How the NFL Wild Card weekend is designed to break your will: the picks are in

At last, the first weekend of the postseason has arrived – and with it, my new favorite form of self-deception. This time, I didn’t dedicate one of my 12 New Year’s grapes to running a marathon or quitting sugar forever. My resolution was more ambitious and more honest: a sports diet. Not of food, but of time. Of attention. Of screens. Choosing better what to watch because the time I used to have – the kind that felt infinite when it didn’t matter whether it was Tuesday or Sunday – has now shrunk into brief moments inside a house I share with a little one who always wants to play.

The idea sounds simple enough. Choose. Prioritize. Learn from other worlds. Turn off irrelevant games. Watch less, understand more. A diet like the one doctors recommend when you can no longer survive on chips and fried snacks alone. The problem is that January arrives and the NFL doesn’t serve you a salad – it hands you a tray of cookies.

I think of Frog and Toad, the Arnold Lobel story I discovered this week. Frog says they should stop eating because they’ll soon get sick. Toad agrees. They eat one last cookie. Then another. Then another. I imagine telling it to my daughter and her laughing because she would grasp something essential about life sooner than many adults. The problem isn’t not knowing when to stop; it’s believing you can stop tomorrow. Wild Card weekend is exactly that – one last cookie that lasts three days. Just like when I open a pack of Oreos, self-control escapes me. I lack discipline when the things I love are right in front of me.

My last cookie won’t actually be my last cookie this weekend. It won’t be just my favorite team playing Sunday at noon. Because the six scheduled games begin whispering to me to stay glued to the couch while 22 gladiators fight to move the ball from one end to the other. The slate is full of narratives that invite voluntary surrender. Philadelphia arrives as the No. 3 seed with its ambition intact to repeat as champion. Only nine teams have done it. The Eagles want to be the tenth, and that story can’t be told through highlights. You have to watch live to see whether the champion holds its ground or falls.

The sports diet starts to wobble when I remember that since 1990, for 36 consecutive seasons, at least four teams that missed the playoffs one year returned the next. Carolina, Chicago, New England and San Francisco did it this time. Three of them also won their division after finishing last. Seven new division champions in a single season. The NFL doesn’t repeat the menu. It changes the main course every year. And I want to taste everything.

I try to be responsible. I think about turning the TV off early, but then the quarterback stat appears. Twelve of the 14 starters in these playoffs are under 30. It’s the new generation that has taken over the league, and I don’t want to miss it. Josh Allen averages 309.8 combined yards per postseason game, more than anyone in history with at least 10 starts – though he still lacks a trip to the big game.

Jalen Hurts has already played in two Super Bowls in three years and is the only quarterback with 10 passing and 10 rushing touchdowns in the playoffs. Brock Purdy, the very last pick, has already taken San Francisco to February. C.J. Stroud, at 24, can win a playoff game for a third straight year.

And just when you think there can’t possibly be another cookie in the jar, Aaron Rodgers appears. Forty-two years old. Twenty-two playoff starts. Third all-time in postseason touchdown passes. Fourth in yards. Maybe the last time he steps onto a field in January. Am I really going to turn off the TV when time – the thing I claim I don’t have – is happening right in front of me?

I’m far from the only one without self-control. I’m part of the statistics that speak to a massive addiction. The NFL closed the regular season with 18.7 million viewers per game, the second-highest figure ever, trailing only 1989. Viewership rose 10 percent from last year and seven percent from 2023. This isn’t nostalgia. It’s the present. Nielsen now measures bars, airports, restaurants. The league is everywhere because people decided they wanted it everywhere.

I find myself on the couch Monday night, knowing I have to wake up early the next day. Houston against Pittsburgh wasn’t in the plan. But there it is. Rodgers again. Stroud again. The last cookie. Frog and Toad watch me from the bookshelf. I know what I should do. I know turning it off would be an act of will. But I also know something more honest: I don’t want to stop right now.

