John Breech
2026-01-20 14:09:00
After 272 regular season games and 10 playoff games, there are only four teams left standing in the NFL: The Patriots, Broncos, Seahawks and Rams. We have two teams that didn’t even make the playoffs last year (Seahawks and Patriots), one team with a quarterback who missed 75% of training camp (Rams) and one team that no one believed in because they were in the same division as the Chiefs (Broncos).
I don’t think anyone could have predicted that this was how the season was going to turn out. Actually, I take that back, there is one person on the internet who predicted back on NOVEMBER 14 that these would be the final four teams left standing.
I should probably let that guy make my picks this week.
One reason this group of teams is so surprising is because they were all longshots before the year started. The Rams had the best preseason Super Bowl odds out of this group, but they were just 20-to-1, which was only the eighth best in the NFL.
We’re in a spot where all four remaining teams could play the “you don’t believe in us” card this week. Actually, that’s completely wrong. Only the Broncos will be able to play that card and that’s because they just LOST THEIR STARTING QUARTERBACK.
Bo Nix is done for the year, and the Broncos will now be turning the starting QB job over to someone who hasn’t thrown a pass in an actual game in two years. To be honest, Denver might have been better off just holding a fan raffle and letting the winner of that raffle start at quarterback this week. If they went that route, I have to think viewership would go through the roof because all of America would definitely want to watch to see if the fan raffle QB would knock off the Patriots.
With Nix out, does that mean we should all automatically pick against the Broncos this week? Maybe.
If there’s one reason to like the Broncos in the AFC title game, it’s because they played on Saturday in the divisional round. Teams that play on Saturday — which means they get one extra day of rest — have gone 21-11 in the conference title round over the past 16 years. To add to that, at least one team that played on Saturday in the divisional round has advanced to the Super Bowl in 18 of the past 20 years, so I guess that means it’s almost guaranteed that the Seahawks or Broncos will be winning this week (That’s another reason why the one-seed is such a huge advantage. Not only do you get the bye, you get a Saturday game in the divisional round).
The one-day-rest advantage doesn’t sound like much, but just think about it like this: While the Rams were busy fighting for their lives in a blizzard during a wild one-score win over the Bears that went down to the wire on Sunday night, the Seahawks were sitting at home tweeting about the new banner on their Twitter page.
It’s not even that good of a banner.
Not only does the extra rest help, but so does playing at home in the conference title round. The home team in the NFC title game has gone 10-2 over the past 12 years. In the AFC, the home team has also had a big advantage, going 9-3 over the past 12 years (Advantage: Broncos and Seahawks).
Last week, I explained why you should pick the home teams in the divisional round and then I proceeded to pick against three of them. In this round of the playoffs, taking the home team also makes sense, so will I actually listen to my own advice?
Let’s get to the picks and find out.
Odds courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook
AFC and NFC Championship picks
New England (16-3) at Denver (15-3)
Sunday, 3 p.m. ET (CBS, Stream on Paramount+)
I guess I should start things off here by introducing everyone to Jarrett Stidham, who will be Denver’s starting quarterback in this game. Stidham has been in the NFL for seven seasons and he has only started a total of four games ever. All four of those starts came in Week 17 or Week 18 when the team he was playing for had already been eliminated from the playoffs, so he has never started a single game in his career where he has faced any true pressure to win.
Stidham’s last NFL pass came on Jan. 7, 2024, which means he’ll have gone 749 days without throwing a pass in an actual game by the time the AFC title game rolls around. The last time Stidham threw a pass in a game that counted, Drake Maye WASN’T EVEN IN THE NFL YET (He got drafted on April 25, 2024).
If I were the general manager of the Broncos, first, I’m telling you, I’d try the fan raffle, but if that didn’t work out, I would be calling every available QB and begging to play for me on Sunday.
- Drew Brees? I don’t care if his right arm doesn’t work
- Ryan Tannehill? I don’t care if he hasn’t played in a game since 2023 (Neither has Stidham)
- Matt Ryan? I don’t care if he just took a new job with the Falcons
- Cam Newton? I don’t care if he hasn’t played football in four years.
