{"id":699869,"date":"2026-01-23T21:43:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T21:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/699869\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T21:43:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T21:43:13","slug":"nfl-conference-championship-picks-experts-square-off-on-patriots-broncos-rams-seahawks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/699869\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL conference championship picks: Experts square off on Patriots-Broncos, Rams-Seahawks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our NFL<\/a> “final four” has been finalized, as conference championship weekend takes place this Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Coach Mike Vrabel has taken the New England Patriots<\/a> from pretender to contender in his first season, while Sean Payton’s Denver Broncos<\/a> finally won their first playoff game since Super Bowl<\/a> 50. However, they did lose their quarterback in the process when Bo Nix went down with a broken ankle. On the NFC side, it’s another NFC West showdown, as Matthew Stafford<\/a> and the Los Angeles Rams<\/a> travel to Seattle to take on Sam Darnold<\/a> and the Seahawks<\/a>. The teams split their two regular-season meetings, with the home team winning each time. When these teams met last month, they gave us one of the games of the year, as Seattle converted a game-winning two-point conversion in overtime. What will happen this time around?<\/p>\n

Which teams should you pick this week, and which should you fade? CBS Sports writers Jordan Dajani and Jared Dubin are here to break them down. For clarity, lines for these selections were taken on Jan. 21 over at DraftKings<\/a> Sportsbook.\u00a0<\/p>\n

New England Patriots (-5.5) at Denver Broncos<\/p>\n

Sunday, 3 p.m. ET on CBS\u00a0(Stream on\u00a0Paramount+<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Dajani (Patriots -5.5):\u00a0I’m not sure what kind of deal Mike Vrabel made with the football gods, but it’s pretty incredible that New England got to play the easiest strength of schedule since the turn of the millennium, hosted a hapless Justin Herbert<\/a> in the wild-card round, the turnover addict C.J. Stroud<\/a> in the divisional round, and who is waiting for the Patriots in the AFC Championship game? JARRETT STIDHAM<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Stidham is the seventh quarterback to make his first start of the season in the playoffs, and only one of the previous six actually won their game. He is 1-3 as an NFL starter, and it will be interesting to see how Sean Payton alters his game plan with Bo Nix<\/a> out. Regardless of Stidham’s role on Sunday, there are two things that must happen if the Broncos want this upset: The run game has to reappear and the defense has to dominate. Since J.K. Dobbins<\/a> was injured in Week 10, the Broncos rank bottom 10 in rushing yards per game and yards per rush. Dobbins has a chance to return this week, but I’m not banking on him to be an X factor. This Denver defense ranks top three in points allowed per game (18.3), yards allowed per game (278.2) and third-down percentage (33.8%) as well. Vance Joseph’s unit can definitely contain Drake Maye<\/a>, but the Patriots are the only team with a perfect against-the-spread record (8-0) on the road this season. I believe this will be a close game until New England finally covers in the fourth quarter \u2026 \u00a0Prediction:\u00a0Patriots 20, Broncos 13<\/p>\n

Dubin (Patriots -5.5):\u00a0This one is pretty simple: the Broncos will not have their starting quarterback for this game. It’s really hard to see them putting together a representative offensive performance with Jarrett Stidham at the helm — especially given how well the New England defense has played so far during the playoffs in holding down offenses piloted by Justin Herbert and C.J. Stroud. New England’s offense hasn’t exactly lit the world on fire in either of its games against elite defenses, and the Broncos present another one for them to go up against, but I have far more trust in Drake Maye going against a Denver unit that has actually shown some leaks since its bye week, than I do in Stidham and Co. against the Pats. \u2026\u00a0Prediction:\u00a0Patriots 21, Broncos 10<\/p>\n

Los Angeles Rams at Seattle Seahawks (-2.5)<\/p>\n

Sunday, 6:30 p.m. ET on Fox (Stream:\u00a0Fubo<\/a>\u00a0— try for free)<\/p>\n

Dajani (Rams +2.5): My preseason Super Bowl pick was Ravens<\/a> vs. Rams, and just because I was wrong about Baltimore does not mean I’m flaking on Los Angeles in this spot. Everyone is going to be on the Seahawks this week because of their incredible defense, but I will remind you that Matthew Stafford and Co. racked up 581 yards of total offense and 37 points in that overtime thriller in Seattle we witnessed last month. This pick comes down to me trusting Stafford and his fantastic cast of weapons more than Sam Darnold. The historical trends are in my favor as well. The Rams are 2-0 all-time vs. the Seahawks in the playoffs, and have won four straight NFC Championship game appearances.<\/p>\n

I know scoring points against this Seahawks defense will be tough. The only touchdowns they’ve allowed since Thanksgiving, not including the Rams matchup, are a\u00a0Philip Rivers<\/a>\u00a0passing touchdown and a\u00a0Bryce Young<\/a>\u00a0rushing touchdown. Still, I’m calling for the upset. Sean McVay is 5-2 against the spread and 4-3 straight up as an underdog in the playoffs\u00a0 \u2026 \u00a0Prediction:\u00a0Rams 24, Seahawks 23<\/p>\n

Dubin (Rams +2.5):\u00a0I picked the Rams to beat the Seahawks in the NFC title game in our pre-playoff predictions, so I am obviously rolling with the same pick here. L.A. won the first game between these two teams and should have won the second one, and would have if not for one of the craziest two-point conversions anyone has ever seen. The Seahawks have an elite defense and home-field advantage, but when two teams are as close in quality as these two are, I always like to roll with whichever team has the advantage at quarterback, the game’s most important position. In this case, that’s Matthew Stafford and the Rams. I like them to advance with a closely-contested win.\u00a0 \u2026\u00a0Prediction:\u00a0Rams 23, Seahawks 20<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Our NFL “final four” has been finalized, as conference championship weekend takes place this Sunday.\u00a0 Coach Mike Vrabel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[101655,96183,117,925,1476,1028,51902,101654,258,833,7,601,3872,1159,58,32,249,6,50185,95321,41483,100423,3725,82278,1878,261],"class_list":["post-699869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-2026-conference-championship-picks","tag-2026-nfl-playoff-picks","tag-baltimore-ravens","tag-bo-nix","tag-bryce-young","tag-c-j-stroud","tag-conference-championship-odds","tag-conference-championship-picks","tag-denver-broncos","tag-drake-maye","tag-football","tag-j-k-dobbins","tag-jarrett-stidham","tag-justin-herbert","tag-los-angeles-rams","tag-matthew-stafford","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-playoff-odds","tag-nfl-playoff-picks","tag-nfl-playoff-predictions","tag-patriots-vs-broncos","tag-philip-rivers","tag-rams-vs-seahawks","tag-sam-darnold","tag-seattle-seahawks"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699869","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=699869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}