NFL Wild Card Weekend 2020 Preview
By: Rajan Nanavati
Tags: NFL, Sports, NFL Picks, Football, NFL Playoffs

And then, there were 12.

With the NFL’s regular season officially concluded (and us starting at the looming abyss of Sunday’s without wall-to-wall football coverage), we embark on professional football’s version of the NCAA Tournament, with each team hoping to be the last one standing at the end.

Accordingly, consider this to be my official walk-through of the four Wild Card games that comprise the opening round of the 2019–2020 NFL playoffs, with thoughts on the most compelling storyline(s) in each matchup, and predictions of who’ll win each game.

Without further adieu…

Buffalo at Houston

Saturday, January 4th, 4:35pm ET

I’m absolutely astonished by the amount of people who, rather confidently and decisively, consider it a foregone conclusion that Houston is going to win this game.

At the risk of spouting an empty football cliché, the Houston Texans are that classic team that can beat anyone in the NFL on a given day (like their shoot-out win against the Chiefs in Kansas City or their impressively decisive victory over the Patriots in Houston) or totally soil the bed in games they have no business losing (like their 16–10 loss to Carolina when Kyle Allen fumbled the ball three times or their 38–24 loss against Denver when the Broncos effortlessly moved the ball up-and-down the field en route to a 31–3 halftime lead).

To be clear, I have an immense amount of respect for Deshaun Watson, and i’ve previously referred to DeAndre Hopkins as “the best wide receiver in the game today” (though Michael Thomas in New Orleans might have something to say about this).

But after that, what else are are we supposed to get excited about, in regards to the Texans?

Even if he did run for over 1,000 yards, Carlos Hyde is still a bottom-half-of-the-NFL starting running back (he was ranked 26th among running backs in positional DVOA). Houston’s offensive line is still hot garbage. And Houston’s defense — which everyone just kind of assumes is good — might be toxic waste: they’re 19th in points allowed per game, 25th in passer rating allowed to opposing quarterbacks, 26th in overall defensive DVOA, 27th in sacks registered, 27th in average rushing yards per attempt by opposing runners, and 28th in yards allowed per game.

On the contrary, everyone just assumes the Buffalo Bills are this fun-if-not-flawed, happy-to-be-here playoffs party-crashers, with a 10–6 record buoyed by playing in the pillowy-soft AFC East.

But if that really was the case, then one of those six losses should’ve come against the same caliber of cream-puff opponent(s) that the 10 wins were built on. Except, find me Buffalo’s “bad loss” this season. No, really; go back through each and every one of their six losses, and tell me when you find one instance where you can look back and say “they had no business losing that game.”

Their Week 17 loss came in a game when they liberally rested their starters, since they had nothing to play for

Two of their losses came against teams that were in full-blown “backs against the wall, need to salvage things immediately” mode (Philadelphia and Cleveland).

Two of their losses came against the Patriots, and both were by 7 points or less

Their only other loss was in a hard-fought 24–17 contest against the white-hot Baltimore Ravens; the Bills were one of only two teams the Ravens didn’t defeat by a two-touchdown or more margin of victory

Of any of the six playoff teams in the AFC, there wasn’t a more maddening team to watch this season than the Houston Texans.

Conversely, Buffalo is well-coached, and plays hard accordingly. They have one of the game’s best very cornerbacks (Tre’Davious White), who’s capable of going mano a mano with Hopkins. And while it might not always be pretty, they have a quarterback who — in his own way — is almost as dynamic with the ball in his hands as Deshaun Watson.

To borrow from Chris Berman: i’m circling the wagons.

Pick: Buffalo