It’s CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIP WEEKEND, one of my favorite days of sports of the entire year.
FYI, I’ll have the results for the last couple weeks tallied up along with the championship game points after this weekend.
This weekend, scoring is slightly different than the last couple weeks. Now, it’s FIVE points for a correct pick, and TEN points for a correct upset.
So here we go!
AFC CHAMPIONSHIP – SUNDAY at 3:00 ET – New England Patriots (13-4) at Denver Broncos (13-4), NE by 3 – I just really don’t see the Broncos having enough offense to win this game. Peyton Manning is completely done, and the smarter move would likely be to start Brock Osweiler, but that probably will not happen. The Broncos’ defense will prevent this game from turning into a blowout, but what could potentially be an all-time great unit has been ruined by the Broncos’ quarterback situation. So for those who want to see Peyton ride off into the sunset with a Super Bowl win, sorry. You’re getting a 7th Tom Brady Super Bowl appearance.
Patriots 24, Broncos 17NFC CHAMPIONSHIP – SUNDAY at 6:40 ET – Arizona Cardinals (14-3) at Carolina Panthers (16-1), CAR by 3 – Man, this is going to be the game to watch, and it’s much tougher to predict than the Patriots/Broncos matchup. I’ve been saying for much of the past two months that I expected the Super Bowl to be Cardinals/Patriots, so I don’t really want to get away from that here. However, the Cardinals very nearly lost at home to the Packers, while the Panthers steamrolled the Seahawks out of the gate last week. The way the Panthers sat on their lead gives me some pause, but this team is 16-1 for a reason.
In the end though, I’m sticking with my predictions from over the last couple months. I just hope that whoever wins this game wins the Super Bowl.
UPSET! – Cardinals 23, Panthers 20