If the Broncos stick with Stidham, they will be walking into a situation where almost every team fails. If he’s under center on Sunday, he’ll become just the seventh quarterback in NFL history to make his first start of the season in a playoff game.
Here’s the list of quarterbacks who were forced to start their first game of a season in the playoffs:
1972 NFC title game: Roger Staubach starts for Cowboys
1983 divisional: Gary Danielson starts for Lions
1992 wild card: Frank Reich starts for Bills
2012 wild card: Joe Webb starts for Vikings
2016 wild card: Connor Cook starts for Raiders
2020 wild card: Taylor Heinicke starts for Washington
The six quarterbacks on this list went a combined 1-5 with the only win coming from Reich in a game where the Bills pulled off the greatest comeback in NFL playoff history (They trailed the Oilers 35-3 before rebounding for a 41-38 win). Staubach is the only QB on the list who made his first start of the season in a conference title game and his Cowboys lost 26-3, so as you can see, the deck is stacked against Stidham and the Broncos.
With Stidham making his first start in two years, one advantage the Broncos would have in most situations is the element of surprise, but they won’t even have that advantage here because the Patriots know him inside and out. Stidham was actually drafted by the Patriots in 2019 and he spent three seasons with Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels, who liked him so much that be brought him to Las Vegas when McDaniels got hired as the Raiders head coach in 2022. Two of Stidham’s four career starts came with McDaniels as his head coach, so McDaniels can certainly help Mike Vrabel design a defensive game plan to shut him down.
Of course, Vrabel definitely doesn’t need any help designing his defensive game plans, because he’s on a Bill Belichickian-level tear when it comes to shutting down opposing offenses in the playoffs. The Patriots shut down Justin Herbert in the wild card round, they embarrassed C.J. Stroud in the divisional round, and now, they get to face a QB who hasn’t thrown a pass in two years.
At this point, you’re probably starting to think that I’m going to pick the Patriots to win by 40, and it kind of sounds like I am, but let’s look at the bright side for the Broncos (And just in case you’re wondering, the biggest blowout in AFC title game history came in 1990 when the Bills beat the Raiders, 51-3. That 48-point win is one of just two AFC Championships ever that have been decided by 30 points or more).
As crazy as it sounds, if I’m Sean Payton, I’m actually somewhat confident going into this game. If I’m Payton, I just pop in the film from the Texans-Patriots game and I say, “We need to do what Houston did, but without the turnovers.” The Texans turned the ball over five times, including a pick-six. They also had two other turnovers that came inside New England’s 40-yard line. Of the five turnovers, I’d say four of them had more to do with the Texans being bad than the Patriots making a spectacular play on defense. I mean, I’m still trying to figure out what Stroud was doing on the pick six.
The Texans defense played nearly a perfect game, but Houston’s offense was so bad that it didn’t matter. The Texans sacked Drake Maye five times, they forced three turnovers and they only let the Patriots convert 3 of 14 third downs.
Maye struggled against one of the best defenses in the NFL, and now, he has to once again play one of the best defenses in the NFL, except this time, he has to go on the road. Maye has taken a beating this postseason (he’s been sacked 10 times in two games) and it could get worse this week. He took the fourth-most sacks in the NFL this year and he’s facing a defense that recorded the FIFTH-MOST sacks in a single season in NFL history. I have no idea how the Patriots offensive line is going to stop the Broncos’ pass-rush.
When Maye starts taking hits, he tends to fumble the ball. He’s fumbled SIX times in his two playoff games and the Patriots have lost three of those fumbles. The Broncos are 9-1 this season when they force at least one turnover, so something as simple as recovering a fumble could be the key to pulling off the upset here.
Stidham might only throw for 103 yards in this game, but if he plays mistake-free football and doesn’t turn the ball over, Denver will have a chance to win. The Broncos will absolutely have to get their run game going if they want to win. Payton knows it, Vrabel knows it, everyone in the stadium knows it. If the Broncos can get their offense moving on the ground, they’ll have a puncher’s chance to pull off the upset (They’re 7-0 this year when they rush for 120 yards or more).
