Playoff Push Weekend
The Key for the week of December 30
Saturday night fever
In a scheduling match made in NFL heaven, all four AFC North teams will play Saturday night with the Bengals’ playoff hopes and the Ravens’ division title chances still very much in play. First, the Bengals are still hoping for a holiday miracle to make it to the post season—if they win on Saturday over the Steelers, then it’s scoreboard watching Sunday to look for a Miami loss and Denver loss. (as if their overtime win over the Broncos wasn’t miracle enough) If all three of those results happen, the Men in Stripes are in the playoffs. For Baltimore, who’s already in the playoffs, the North title is still a possibility after the Ravens beat the Houston Texans and the Steelers lost on Christmas Day. Baltimore is in the driver’s seat for the three seed at the moment. A win in Week 18 over the Browns would lock it in.
Let’s go bowling
Yes, the bowl season looks a little different this year, with traditional New Year’s Day Orange Bowl and Cotton Bowl games moved to the week after to host the college football playoff. But while nothing probably will beat the thrill of the Pop Tarts Bowl, we’ll still be talking about college football long after New Year’s, through the CFP title game on January 20th. Viewership for the first round of the playoffs, even though the games were more or less blowouts, shows there’s an appetite for the playoff format, with the first round games averaging almost 11 million viewers over ABC, ESPN and Turner networks. The numbers were better than the average of the four major conference title games, and better than the non-playoff New Year’s bowls after the 2023 season. Speaking of numbers, the largest bet recorded so far on CFP teams is $1.5 million placed at Caesars Sportsbook in Louisiana for Texas to win it all. Reminiscent of “Mattress Mack” Jim McIngvale betting $1 million on Texas to win the title a year ago. The Longhorns didn’t win, neither did Mattress Mack—could he be behind the $1.5M wager??
It's not March but we’re already mad
In the way-too-early men’s March Madness bracket prognostications, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi is predicting that Auburn, Duke, Iowa State and Tennessee will be your number 1 seeds come March. Locally, the Kentucky Wildcats stand as a #2, UC is in the field as a #7 and Xavier, as of now, is not in the field. But hey, it’s early.
Ben’s Best Bet
While the AFC North will face off Saturday for post-season positioning, Kansas City has the luxury of locking down the top seed in the conference early. Not so in the NFC, where Sunday’s final game of the regular season between the Vikings and Lions will determine the conference top seed and first round bye. The loser is the fifth seed and has to play in the wild card round, so this game has plenty of playoff implications. The Lions beat Minnesota earlier in the season, but this time the Vikings are coming in on a nine game winning streak and the newly-resurrected Sam Darnold. BetMGM has the home Lions as three point favorites. Ben says expect the Lions to roar and make a deep Super Bowl run as the top conference seed.