NFL

NFL divisional round bold predictions, plus picking four playoff games and Dolphins headed to Spain

by
SaC Bot
January 17, 2025

Welcome to the Friday edition of the Pick Six newsletter!

I’m not sure how it happened, but I’d like everyone to know that there are only SEVEN games left in the NFL season and four of them will be going down this weekend, so you’re definitely going to want to watch all of them.

The divisional round almost always gets crazy, and I’m expecting nothing different this weekend. Let’s take a quick look at why you need to watch each game:

Houston at Kansas City, Saturday, 4:30 p.m. ET (ESPN/ABC). The Texans are trying to win their first road game in franchise history against a quarterback (Patrick Mahomes) who has never lost in the divisional round? I’ll definitely be tuning in.
Washington at Detroit, Saturday, 8 p.m. ET (Fox). The Commanders trying to get to the NFC Championship game for the first time in 33 years? Can’t miss that.
L.A. Rams at Philadelphia, Sunday, 3 p.m. ET (NBC). These two teams have combined to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl in four of the past seven seasons and they’re going at it in the divisional round? I will be glued to my TV for that.
Baltimore at Buffalo, Sunday, 6:30 p.m. ET (CBS). JOSH ALLEN vs. LAMAR JACKSON with a trip to the AFC Championship on the line? That’s must-see TV (And it’s on CBS, which makes it even better).

We’ll be covering all four games in today’s newsletter with some picks and bold predictions.

As always, here’s your daily reminder to tell all your friends to sign up for the newsletter. To get them signed up, all you have to do is click here. Let’s get to the rundown.

1. NFL divisional round: Seven stats to know before the weekend, including why Saquon could struggle

USATSI

During the regular season, Saquon Barkley ran for a season-high 255 yards against the Rams, but if NFL history is any indication, he likely won’t be getting near that number again on Sunday.

Let’s check out seven stats you need to know, starting with Saquon:

Why Saquon could struggle against the Rams. Barkley is the eighth player in NFL history to rush for at least 200 yards against a team in the regular season and then face that same team in the postseason. Of the previous seven players, NONE of them even ran for 100 yards in the playoff meeting. The only player who came close to cracking 100 was Adrian Peterson, who rushed for 99 yards against the Packers in the 2012 playoff after rushing for 210 against them in the regular season. The most recent time this happened came in 2016 when Jay Ajayi ran for 204 yards against the Steelers in the regular season before being held to 33 in the playoff game. It’s pretty clear that defenses take it personal when they get streamrolled in the regular season and they do everything possible to make sure it doesn’t happen against in the postseason.

Let’s check out the six other stats for the weekend:

Mahomes is gunning for Montana. If the Chiefs beat the Texans, that will be the 16th playoff of of Patrick Mahomes’ career, which will tie him with Joe Montana for the second-most in NFL history. The record for most postseason wins by a QB belongs to Tom Brady, who won 35 during his career.
Texans trying to get to AFC title game for first time. The Texans are the ONLY team in the NFL that has never made it to a conference title game. This will be their sixth trip to the divisional round with their previous five trips all ending in a loss. The Texans have also never won a road game in their playoff history, going 0-5.
Bills trying to avoid history. If the Bills lose, it would mark the fourth straight year where they lost in the divisional round, making them just the third team in NFL history to see their season end in the same round of the playoffs in four straight seasons. They’d join the Bengals (lost in the wild-card five straight times) and early 1990s Bills (lost in the Super Bowl four straight times).
Rare rookie accomplishment. If the Commanders beat the Lions, Jayden Daniels will become just the sixth rookie quarterback in NFL history to make it to a conference title game. Daniels would join Brock Purdy, Mark Sanchez, Joe Flacco, Ben Roethlisberger and Shaun King. If the Commanders get to the Super Bowl, Daniels would become the first rookie in NFL history to lead his team there. The other five rookies lost in their conference title game.
Commanders trying to end record drought. If the Commanders beat the Lions, they’ll be headed to the NFC title game for the first time since 1991. That’s the longest drought in the NFC without a conference title game appearance and second-longest in the NFL, trailing only the Browns, who haven’t been to the AFC title game since 1989.
Rams trying to make history after rough start. If the Rams beat the Eagles, they’d become just the third team in NFL history to make a conference title game in a season where they started 1-4. The Rams would join the 1976 Steelers and 2002 Titans (Both those teams made it to the AFC title game, but they both lost.)

The divisional round will be kicking off on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. ET with the Chiefs hosting the Texans.

2. NFL playoff ticket prices: Fans clamoring to see Commanders-Lions

The Ravens-Bills game feels like the biggest showdown of the divisional round, but it’s not the hottest ticket. The award for most expensive game of the weekend goes to Commanders-Lions, which actually makes a lot of sense. The Commanders are in the divisional round for the first time in 19 years, so their fans are likely clamoring to see their team play, and then you have the Lions, who are in the divisional round for just the second time in 33 years.

