Is an AFC Championship game between Ravens and Chiefs inevitable?
By John Buhler
The two best teams in the AFC this year are the Baltimore Ravens and the Kansas City Chiefs. Is their meeting in the AFC Championship game inevitable?
Wild Card Weekend is about to be upon us. 12 teams have punched their tickets into the NFL Playoffs, but only one team will have all the glory over hoisting a Lombardi Trophy as Super Bowl LIV champions down in Miami. The Fantasy Footballers discussed their Super Bowl brackets on Thursday’s episode. Who’s winning it all and what are the most exciting games to look forward to?
In the AFC, all three guys like the Buffalo Bills to pull of the road upset over the Houston Texans. Andy Holloway believes the New England Patriots will find a way to win at home over the Tennessee Titans, while Jason Moore and Mike Wright feel Tennessee wins on Wild Card Weekend in Foxborough.
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The really interesting part of all of this is that the guys all have the same AFC Championship game matchup. Moore and Wright have the Baltimore Ravens advancing over Tennessee, while Holloway has Baltimore getting past Buffalo. Moore and Wright have the Kansas City Chiefs beating Buffalo, while Holloway has Kansas City defeating New England?
The NFC side of their brackets is a tad more chaotic, but is it really a foregone conclusion that Baltimore will host Kansas City for the right to go to Super Bowl LIV out of the AFC? It might be so, as it’s really hard to pick any of the teams playing on Wild Card Weekend in the AFC capable of winning multiple playoff games this year. But who is the most likely to do it?
New England has the history and the culture to pull it off, but the Patriots rarely play on Wild Card Weekend. Plus, the roster isn’t as good as it was even a year ago. Houston has never played in an AFC Championship game, so that’s probably not happening this year. While Buffalo and Tennessee have the rosters to do it, neither team is overly battle-tested in playoff football setting of late.
The most likely way we won’t get a Kansas City at Baltimore AFC Championship game is if the Patriots beat the Titans at home on Saturday and then pull off a road upset in Kansas City. It’s not likely to happen, but the Patriots did defeat the Chiefs at Arrowhead last year in the AFC Championship en route to winning Super Bowl LIII over the Los Angeles Rams in Atlanta.