Maybe the sports diet isn’t about watching less, but about understanding why you can’t stop watching. About accepting that some times of year are irresistible because, as the old slogan says, you can’t eat just one.

Sorry – this weekend there will be no Bluey on the TV for my daughter, and nothing else that isn’t football from the National League.

Game of the week

49ers at Eagles (-4.5)

What happens Sunday in Philadelphia shouldn’t belong to the Wild Card round. It’s far too early for a clash between two franchises that have defined the NFC in recent years. But that’s how capricious the season was, and that’s how ruthless January is. Eagles and 49ers meet in the wild card with the sense that one of the true title contenders will be eliminated far too soon.

Philadelphia arrives as the defending Super Bowl champion. It has won five straight playoff games at home, including the 31–7 rout that buried San Francisco in the NFC Championship Game of the 2022 season. Lincoln Financial Field remains hostile territory in January, and this group knows it. Jalen Hurts, Saquon Barkley, AJ Brown and Brandon Graham have lived through long nights, short trips and Sundays that define careers. Barkley, with 765 combined yards in six postseason games, averages 127.5 per game and is now the emotional and tactical engine of this offense.

San Francisco arrives from an uncomfortable but familiar place. It finished 12–5, one of the best records in the conference, and still travels as the sixth seed after surviving a brutal NFC West. A different result against Seattle in the final week would have changed the entire map. Instead, the 49ers now play for survival at the first stop on the road.

Christian McCaffrey embodies that urgency. He has 836 yards from scrimmage in seven playoff games, 119.4 per game, a historic number. But San Francisco doesn’t live on production alone. It lives on debt. Since 2019, it has reached two Super Bowls – and lost both. Reaching them repeatedly speaks to sustained greatness. Winning none of them leaves an open wound.

The Eagles, under Nick Sirianni, mastered the art of surviving close games for years. That trait brought them a ring and prestige, but it also exposed them this season. Narrow losses, debatable decisions and a seeding that left them third despite not being dominant. Sirianni chose rest over seeding in Week 18.

The recent history is split. Philadelphia won the game that mattered most, the 2023 NFC title game. San Francisco took the regular-season meetings in 2021 and 2023. Neither arrives intimidated. Both arrive with memory.

That’s why this game feels out of place on the calendar. It isn’t a Super Bowl preview. It’s an early elimination between two superpowers that shouldn’t be meeting this soon.

If San Francisco can impose tempo, run consistently and prevent the game from breaking open on Hurts’ improvisations, the narrative can shift. It wouldn’t just be a road win. It would be the blow that announces the champion’s fall just one year after toppling the Chiefs’ dynasty.

Pick: 49ers 24–21 Eagles

NFL Wild Card picks in a nutshell

Rams (-10.5) at Panthers:

The most recent meeting between Panthers and Rams isn’t a distant memory – it’s a warning. In Week 13, Carolina won 31–28 with the best version of Bryce Young since he entered the league. He threw three touchdown passes and posted a 147.1 rating, the highest of his career, in a game that shifted perceptions of the Panthers’ offense and exposed cracks in an offensive powerhouse. The playoff history adds another layer. They’ve met once in the postseason – January 10, 2004 – when the Panthers beat the then-St. Louis Rams 29–23 in double overtime, the sixth-longest playoff game in NFL history. Two decades later, the Rams collect their revenge.

Pick: Rams 30–13 Panthers

Packers (-1.5) at Bears:

Parity defined this rivalry. They split the season series, with home wins proving context matters as much as talent. Green Bay won 28–21 in Week 14; Chicago answered with a 22–16 overtime victory in Week 16. Chicago’s identity is defense. The Bears led the NFL with 33 takeaways and committed only 11 turnovers themselves. In the playoffs, history offers no edge – they split their two postseason meetings, both in Chicago.

Pick: Bears 23–20 Packers

Bills (-1.5) at Jaguars:

Jacksonville arrives at its peak, riding eight straight wins. