NFL Conference Championship Primer (With Picks): Top Seeds Advance

Patrick Mahomes has enjoyed a magical first year starting for Kansas City, but come on. He isn't gonna beat Tom Freakin' Brady in the AFC Championship Game, is he?... Is he?

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Well, last weekend went according to script.

All four home teams won. Three of them covered. Two of them covered comfortably.

Joe went 4-0 straight up, 3-1 against the spread (picking the Colts to cover against Kansas City). Jeremy went 3-1 straight up (missing that same KC-Indy game), 2-2 against the spread (also missing on New Orleans), bringing our records for this postseason to 5-3 (5-3) for Jeremy and 5-3 (7-1) for Joe.

[It remains incredibly perplexing that Joe went 1-3 straight up in the Wild Card round but somehow went 4-0 against the spread.]

These four teams advancing to this round seems appropriate. It really seems like these four teams were just better than everyone else this year, kind of like that year where all four No. 1 seeds advanced to the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament (the Derrick Rose on Memphis, Tyler Hansbrough on North Carolina, Kevin Love on UCLA, Mario Chalmers & Co. on Kansas year). I suppose you can make an argument that Chicago and the Chargers were in that conversation as well, but based on how those teams played in the playoffs, probably not.

Both of the games this weekend are rematches. In the AFC, this week's road team won the first matchup, but they won it at home. In the NFC, this week's home team won the first tilt, and they're at home here again (in large part because of that win). Both games represent the old vs. the new(ish).

The Saints and Patriots represent The Old Guard of their respective conferences - coaches that have been with the organization for over a decade; former Super Bowl champions; future Hall of Fame quarterbacks that attended college in a different century. The Chiefs and Rams are the new. Young, vibrant quarterbacks with upside to potentially match or exceed the ability of their older counterparts; teams that haven't reached the Super Bowl in decades; teams itching to make a name for themselves.

Let's not waste any more time.

Los Angeles Rams at New Orleans (3:05 p.m. Sunday, FOX)

Opening Line: Saints by 3.5
Current Line: Saints by 3

By The Numbers:

Los Angeles:
Record: 13-3 Overall, 6-2 Road; 7-7-2 Against the Spread, 4-4 Road
Average Score: 32.9 (2nd) - 24.0 (20th)
Average Scoring Margin: +8.9 (3rd); 10.9 "Expected" Wins
DVOA: +24.6% Offense (1st), +0.8% Defense (18th), -0.2% Special Teams (17th); +23.7% Overall (2nd)

New Orleans: 
Record: 13-3 Overall, 6-2 Home; 10-6 Against the Spread, 4-4 Home
Average Score: 31.5 (3rd) - 22.1 (14th)
Average Scoring Margin: +9.4 (1st); 11.2 "Expected" Wins
DVOA: +15.9% Offense (4th), -3.1% Defense (11th), +1.7% Special Teams (9th); +20.7% Overall (4th)

NFL Week 14 Primer (With Picks): One Final Power Poll

Todd Gurley doesn't care about covering the spread or your fantasy team, but he's got the Rams in pole position in the NFC.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

As we enter the final quarter of the NFL season, with all teams having played 75 percent of their schedule, we unleash our final regular season power poll. We've included movement since the last power poll, which came in Week 9, and we'll break down all the ins and outs and the end.

Quite Simply Not Good At Anything

32. Oakland Raiders (-1)
31. San Francisco 49ers (-2)
30. Arizona Cardinals (0)

The Nicest Truck Stop Port-o-John In All Of Rural Indiana

29. Buffalo Bills (+3)

The Generically Bad Teams

28. New York Jets (-7)
27. Detroit Lions (-4)
26. Tampa Bay Buccaneers (0)
25. Jacksonville Jaguars (-3)
24. Cincinnati Bengals (-8)

The Good Bad Teams

NFL Week 13 Primer (With Picks): Hunt Out In Kansas City

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

As you've probably heard by now, the Kansas City Chiefs have released star running back Kareem Hunt after video footage of him assaulting a woman in a Cleveland hotel back in February. It's a rather staggering move by the Chiefs. The last time something like this happened - with Ray Rice in Baltimore - the player in question was coming off the worst season of his career and looked like he was probably on his way out of the league in short order anyway. It's not like Baltimore had a ton to lose by cutting him. They were 8-8 the year before, and the decision came in September, so the team had a few months to figure out their running back situation (it turns out they didn't need to, as Justin Forsett blossomed into an every-down back).

The situation in Kansas City is wildly different. By any measure, Hunt is one of the best handful of running backs in the league, and the Chiefs are in the middle of the chase for the No. 1 overall seed in the AFC with just five games remaining. This is a major shakeup that could end up having huge playoff or even Super Bowl implications.

