NFL Wild Card Weekend 2020 Preview

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…