Going into this season, there had only been two instances over the past 10 years where a No. 1 seed was an underdog at home in the conference title game and one of those came in 2015 when the Tom Brady and the Patriots were a 3-point favorite over a Broncos team that was led by a washed up Peyton Manning.
Guess who won that game? Not the Patriots. As a matter of fact, the Patriots are 0-4 all-time when playing at Denver in the playoffs, which is tied for the worst road record by any team against a single opponent in NFL playoff history.
The Broncos ended up winning in 2015 and advancing to a Super Bowl that was played Levi’s Stadium. Guess where the Super Bowl is this year? Yup. Levi’s Stadium.
Did I just talk to myself into a massive upset? I think I did. OK, maybe not, but I do think the Broncos are going to cover and I do think this game is going to surprise everyone and go down to the wire.
PICK: Patriots 20-17 over Broncos
Record picking Patriots games this season: 13-6
Record picking Broncos games this season: 13-5
L.A. Rams (14-5) at Seattle (15-3)
Sunday, 6:30 p.m. ET (Fox, stream on Fubo, try for free)
Well, here we go again. For the third time in 10 weeks, the Seahawks and Rams are facing each other, and this time, there will be a trip to the Super Bowl on the line.
Let’s check out the scores from the previous two games:
- Week 11: Rams 21-19 over Seahawks
- Week 16: Seahawks 38-37 over Rams
In the first meeting, the Rams won because Sam Darnold had a total meltdown with four interceptions. In the second meeting, the Seahawks won because the Rams choked away a 30-14 lead in the fourth quarter.
The Seahawks only lost three games all year and all three of those games had one big thing in common: They turned the ball over multiple times. The Seahawks are so good that they only tend to lose when they beat themselves: They went 9-0 this season when their turnover number was one or zero, but they went 6-3 when they turned the ball over two times or more.
The problem for the Seahawks is that if there’s anyone who might turn the ball over multiple times in a big game, it’s definitely Sam Darnold, especially if that game is against the Rams. In two games against L.A. this season, Darnold has been picked off six times.
Darnold had the most turnovers by any player in the NFL this year with 20 (14 interceptions, six lost fumbles). Since 1990, only one QB has led the NFL in turnovers and won the Super Bowl in the same year, and that was Eli Manning, who did it thanks to a miracle run by the Giants in 2007.
Darnold has faced the Rams four times since the beginning of last season and here’s what has happened: He’s been sacked 16 times, he’s thrown seven interceptions and he’s gone 1-3. Rams defensive coordinator Chris Shula is so familiar with every weakness in Darnold’s game at this point that he could probably write a book about it. And I’d probably read that book. Darnold might have switched teams since last year, but his skillset is still the same and it’s skillset that Shula has done a good job of stopping.
If you’re Seattle, the easiest way to take the game out of Darnold’s hands is to run the ball, but that won’t be so easy for the Seahawks, because they just got dealt the second-worst injury news of the week (behind only Bo Nix): Zach Charbonnet is done for the year due to a torn ACL.
Charbonnet led the Seahawks’ in touchdown runs this season and he also finished as their second leading rusher. Charbonnet has been a red zone force for the Seahawks this year with 11 of his 12 scores coming from inside the 20-yard line, and out of that total, he scored nine touchdowns from inside the five-yard line.
If you don’t have a red zone running back to lean on, that means the Seahawks might have to turn to Darnold in those situations, and well, I’m not sure that would be in their best interests.
No matter what happens in this game, I feel like it’s going to be a classic: We have the highest scoring offense in the NFL (Rams) going up against the defense that surrendered the fewest points (Seahawks). This will mark just the ninth time since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 that the we’ve had the top offense play the top defense in the conference title round or later and in the previous eight games, the top-ranked defense went 7-1 (The Seahawks have been involved in two of those previous eight matchups and won both times).
This game will mark the 21st time since the merger that two division rivals have faced each other in a conference title game, and if the first 20 games are any indication, the Seahawks will definitely have the advantage here because the home team has gone 15-5 in those meetings.
And let’s not forget, the Seahawks always seem to make the Super Bowl anytime there’s a new pope elected and there was a new pope elected prior to the 2025 season.