It does, however, bring up some interesting questions.

For one - it's yet another instance of TMZ, and somehow not the NFL having access to video footage of an altercation involving an NFL player. Right off that bat, that's concerning. The NFL released a statement, effectively saying that they asked about the video and the hotel in question said their policy was to share it only with law enforcement. So the league has some cover there, but it's still not a great look.

NFL Week 12 Primer (With Picks): Thanksgiving Hangover Picks

Are the Colts for real? Well, during Indy's four-game winning streak, Andrew Luck has completed 74 percent of his passes, with 13 TDs and 1 INT. So… Maybe?

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

After much eating and drinking on Thursday and Friday and also Saturday, we just don't have much energy left to offer much insight about the state of the league. The Saints are really good, as are the Rams and Chiefs, the Cowboys seem to be making a comeback, the AFC needs to figure out who their second-best team is, and there are a lot of really bad teams in the league this year.

Here are the three storylines worth talking about over the next month or so:

1. Who is the favorite for MVP? Drew Brees and Patrick Mahomes are each putting up insane numbers. The Rams have two candidates (Jared Goff and Todd Gurley) who will end up probably leeching votes from each other so neither will win, but they'll both be in the mix. After that there's a drop-off, but a late surge from someone like Phil Rivers (yes, THAT Phil Rivers - he's having a pretty remarkable season if you look at the numbers) could factor in, or if a team like the Seahawks or Cowboys or Packers or Colts suddenly rattle off six wins to end the season, you could see Russell Wilson or Ezekiel Elliot or Aaron Rodgers or Andrew Luck throw their hat into the ring.

NFL Week 11 Primer (With Picks): How The League Stacks Up Against The Spread

Betters may not trust the Bears yet, but Khalil Mack and Co. have been among the best in the league against the spread this season.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

In the intro this week, we decided it's about time to update all of you loyal readers (Hi Mom!) (Just kidding there's no way our mothers read these) about how each team is doing against the spread so far this season.

Here's the rub: If Vegas bookmakers were perfect at their jobs, every team would finish .500 against the spread. Obviously, that doesn't happen. They under-value or over-value teams to start the year, and then adjust lines accordingly as the season progresses. So what does that mean when you look at these records? Here are two things it does NOT mean:

NFL Week 10 Primer (With Picks): Winning Streaks

The Steelers started off Week 10 with a bang, pummeling the Panthers by 31 points. Ben Roethlisberger had one of the best nights of his career, posting a perfect passer rating (158.3), and throwing more touchdown passes (5) than incompletions (3). The 328 pass yards and zero turnovers were a nice touch. One of our editors was very right about that game, and one was very, very wrong...

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

The Los Angeles Chargers have won five consecutive games.

After last night, the Pittsburgh Steelers have won five consecutive games.

The New England Patriots have won six consecutive games.

The Houston Texans have won six consecutive games.

The New Orleans Saints have won seven consecutive games.

Entering last weekend, the Los Angeles Rams had won eight consecutive games.

That's a lot of pretty long streaks, isn't it?

And that's not even it.

NFL Week 9 Primer (With Picks): Halfway Point Power Poll

These two guys are pretty good at quarterback-ing.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Just like we did following Week 5, we're going to use this space to break down the league into tiers and try to make sense of where each team stands. For fun, I also included a breakdown of how much each team moved, so you can laugh about how wrong we were a month ago.

NFL Week 7 Primer (With Picks): Just The Picks, Ma'am - Just The Picks

Drew Brees and the explosive Saints offense will take on Baltimore's shutdown defense in one of the biggest matchups of the weekend.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Jeremy is tired. He's spent this week watching the Red Sox win the pennant rather than trying to come up with something interesting to write in this here preview part of the weekly picks. So we're skipping the preview. Like, basically all of it - you're reading the preview right now.

We put together a slightly more respectable week last week. We agreed on 12 picks and went 6-5-1 (a winning record!). We disagreed on just three picks last week, and Joe took home winners with the Jets and 49ers, while Jeremy won by a half-point with the Chiefs. Entering Week 7, Joe currently sits 12 games under .500, so he only needs to be one game better than a standard issue coin per week over the rest of the season (plus another single game here or there) to get back on the winning side. Jeremy has an uphill battle - he's 20 games worse than average. He's pretty embarrassed about it. Let's just get to the picks.

NFL Week 6 Primer (With Picks): The Best Offense Is A Good Offense

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Scoring is at an all-time high in the NFL right now.

