After a long awaited 18 weeks, the regular season has come to an end to start the NFL Playoffs. Fourteen teams, one winner. The playoffs start on Saturday, January 15th. 

To kick off, the Bengals and Raiders will face off at 4:30pm on Saturday. Following up that night, the Patriots and Bills will match up at 8:15pm. After this, on Sunday the Eagles will face off the Bucs 1pm EST, the 49ers will face off with the Cowboys 4:30 EST and the following Night The Steelers and Chiefs will go head to head. Finally, which will arguably be the best game of the wild card games, the Rams and Cardinals will face off at 8:15 EST on Monday. 

We asked two eighth grade students, Sam Judka and Jake Russell, about their predictions for the games. “The Cowboys, who are going to win the Super Bowl, will win the NFC Championship, will play the Bills in the Super Bowl,” said Judka. 

We asked if a five, six, or seven seed will advance to the divisional. “Yeah, the Eagles are winning,” replied Jake. 

Sam added, “And the Rams will beat the Cardinals.” 

 We also interviewed eighth graders Jake Zemsky and James McFarland. Jake said “To be honest, I think the two first seeds have the best chances to make it and I think the Green Bay Packers or the Tennessee Titans will face off and I think the Green bay Packers will wind up winning.” 

James answered “I think the Buccaneers are gonna win the Super Bowl because they have Tom Brady, and he just doesn’t lose.” 

Finally, we asked James if he thinks that the Packers will lose in the NFC championship again. He remarked “I think they will. They choke in the playoffs every time.” 

Every year, in mostly any sport, people love to predict outcomes and bet on games. Predicting the winners and losers is a really fun way to get involved and engaged in the games. There are so many outcomes of what can happen in the playoffs and football is so unpredictable that pretty much anything can happen based on what we have seen in the regular season. 

During the playoffs, the first teams play in the wildcard round. There are two conferences and the best team from each conference gets a bye in the wildcard round. The next round is the divisional round where the teams will face off the advance to the conference championship. With four teams remaining, two from each conference will play to advance to the Super Bowl. In the Super Bowl, one team from each conference plays, and the winner of the NFL playoffs is decided. To sum up there could be pretty much any outcome in the NFL playoffs and you never know who might sneak into the Super Bowl.