Let’s check out the ticket prices heading into the weekend:

Commanders at Lions
Average price: $993
Get in price: $415

Rams at Eagles
Average price: $511
Get in price: $192

Texans at Chiefs
Average price: $342
Get in price: $130

Ravens at Bills
Average price: $286
Get in price: $178

One thing that might be driving down the price of the Ravens-Bills tickets is that it’s going to be brutally cold with a game-time temperature that will be under 20 degrees and wind chill could make it feel around zero degrees.

You can check out our full story on ticket prices here.

3. Divisional round picks from your five favorite writers

It’s officially time for your favorite part of the Friday newsletter, which is where I round up five NFL writers and we all make some picks for the upcoming week. Just in case you’ve forgotten, our five writers are: Pete Prisco, Jason La Canfora, Jordan Dajani, Tyler Sullivan and myself. During the wild-card round, we were completely average, going 3-2 straight up and 2-3 against the spread, which means we’re now 48-47 ATS and 54-36 straight up on the season.

I’ve told everyone that they’re not allowed to miss any picks this week and they agreed not to, so we’ll see what happens.

If you’re new here, here’s how things work: I’ll give you one pick from each writer and then direct you to the rest of their picks. That way, if you like their pick, you’ll be able to click over and check out all of their divisional picks, but if you hate their pick, you can ignore the rest of their picks and move on with your life.

Pete Prisco — Chiefs (-8.5) 30-21 over Texans. From Prisco: “The Chiefs have been resting for three weeks, which they needed. But will the rest cause rust? I don’t think that’s a problem for this veteran group. … With Hollywood Brown and Xavier Worthy on the field together, look for the Chiefs to roll on offense. Their defense will get the best of the Texans offensive line. That will lead to turnovers by C.J. Stroud that will propel the Chiefs to another AFC Championship Game.” For the rest of Prisco’s divisional round picks, be sure to click here.
Tyler Sullivan — Lions (-9.5) 33-21 over Commanders. From Sullivan: “The key angle here is the Lions ability to pound the football on the ground, especially as they are set to get David Montgomery back. The Commanders have been among the worst rushing defenses in the NFL this season, which plays directly into the hands of Jahmyr Gibbs and Montgomery. If they find success on the ground, that not only helps the offense force their way down the field, but it also keeps Daniels on the sideline.” For the rest of Sullivan’s divisional round picks, be sure to click here.
Jason La Canfora — Lions (-9.5) to beat Commanders. From JLC: “The Lions are by far the superior team. They’re better more rested and the Commanders are limited — a tepid pass rush, they can’t run the ball, the rookie QB is amazing but this dome will be a problem. Detroit is getting healthier and have Sonic and Knuckles back. Dan Campbell can dominate time of possession. They are playoff tested. I don’t think Washington can keep pace offensively.” You can check out the rest of Jason La Canfora’s best bets for the divisional round here.
Jordan Dajani — Eagles 23-20 over Rams (+6.5). From Dajani: “The Eagles racked up 481 yards of total offense against the Rams earlier this year. I don’t think that’s going to happen again. Give me the points with the Rams, but the Eagles to win.” For the rest of Dajani’s divisional round best bets, be sure to click here.
John Breech — Ravens (-1) 34-27 over Bills. “The Ravens blew out the Bills 35-10 when these two teams played earlier this season and Baltimore has only gotten better since then. Yes, the Bills have also gotten better, but not good enough to make up 25 points. Also, the weather in Buffalo is expected to be ice cold and when NFL teams are dealing with arctic conditions, I tend to pick the team that runs the ball better and in this case, it’s definitely the Ravens.” For the rest of my divisional round picks, be sure to click here.

For more divisional round picks, you can check out out our CBSSports.com picks hub here.

4. Divisional round bold predictions: Rams slow down Barkley

After giving you some bold predictions during Wild Card Weekend last week, Garrett Podell is back with five more for the divisional round.

Let’s take a look at two of his bold predictions for this weekend:

1. Rams hold Saquon Barkley under 100 yards. “Barkley shredded the Rams for a career-high 255 yards and two rushing touchdowns on 26 carries in a Week 12 road win. In the postseason rematch in Philadelphia, he will go for under 100 yards. How is that possible? Well, 162 of his 255 rushing yards were after contact in the regular season, per NFL Pro. There’s no way Los Angeles can miss enough tackles and take enough bad angles to where it allows that again.”
2. Chiefs beat Texans by at least two scores. “Kansas City only beat the Texans by one score, 27-19, back in Week 16, but this time, they’ll defeat Houston by at least two possessions in the divisional round. Why? Rest. There’s always a rest vs. rust conversation every postseason about if a first-round bye is actually a good thing. For a team like the Chiefs, rest is exactly what they need. They are relying on a 35-year-old Travis Kelce, Patrick Mahomes, who seemingly suffers an initially scary lower body injury every year (something that happened in Week 15 this season), and defensive tackle Chris Jones, who is now 30 years old, to lead the way. Rest will have the back-to-back Super Bowl champions feeling refreshed and ready to embarrass a team lesser than them like the Texans.”