26 of the 32 teams in the league are averaging north of 20 points per game. The Bengals are averaging over 30 points per game through five weeks, a number that doesn't even land them on the podium. They currently stand fourth behind the Saints (36.0 per game), Chiefs (35.0 per game), and Rams (34.6 per game). The Saints have the 28th-ranked scoring defense yet somehow have the league's fifth-best scoring margin. We've reached a point in the league, with all the modifications to how the officials call illegal contact, pass interference, and roughing the passer, where having a great defense doesn't really matter anymore. Simply out-racing your opponent to 40 points is a perfectly legitimate way to win football games in 2018.

Last week, the Chiefs and Jaguars faced off, the league's No.1 scoring offense (entering the week) versus the league's No. 1 scoring defense (ditto). If this game were happening in the 1970s, everyone would assume Jacksonville would steamroll Kansas City (the whole "defense beats offense" thing). That's not how football works anymore, though. The pendulum has swung clearly in the direction of offenses. Kansas City won easily.

NFL Week 5 Primer (With Picks): NFL Quarter Pole

It's unclear whether or not Terrell Suggs has terrified more fans at Heinz Field than Bane (he probably has), but it is clear that this old man is still (somehow) pretty good, and the Ravens are to be taken seriously the rest of the way.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

The NFL season is one-quarter over, which sounds really depressing because it seems like it started yesterday.

Well, technically, it's not quite one-quarter over. Washington and Carolina have still only played three games because bye weeks started last week. Everyone else in the league, though, has played 25 percent of their schedule. That being the case, we figured we would run through what we've seen so far and hand out some "awards."

NFL Week 4 Primer (With Picks): The Long Journey To The Middle

Screw it. The Browns won a game & covered the spread last week. They get the cover photo. It's been a weird season so far.

 By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

[Let's get this out of the way first: Jeremy turned off the Patriots-Lions game shortly after Brady's interception, and he's still not quite in the mood to talk about it.]

Week 4 is upon us, and with it, comes the continued regression to the mean. Yes, there are still a few strange outliers; the Dolphins, Titans, and Bears currently make up three-eighths of the league's division leaders.  The Patriots are in last place in the AFC East. Ryan Fitzpatrick leads the league in passing yards. Matt Breida is tied for the league lead in rushing yards. Things are still weird. But going forward, things will start to seem a lot less weird.

Maybe the Dolphins, Titans, and Bears are actually good. Maybe not division-winning good, but fight-for-a-playoff spot good. Maybe Ryan Fitzpatrick is the next inexplicable veteran quarterback breakout star, in the vein of Case Keenum last year. Maybe Matt Breida is the next unexpected star at running back, similar to how a then-unknown Jay Ajayi went bonkers two years ago.

On the other hand, maybe the regression gnomes will take over and all of these teams and players will crash back down to Earth over the next month. Maybe these early struggles for New England aren't any more of a to-do than their opening night loss to Kansas City last year or their early season losses to Miami and Kansas City back in 2014 (when they won the Super Bowl).

NFL Week 3 Primer (With Picks): Decision Points

Don't look now, but the Dolphins are 2-0, and Ryan Tannehill has won nine of his last 10 starts dating back to 2016...

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

So, Week 1 gives us our initial impressions, then we overreact in Week 2, based on Week 1. It happens every year. It's like clockwork. Week 3, though, is where the real money is on the table.

What do you do when Week 1 and Week 2 give you wildly different pictures of a team? Take, for example, the Colts and the Redskins. The Colts lost at home Week 1, but it was a reasonably close game. Washington dominated Arizona in Week 1 on the road. Naturally, Washington was favored for their head-to-head matchup last week, but Indianapolis won the game outright (and in reasonably convincing fashion). So, now we have four teams that we need to re-evaluate.

Are the Bengals better than we thought? Maybe they are after they handed Baltimore a thorough butt-whoopin'. Are the Cardinals worse than we thought? Almost certainly, after they couldn't even cross midfield against the Rams. But as for the Colts and Redskins themselves, Week 2 gave us a different picture than Week 1 did. The same can be said for teams like San Francisco, the Chargers, Chicago, Dallas, and even New England.

NFL Week 2 Primer (With Picks): Commence Overreactions

Is Ryan Fitzpatrick starting a march to the MVP award, or might we be overreacting a bit?

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Everybody comes into Week 1 with some idea of what each team is going to look like. Invariably, some of those ideas conflict with the reality that we see on the field Week 1. And hence, we overreact.

The Lions suck! Matthew Stafford is washed up and Matt Patricia will be fired by Week 6!

The Ravens are the best team in the AFC! The Patriots' run is over!

