passes at the halfway point of the fourth quarter. He also tossed an interception, and the special teams let a punt get blocked. L.A. really did play down to its opponents this year, in addition to entering the postseason with a prior loss to the Panthers on the road. Still, the “right” team won this.
  • Pittsburgh Steelers (10-7): Like the Panthers, the Steelers probably didn’t belong in the playoffs. Pittsburgh rated out sabermetrically as the No. 10 team in the AFC, while the Houston Texans were second best. Alas, the math came through big time here, as the favored team did not disappoint. It’s more amazing that Pittsburgh was even in this game, considering the Texans outgained their opponents, 408-175. Houston’s offense turned the ball over three times, while its defense scored twice, and that ended up making this game turn out to be what we thought it would.
  • Los Angeles Chargers (11-6): We’re not sure how the Bolts won 11 games as the No. 9 team in the conference, but shit happens, as we know. New England played with its food here, outgaining the Chargers, 381-207, while committing two turnovers, too. The fact is L.A. won six games by a touchdown or less, outscoring its opponents during the regular season by just 28 points, overall. That win total was always a mirage, especially since the Chargers played a bottom-half schedule, despite making the playoffs last year, too. Overrated coaches blind people.
  • Green Bay Packers (9-7-1): A two-time victim against the lucky Chicago Bears, the Packers lost five in a row to end the season, including those two losses to the Bears in Chicago. Injuries definitely played a big role in this dive, but the fact remains Green Bay was favored, still, to win this opening-round game. But the defense was never the same after losing Micah Parsons, and we’re also going to invoke the TV market size here: No. 3 vs. No. 68 … yes, we know the Packers have a broader following than just their local fans, but still Chicago brings a lot more TV sets to the fray.
  • Philadelphia Eagles (11-6): Call it a Super Bowl hangover, but something else was really off with this team in 2025. There was too much talent to flail away like the Eagles did, winning the NFC East by default while posting eight victories by a TD or less. We blame the coach, in truth, but we were surprised to see the injured San Francisco 49ers beat Philly in Philly. This was the fifth loss on the year by a TD or less, so clearly the entire Philadelphia roster deserves some criticism for relaxing in their defense of the NFL title. The Eagles had the ball for 35-plus minutes!
  • Jacksonville Jaguars (13-4): This is the one that surprised us the most in the wild-card round. The Jags were the top AFC team, sabermetrically, and they were playing at home. Well, Jacksonville let the Bills control the ball for almost 34 minutes, while committing two turnovers (interceptions by Trevor Lawrence) and letting Buffalo throw almost at will against them even though the Bills couldn’t really run the ball. Chalk this one up to bad coaching, really. The Jags ran the ball so easily in this loss, but the inability to really make big plays in the air cost them bigly.

Upsets almost always happen in the NFL playoffs, and we only picked one of them above correctly (Chicago over Green Bay). We did not see the 49ers or the Bills doing what they did, so we were a little worried at that point about how our predictions would pan out in the divisional round, with different matchups than we expected. Doh! Here’s our quick takes on the teams that went home in the second weekend of playoff action.

  • San Francisco 49ers (12-5): We didn’t expect the 49ers to be here, but for this team to win 12 games with all the injuries this year was a minor miracle. Winning on the road against the No. 1 team in the NFL, sabermetrically, was way too much to ask here, and the wheels really came off the S.F. bandwagon here in a blowout loss. Still, we don’t think anyone blamed anyone else here for this defeat; the Seattle Seahawks were just the better team. The 49ers lost the turnover battle, 3-0, and they made field goals instead of TDs when the game was still close. Can’t do that …
  • Buffalo Bills (12-5): Again, we didn’t think Buffalo still would be alive, but the Bills had a winnable game in Denver, nonetheless—despite five turnovers! The Broncos were up by 10 at halftime and by 13 in the third quarter before the Bills woke up and made a game, taking it to overtime before losing in raw fashion. Yeah, the officials hurt the team from the No. 54 TV market here, but you can’t expect to win a road game in January against the No. 1-seeded team while coughing it up five times, either, not even when you outgain the opponent by 100 total yards.
  • Chicago Bears (11-6): We’ve already written too much about these Bears, and once again, they were the underdogs in this matchup, against the Rams this time. As usual, though, L.A. certainly gave itself a great chance to lose a game it should not have. Yet the Bears committed three turnovers, to the Rams’ none, and that played a big part in the game, although it still was tied in fourth quarter and went to overtime. See what we mean about L.A. playing down to its opponent? Bad weather or not, Stafford completed less than 50 percent of his passes in this game. Ouch!
  • Houston Texans (12-5): We thought this team would be headed to Denver, not New England. Either way, we believed the scrappy bunch had enough to win in any weather situation. Using math, the Pats were better than the Broncos, and either way, Houston would be on the road. Yet we did not have Texans QB C.J. Stroud tossing four INTs in the first half alone in this game. No one had that on their official NFL Playoff Bingo Card. Yet the Pats did their best to squander that edge, committing three turnovers of their own. Alas, the Texans missed a golden op.

While we may have picked the right teams in the conference-championship matchups, we surely did not have their respective opponents correct. We thought the New England-Houston matchup would be in this round, and we didn’t figure on the Rams playing Chicago, either (perhaps our worst prediction was the Eagles beating both the 49ers and the Rams, eh?). Nonetheless, here are our thoughts on the conference title-tilt losers.

  • Los Angeles Rams (12-5): What can we say about this team we haven’t already said? It was better on paper than it was real life, due to a tendency to play down to its opponents’ level. Well, the Rams gave the Seahawks all they could handle in this matchup, which was great for the fans and TV audience. Not much separated these two teams, mathematically, and they’d already played each other twice to close outcomes. All three games were decided by a combined seven points, so this was a coin flip, but one we didn’t expect. The one turnover here impacted a lot, eh?
  • Denver Broncos (14-3): The AFC’s top seed was the conference’s version of Chicago, winning 11 games by aeight points or less against the fourth-worst schedule in the AFC. Even so, the Broncos played well enough to win this game, despite missing its starting QB and having to go with some rando who couldn’t possibly be better than Colin Kaepernick. But we digress. The weather owned both teams here, with the four combined missed field goals in the second half of a 10-7 game. In the end, the only two turnovers came from that backup QB, and it cost Denver a lot.

Alrighty, that’s that: we may have been right in the end, but we were lucky to be right, really, thanks to chance plays and random injuries. C’est la vie! Enjoy the Super Bowl. And remember, the day after is the least-productive day in corporate America, every year. Do your best not to contribute to that problem, eh?