The journey to Super Bowl 50 in Santa Clara, California begins in earnest this Saturday as Wildcard Weekend ushers in what is sure to be another exciting NFL play-off series.
Following the final regular season games, the 32 competing NFL teams have been reduced to 12 with the top two seeds in both the AFC and NFC conferences having the luxury of a weekend off.
That means the Denver Broncos and New England Patriots, seeds one and two respectively in the AFC, as well as the NFC top seeds Carolina Panthers and Arizona Cardinals, can put their feet up while the eight remaining teams begin their quest for glory.
The two divisional champions, seeded three and four respectively, in both the AFC and NFC will host a Wildcard game this weekend against the two teams with the next best records in their conference, seeds five and six.
The AFC Conference will kick off the Wildcard Weekend on Saturday at 9.35pm (Irish Time) when the fifth-seeded Kansas City Chiefs travel to Texas to face the fourth-seed Houston Texans.
These teams last met in Week 1 when the Chiefs overcame the Texans 27-20.
That day was the only game that Chiefs’ quarterback Alex Smith threw for three touchdowns all season and it is likely a repeat performance along with Smith’s effective rushing game will be needed on Saturday.
The Chiefs come into the game on a ten-game winning streak but it’s their play-off streak that may cause Kansas City supporters more concern as they have not won a single play-off game since 1994.
The team the Chiefs beat that day though was the previous franchise based in Houston, The Oilers. A good omen, perhaps for Chiefs fans.
It is often said that defence wins championships and if you were building a championship-winning defence from scratch there is little doubt that Houston’s JJ Watt would be one of the first names on the sheet.
The Texan's star defensive-end finished the season top of the league sack charts and if he can get to Alex Smith, you’d have to fancy his chances of adding to the 17.5 sacks against his name already.
Watt did manage two sacks on Smith during that Week 1 game back in September but it’s worth noting that Chiefs left-tackle Eric Fisher was missing that day.
Fisher has put in stellar season for Kansas and while it’s not the sexiest match up of the Wildcard Weekend, how Fisher deals with Watt on the line could go a long way to determining the outcome. The Texans are making their third play-off appearance and are unbeaten in play-off openers to date.
The second AFC game sees divisional rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers travelling to Ohio to face the Cincinnati Bengals in the early hours of Sunday morning at 1.15am.
As AFC North adversaries, these teams have played each other twice already this season with each team winning their respective away game.
The last encounter in December saw the Steelers win out 33-20 and the defeat was compounded further for the Bengals when they lost starting quarterback Andy Dalton to a thumb injury.
Dalton was replaced by backup AJ McCarron who has struggled in recent weeks to get the Bengals' offense firing on all cylinders as it was under Dalton.
This was evident in the second-half collapse against Denver in Week 16 when Cincinnati blew a 14-3 lead and in turn condemned themselves to this Wildcard match-up. It remains to be seen if quarterback Dalton will return from injury on Saturday.
It hasn’t all been plain sailing for Pittsburgh either though. They were the last of the 12 teams to claim their place in the play-offs and only did so when the Buffalo Bills overcame the New York Jets last Sunday.
Steelers’ quarterback Ben Roethlisberger has thrown for nearly 4000 yards this season and the aerial game will be a strategy they’ll look to exploit against the Bengals. Wide Receiver Antonio Brown will once again be his main target.
Brown’s 1,834 receiving yards for the season accounts for almost half of Big Ben’s passing yards and the Bengals will need to be mindful of the threat he poses as arguably the league’s best wide receiver.
The Steelers lost star running-back Le’Veon Bell earlier in the season to a knee injury but in his place, DeAngelo Williams has run for 907 yards and 11 touchdowns. Williams is hoping to recover from an ankle sprain in time for Saturday’s showdown.
These two sides have only met once before in the play-offs. That too was a Wildcard game ten years ago when the Steelers ran out 31-17 winners.
They were helped on the day by a game-ending injury to the Bengals then quarterback Carson Palmer. The Bengals and Andy Dalton will be hoping that history doesn’t repeat itself this time around.
The NFC Conference then takes centre stage on Sunday as the Seattle Seahawks hit the road to face the Minnesota Vikings at 6.05pm.
It’s a trip they know well having made it only a month ago when they marched into Minneapolis and dismantled the Vikings 38-7. On that day, Seahawk’s quarterback Russell Wilson was the star of the show as he threw for three touchdowns and ran in another one for good measure.
The Viking’s star running back and league leading rusher Adrian Petersen was held to a mere 18 yards on the day, which prompted him to declare that “We were outcoached in so many ways and outplayed as players”. The Vikings will have to overcome these issues first and foremost if they are going to have any chance of progressing further in the play-offs.
Can they find a way to outplay a Seattle defence that has led the league in scoring points from a defence for four straight seasons?
Post-season Seattle should generally be avoided as their recent record shows.
The Super Bowl XLVIII Champions almost retained their title last year, losing out at the very last moment to the New England Patriots thanks to what many consider one of the strangest play calls in Super Bowl history courtesy of head coach, Pete Carroll.
That major blip aside, Carroll certainly knows how to prime his team for post-season success and with running-back Marshawn Lynch likely to return for this game it’s difficult to see anything other than a Seahawks win in this one.
The final game of the weekend sees the Green Bay Packers visiting the Washington Redskins on Sunday night at 9.40pm.
Few would have imagined reaching this point in the season talking about an Aaron Rodgers-led offence in Green Bay looking a little stale and a Kirk Cousins led offence in Washington looking fresh.
But that’s exactly the situation we find ourselves in as the Packers have struggled through the last few weeks of the seasons, while the Redskins have looked explosive.
Cousins, the much maligned Washington quarterback, has stepped up in 2015 throwing for over 4,000 yards and 29 touchdowns. The weapons at his disposal have certainly helped and tight-end Jordan Reed in particular has been a revelation, becoming a favoured target alongside wide receivers Garcon, Crowder and Jackson.
Washington might not get a better chance to win a play-off game against Green Bay whose offensive struggles of late will need to vanish quickly.
Betting against a quarterback of Aaron Rodgers calibre is not something anyone should do lightly but there have hardly been any positive signs in recent weeks during defeats to fellow play-off hopefuls.
The losing teams this weekend will be clearing out their lockers on Monday morning but the top-seeded victors can look forward to a trip to the AFC and NFC second seeds in New England or Arizona.
The lowest-seeded winners face a trip to snowy Colorado to battle the Denver Broncos or a visit to Charlotte to meet quarterback Cam Newton and the impressive Carolina Panthers.
