Shed a tear, with the Conference Championships this Sunday, we only have three football games left and two weekends of the NFL playoffs before we embark on the long offseason. Granted, that is when the news surrounding the Las Vegas Raiders gets interesting, but we also only have a handful of opportunities to close out this year\u2019s Silver and Black Pride Pick\u2019em competition.<\/p>\n
Conference Championship Picks<\/p>\n
New England Patriots vs. Denver Broncos<\/p>\n
Holder\u2019s picks: DEN +5.5, DEN ML, Over 42.5<\/p>\n
Call me crazy, but if any team can overcome losing their starting quarterback in the playoffs, it\u2019s the Broncos. Denver has an elite defense, a good offensive line and a good coach\/offensive play caller in Sean Payton. Plus, it\u2019s not as if Bo Nix was lighting it up all season, as many felt he could be the Broncos\u2019 Achilles\u2019 heel in the postseason. I hate to say it, but Denver is built to withstand this type of adversity, so I\u2019ll take the Ponies as home dogs.<\/p>\n
Los Angeles Rams vs. Seattle Seahawks<\/p>\n
Holder\u2019s picks: LAR +2.5, LAR ML, Under 46.5<\/p>\n
The dog in me is coming out this weekend, going with both underdogs in the Conference Championships. Apologies for the bad dad joke, but the Rams are the best team left in the playoffs, in my opinion. This game would be in Southern California if it weren\u2019t for a fluke two-point conversion in Week 16, as Los Angeles won the first matchup and held a late two-possession lead in the second. While Sam Darnold turned it on in the fourth quarter of game two between these clubs, Darnold has struggled in seven out of nine quarters (including overtime) against this Rams\u2019 defense and pass-rush.<\/p>\n
Moving on to S&BP\u2019s Pick\u2019em competition, below is a look at how our writers finished in the Divisional Round<\/a>.<\/p>\n The writer\u2019s standings are locked into place, as I went 3-1 last weekend to hold a five-game lead and take home the crown. Also, Bill is eight games ahead of Ray, so there\u2019s no drama at all among the writers while we finish up the playoffs. Congrats to me! I\u2019ll be partying like Fernando Mendoza after the National Championship<\/a> this weekend.<\/p>\n The community crushed it last weekend as we not only had six people with perfect picks, but we also had 22 go 3-1! However, it\u2019s officially just a three-person race for the overall championship between JeepRaider, Freddy B Good and me. Everyone else is at least four games behind with only three to play. Also, Jeep can clinch at least a share of the title by getting both games right on Sunday, which would also eliminate Freddy.<\/p>\n Best of luck with your picks, and let\u2019s enjoy some playoff football!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shed a tear, with the Conference Championships this Sunday, we only have three football games left and two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[7,7335,6,84],"class_list":{"0":"post-697305","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl-playoffs","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-las-vegas-raiders-odds","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-nfl-playoffs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115940972644775373","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=697305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}