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Later today, the AFC NFC Championship Games will be played to see who gets to play in Super Bowl LX.
That means that there are only three games left to be played in this NFL season. Of course, that excludes the Pro Bowl. After all, the Pro Bowl isn't a real game, and isn't nearly as interesting as some of the real games are, either. In fact, I cannot even tell you the last time that I personally watched it. It was never the most fascinating contest, but once it used to be a little more entertaining. It used to be a game between the best players in the AFC versus the best in the NFC. And it used to be at least somewhat entertaining and fun to watch.
Alas, no longer.
So my picks to win today's games and play in the Super Bowl may or may not be right. We'll see. For the record, I picked the Broncos on the AFC side and the Rams on the NFC side. Consequently, that is the only possible match-up that would not feature some kind of a rematch. Because the Broncos, if they make it, already once played the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. And the Patriots played both the Rams and the Seahawks in the big game. So the only "new" match-up would be the Denver Broncos and the Los Angeles Rams.
Just for the record, the Patriots met the Rams twice in the Super Bowl. They stunned the heavily favored Rams, the "Greatest Show on Turf" in Super Bowl XXXVI for the first Super Bowl championship in franchise history in February of 2002. More recently, they beat the Rams in Super Bowl LIII, which was the most recent title in New England franchise history. That also set the mark for the lowest scoring Super Bowl of all time, which is a bit strange, as both teams had solid offenses. New England also beat the Seahawks in their one and only Super Bowl meeting (at least so far), in Super Bowl XLIX. That was the infamous "2nd and 1" disaster, from which the Seahawks as a franchise have yet to fully recover from.
As for the Broncos, they met the Seahawks in Super Bowl XLVIII in New Jersey, in the only Super Bowl at an outdoor cold weather stadium. If you remember, the Seahawks crushed the Broncos, 43-8, in what is tied for the third most lopsided Super Bowl in history. That said, the Broncos won the Super Bowl two years later, and that was the most recent Super Bowl appearance by Denver.
For the Broncos and Patriots, this marks the fifth overall time that the two franchises will meet. They met in the 1986 divisional round, the 2005 divisional round, yet again in the divisional round in 2011, and twice in the AFC Championship Game, back in 2013 and again in 2015.
Denver leads the playoff rivalry, four to one. In fact, the home team has won every single meeting in this playoff rivalry. Obviously, this game will be played in Denver, at Mile High. Let's see whether the Broncos can hold serve, or if the Patriots can break through and become the first road team to win one of these games in this playoff rivalry.
As for the Rams and Seahawks, they have met twice before in the postseason. The Rams won both meetings, beating the Seahawks in the 2005 Wild Card and, much more recently in the 2021 Wild Card. Both games were in Seattle, which usually is a very tough place for road teams to play. Yet somehow, the Rams have won both playoff meetings so far. Either the Seahawks break through for their first win, or the Rams continue their apparent mastery over the Seahawks in Seattle in the playoff meetings.
Let's see what happens.
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