Podell made a total of five bold predictions for the divisional round, and you can check out all of them here.

5. Ravens at Bills: Tale of the tape

The NFL is saving the best for last this weekend. The final game of the divisional round will be Ravens at Bills and it will be coming at you at 6:30 p.m. ET on Sunday night. Since the game is on CBS, we thought we’d take a deeper look at it by giving you a tale of the tape.

So who has the advantage? Jared Dubin took a look at the coaching staff and each position group to answer that question.

Coaching: Ravens. “These are two very, very good coaching staffs. …. We give the slight edge to Baltimore here due to Harbaugh’s ability and willingness to be flexible, and to consistently press his team’s advantages with aggressive decision-making.”
Quarterbacks: Tie. “Folks, there is a reason that the MVP race this year is so close. Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson were the two best players in the NFL this season. I’m not sure anyone else was all that close. They each then played terrific games in the first week of the playoffs. They have remarkably similar skill sets for players who are built so differently — they can absolutely annihilate you from the pocket when well protected, and they will destroy your defense and stick a dagger in your heart if they “have to” create outside of structure. They are the two best running quarterbacks in the league, but they do their damage in entirely different ways. If you think there is a clear advantage on either side of the ball here, I think you’re crazy.”
Offensive line: Ravens. “Buffalo’s offensive line has played really well this season, and if you look at certain metrics (Pro Football Focus’ blocking grades), has been about the equal of Baltimore’s. If you look at others (ESPN’s blocking win rates), the Ravens were the far superior unit during the regular season. I tend to lean toward the two units being about as good as one another, but Baltimore’s superiority in the run game tips the scales in the Ravens’ direction.”
Linebackers: Bills. “It feels strange to give this advantage to the team that does not have Roquan Smith on it. But between Matt Milano and Terrel Bernard, Buffalo has the next two best players on the second level of the defense, and we feel better about them than guys like Malik Harrison and Chris Board, who have been getting the most snaps alongside Smith.”

Dubin ranked every position group and if you want to see who has the advantage, be sure to check out his full story here. And let me just say that after reading his story, I don’t feel good about the Bills chances of winning.

If you want to see our two-minute preview for the game that already has over 1,000 retweets on X, you can check it out here.

6. Extra points: Dolphins to host NFL’s first game in Spain

It’s been a busy 24 hours in the NFL, and since it’s nearly impossible to keep track of everything that happened, I went ahead and put together a roundup for you.

Dolphins headed to Madrid. The NFL revealed on Friday that the Dolphins will host the league’s first game ever in Spain. The Dolphins home schedule includes the Bills, Patriots, Jets, Ravens, Bengals, Chargers, Saints, Buccaneers and Commanders, so one of those teams will be headed to Spain to face the Dolphins. The opponent likely won’t be announced until the NFL schedule comes out in May. If you want the full details on the NFL’s decision to send the Dolphins to Madrid, you can check those out here.
Joe Mixon questionable. The Texans running back, who’s dealing with an ankle injury, has been listed as questionable for Saturday’s playoff game against he Chiefs. Mixon will likely play, but if he can’t go or gets banged up early in the game, that would be a brutal loss for Houston’s offense.
Tom Brady not planning to leave Fox. With Brady now a minority owner of the Raiders, there’s been some speculation that he might quit his Fox job to run the Raiders, but apparently, that’s not going to happen. Brady’s agent, Don Yee, told the Sports Business Journal on Thursday that Brady plans to fulfill his 10-year, $375 million contract. And there are 375 million reasons why he would want to do that.
Steelers not interested in Aaron Rodgers. It’s still unclear who the Steelers starting QB will be next season, but one person it won’t be is Aaron Rodgers. According to one report, the Steelers aren’t interested at all in signing Rodgers. There’s also a chance that George Pickens could be done in Pittsburgh. You can check out our full story on the Steelers here.
Kellen Moore set to interview with Cowboys. The Eagles offensive coordinator will be interviewing for the Cowboys’ coaching job and the Jaguars‘ job today, CBS Sports NFL insider Jonathan Jones has reported. There are coaching interviews going on every day around the league and if you want to keep that tabs on all of them, you can do that here by heading to our coaching tracker.