I’d love to tell you that there are spoilers below for the 2020 NFL Playoffs, but I know that’s not true. It’s incredibly difficult to predict how 13 NFL games will turn out. Last season, three of the four teams that preferred to win lost in the wildcard round. The world was waiting for a Ravens-Chiefs fight in the AFC Championship Game, but Baltimore was easily sent off by Tennessee in the division round. If you had a perfect playoff bracket by the time the Chiefs beat the 49ers in Miami, well, you deserved it.
This year, as a preview for the playoffs, I’m going to set the 13-game bracket and predict the winners all the way to Super Bowl LV. It will almost certainly be wrong and ruined by the time we get through the three opening games on Saturday, and that’s fine. Hopefully, there is insight here that gives you things to look forward to prior to the games, regardless of how the results actually turn out.
Let’s start with the NFC and the first 7 seeds in playoff history:
Jump to a playoff round:
Wildcard weekend: NFC | AFC
Division Round: NFC | AFC
Conference championships: NFC | AFC
Super Bowl LV
NFC wildcard weekend
Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky’s four games that made the hearts of NFL executives beat in December came against the teams in 14th place (Vikings), 29th (Texans), 31st (Jaguars) and 32nd (Lions) in defensive DVOA. In the game against the Vikings, Trubisky was 15 of 21 passing for 202 yards with a touchdown and a pick. A late Trubisky fumble cost Chicago the game against the Lions. The fourth-year passer started and ended his point with matches against the Packers, a team with skilled pass defense that requires the opposing team to throw to stay in play. Trubisky scored an average of 5.6 meters per attempt, threw three interceptions and fumbled three times in those two games.