Sam Darnold is the next great quarterback! The Jets will make the playoffs!

Tampa Bay has the best offense in the NFC! Take the over every week!

Well, here's where the confusing part comes in- Some of these over-reactions will turn out to actually be correct. Maybe Dallas does go 6-10 this year. Maybe Buffalo is actually the worst team in the league. Maybe the Jets and Browns are competitive this year for once. Maybe Pat Mahomes is just as good as Alex Smith, and the Chiefs will be just as good as they were last year. We just don't know.

In my experience (this is Jeremy talking here - hi friends), you're usually better off just ignoring (most of) what you see in Week 1 and sticking with (most of) your pre-season guns. Obviously, you have to take some things into account. Sam Darnold WAS way better than most people expected him to be, so I'll be more willing to bet on the Jets going forward. Kirk Cousins looked really good in Minnesota, so maybe they aren't the regression candidate I had in mind for the NFC. Deshaun Watson didn't look anything like he did last year, so maybe he's not fully recovered from his injury quite yet and maybe Houston isn't a sleeper AFC South team.

NFL Week 1 Primer (With Picks): Parello's Vengeance Starts Here

J.J. Watt and editor Joe Parello are both back and out for blood in 2018.. Or, ya know, Joe is just gonna try to pick football games better.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

This will be the sixth season that Joe and Jeremy have competed against each other, head to head, for pride, glory, eternal bragging rights, a case of beer, and a gift card to Dave & Buster's worth $42,000.

We choose to compete over NFL handicapping, because the other categories we floated, like arm wrestling and Fast & Furious franchise-related trivia, just wouldn't be a fair fight (Joe has the pipes, Jeremy has the inside-out familiarity of Vin Diesel's neck rolls).

For four consecutive years, Joe took home the trophy (for those of you scoring at home, that's $168,000 worth of D&B). Last year, Jeremy bested Joe by two games, his first season win ever. He's feeling pretty good about it, so he wanted to remind you all here. While Joe leads 4-1 on season wins, make no mistake, the overall score is much closer. Over five years, Joe holds a record of 639-596-47, a winning percentage of 51.68 percent. Jeremy clocks in at 625-610-47, a solid 50.59 percent. So, we're practically within a percentage point of each other.

Anyway, that's the least important part of this intro. The important part is that Football is back. We just had our last Sunday of 2018 without NFL games on; we're about to have 20 in a row. We're at that part of the late summer before the season starts where we all talk ourselves into our team unquestionably being better than the year before, and not see potential regression staring us in the face. It's optimism season.

A bunch of teams have new quarterbacks, some star players moved teams and/or signed new huge deals, and Walkabout Wednesdays just started at Outback Steakhouse. There's a lot to be excited for.

NFL Conference Championship Primer (With Picks): 52 Around the Corner

The Jaguars and Vikings defenses are getting all the pub, but don't sleep on this swarming Eagles unit.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Well, Sunday was exciting, wasn't it? After two relative duds on Saturday (Atlanta-Philadelphia was close and vaguely exciting, but poorly played and not all that entertaining) with some spotty officiating (as a Patriots fan, I can tell you that the Titans (a) got shafted on a few calls, and (b) still weren't going to win anyway), Sunday was an absolute barn-burner, with a shootout early with some spectacular plays (Pittsburgh scored on two deep bombs, both on 4th down!) and one of the most spectacular finishes in NFL playoff history in the late game (I still have no idea what Marcus Williams was doing on that play).

That all leaves us with New England (expected), Jacksonville (unexpected), Minnesota (expected) and Philadelphia (relatively unexpected) left, fighting for two spots in the Super Bowl. Our favorites are (understandably) New England and Minnesota, but just last week we saw Jacksonville pull off a big upset and we saw Philadelphia grind out an ugly, low-scoring game. Both of those things happening again are certainly within the realm of possibility.

AFC Divisional Round Primer (With Picks): Big Favorites

The immortal Blake Bortles will look for the biggest win of his young career this Sunday in Pittsburgh.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

So, the AFC Wild Card round went about as expected. Andy Reid and the Chiefs went all Andy Reid And The Chiefs and blew an exceedingly winnable game against an inferior opponent, and Jacksonville held the Bills to 263 yards of total offense and three points.

The good news is, now we get two competent football teams that are unlikely to (a) blow an 18-point lead to a 9-7 team that had a negative scoring margin on the season and/or (b) score just three points.

The bad news is, well, we still have to watch Tennessee and Jacksonville for at least another week.

