SCU’s NFL 2017 Postseason Pick’em: Divisional Round

by Joe Kuzma (joe_kuzma) on January 12, 2018

Each week a panel of SCU contributors will pick their winners and losers. Let’s see who does the best by the end of the season!

Choosing winners and losers in the postseason is sometimes a careful balance of educated guesses and wishful thinking.

None could be truer than our staff’s choices from Wild Card weekend, where not a single one of us doubted the Kansas City Chiefs… and were wrong!

The Tennesee Titans upended the Chiefs in their own stadium and now draw the top seed in the AFC, the New England Patriots. The Titans upset last weekend made a few believers (or wishful thinkers) that they could do the same traveling to Foxboro.

The Falcons and Rams game was more of a split decision among our panel, with four people correctly picking Atlanta to continue on in the tournament with a win on the road. They’ll have to do it again, in the first-ever postseason NFL game where the home team is the underdog. (All but two of us think the Falcons will make a repeat appearance in the NFC Championship game.)

The Jacksonville Jaguars escaped the weekend with a 10-3 win, ending the Buffalo Bills first playoff appearance this century. Our incredibly biased panel, well, except for the usually balanced Tommy Jaggi, all believe Pittsburgh avenges their earlier loss to the Jags this season.

Finally, the coin flip of the upcoming weekend appears to be with the Saints and Vikings. As all but Mike Pelaia predicted, New Orleans handled their business at home and now make a trip to the home of Super Bowl LII to face the Vikings.

Here’s the entire list of our panel picks to win each of the Divisional Round games.