2005: New pope elected. Seahawks lose Super Bowl.
2013: New pope elected. Seahawks win Super Bowl.
2025: New pope elected. Seahawks one game away from the Super Bowl.
Not only was there a new Pope elected, but the new Pope is ACTUALLY A BEARS FAN.
Well, the Rams just beat his team, so at this point, I feel pretty confident in saying that L.A. will not be getting any sort of divine help should they need it on Sunday. You need a field goal to bounce off the upright and go in? Not happening. You need a fumble to bounce your way? Sorry, you just beat the Pope’s team.
The Seahawks definitely have one of the best defenses in the NFL, but the last time I saw them on the field against the Rams, Matthew Stafford went off for 457 yards and three touchdowns, and he did that even though he didn’t have Davante Adams in the lineup. Adams led the team in touchdown catches, but he didn’t play in the Rams’ wild Week 16 loss to Seattle.
Sean McVay will be celebrating his 40th birthday on Saturday and there’s no better way to celebrate than beating your arch rival one day later in a road game with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line.
PICK: Rams 30-23 over Seahawks
Record picking Rams games this season: 14-5
Record picking Seahawks games this season: 14-4 (Best record picking any team)
Record picking Seahawks-Rams games this season: 1-1
Week 11 prediction: Rams by 3 (Actual score: Rams by 2)
Week 16 prediction: Rams by 3 (Actual score: Seahawks by 1)
Last Week
Best pick: Last week, we had a team from California travel to the midwest for a game that was played in arctic conditions, which doesn’t usually work out so well for the west coast team, but I decided to take the Rams over the Bears anyway, and decision paid off. I had no idea who I was going to take in the game until I found out that both Matthew Stafford and Sean McVay would be wearing scuba suits.
If I’ve learned one thing from covering the NFL over the years, it’s that you should never pick against a guy in a scuba suit. Tom Brady famously wore a scuba suit whenever the weather got cold and he also famously won seven Super Bowls. I was going to write this week’s picks in a scuba suit, but all the scuba shops near me were closed.
Worst pick: The Bills have a long history of choking in the playoffs, and for some reason, I still picked them to win their divisional round game over the Broncos and of course, the joke was on me. Normally, when the Bills lose in the playoffs, it’s because everyone lets down Josh Allen, but that wasn’t the case here. Instead, he let his team down with four turnovers. So to recap: My pick was wrong, Josh Allen played bad and the Bills choked so hard that they ended up firing their coach. That’s an all-timer.
I could argue that it wasn’t a bad pick because the Bills got hosed by a bad call in overtime, but Joe Burrow says the refs actually made the right call and I’m inclined to agree with him. So I’ll just take the L.
Not only did I whiff on my Bills pick in the divisional round, but I also picked the Chargers to win in the wild card round. These are two teams that always lose in the playoffs and I picked them both to win. If the Chargers and Bills make the playoffs next year, can someone please remind me to pick against both of them? And if they somehow end up playing each other, I’m just not going to turn in a pick.
Alright guys, unless I decide to do a pick for each individual event at the Pro Bowl games — and I probably won’t — I’ll be on a one-week hiatus, which means you should circle Feb. 3 on your calendar, because that’s when my Super Bowl LX pick will be rolling out. If you can’t wait that long, then I suggest following me Twitter or even Instagram. I’ll be in San Francisco for Super Bowl week and I promise to take a picture of every weird thing I see in the Bay Area.
If you don’t want to wait until Feb. 3 to hear from me, you can sign up for the daily NFL newsletter that I write for CBS Sports. Just click this link and enter your email and then BAM, I’ll be in your inbox two days per week throughout the year (Monday and Thursday).
Picks record
Straight up in divisional round: 2-2
SU overall in playoffs: 5-5
Against the spread in divisional round: 0-4
ATS overall in playoffs: 2-8
Final 2025 regular season record
Straight up: 166-105-1
Against the spread: 129-140-3
You can find John Breech on Facebook or Twitter and if he’s not doing one of those things, he’s trying to find out whether there’s still time to enter the fan raffle to be the Broncos’ starting QB this week.