We talked about how the Wild Card round went gambling-wise in the NFC intro, but suffice it to say, it didn't really go well and we don't want to repeat it here. You can peruse the NFC Primer if you want the gory details. Here's our take on the AFC games.

NFC Divisional Round Primer (With Picks): The Road To Minnesota Runs Through... Minnesota?

This is the second time we're using Case Keenum as the image for an NFL Primer this season... What is happening?

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

The divisional round of the playoffs kick off with the NFC this weekend, and things are a bit weird. During the last few weeks of the regular season, Jeremy openly pined for all-out chaos in the NFC, and, well, he kind of got it.

In the first round, we saw Atlanta upset Los Angeles and the Saints win a shootout over the Panthers, leaving us with a No. 6 seed favored on the road against the conference's No. 1 seed, plus a matchup of two division winners that feature (perhaps) the best offense in the league going up against the best defense in the league. Football statisticians at Football Outsiders say the Saints-Vikings game is (roughly) a 60-40 proposition in favor of Minnesota, and actually have Philadelphia as more likely to advance than Atlanta, despite disagreements in Las Vegas.

The NFC seems wide-open, especially when compared to the AFC, where both home top seeds are favored by more than a touchdown. Obviously Atlanta has an uphill battle - they would need to win two road games to advance - but they're still very much alive.

With Philadelphia somewhat of a question mark without Carson Wentz, one would have to say that Minnesota is now the favorite in the NFC. This is especially good for them, considering (you may have heard) the Super Bowl is being played at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis this year. If Minnesota advances that far, they'd be the first team ever to play a Super Bowl in their home stadium, which seems like it would be an advantage. Until further notice, I think we have to assume it's the most likely outcome.

NFL Week 17 Primer (With Picks): It All Comes Down to This (For Now)

The fate of Tennessee, and our yearly pick'em challenge, could rest on the arm (and legs) of Titans QB Marcus Mariota.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Normally, this is the place where Jeremy would wax poetic about how close he and I are in our annual pick'em challenge (this is Joe, btw). Heck, he'd probably even give you playoff/bye/homefield clinching scenarios for everybody before we got into the picks.

But Jeremy is on the road, so I'm gonna give you the short version:

We've done our pick'em challenge for five years now, and I always win. It's always close, but I always win. This whole season I was winning, until Jeremy jumped back in front by a single game last week, but have no fear, I will win again. I'm 4-0 headed for 5-0, my friends.

Jeremy will then point out that I keep winning by such a small margin that it is statistically insignificant, and that neither of us is good enough to pick games for a living, but so what? I'm gonna win. Calling my shot.

(Jeremy's Note: If you notice the records at the bottom of this page, we enter Week 17 at a tie, despite the fact that I, Jeremy, hold a one-game lead on "disagreements." That's because through a fluke of lines moving, we ended up disagreeing on New England's Week 5 win over Tampa Bay - Jeremy took the Bucs at +5.5, but then after Gronk was ruled out later in the day, Joe took the Patriots at -4, and the final margin saw the Patriots win by 5. So, we're technically tied, but also technically, I technically hold a one game lead.)

Anyways, about that whole playoff thing- Here's a lightning round.

NFL Week 16 Primer (With Picks): The Holidays Cometh

Did we just witness a changing of the guard in the NFC West last week?

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Happy Holidays, everyone.

Week 16 is upon us, which means some clinching scenarios are in play. Here are the least complicated ones:

1. New England and/or Pittsburgh clinch a first-round bye with a win and a Jacksonville loss
2. Jacksonville clinches the AFC South with a win or a Tennessee loss.
3. Kansas City clinches the AFC West with a win or a Chargers loss
4. Philadelphia clinches the No. 1 seed in the NFC with a win or Minnesota loss
5. The Rams clinch the NFC West with a win or Seattle loss
6. New Orleans clinches a playoff berth with a win, and then clinches the NFC South with a Carolina loss
7. Carolina clinches a playoff berth with a win (can't clinch the NFC South this week)
8. Atlanta clinches a playoff berth with a win

That means any team you didn't see here either (a) can't really clinch anything of consequence this week, or (b) has a scenario convoluted enough that it's not worth mentioning, or (c) both. Like, Minnesota has already clinched the NFC North, and can clinch a first-round bye if a few things go right, but who really cares?

NFL Week 15 Primer (With Picks): No Primer, Just The Picks

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Office Christmas Parties threw us for a loop this week, so not much of an introduction (and by that, we mean we watched Office Christmas Party on DVD like 12 times and didn't have time to write one). If you're looking for some context within which to put these picks, read the intro from last week where we talk about how the NFC is getting funky and a whole bunch of games could tip scales in big ways. Anyway, let's jump right in.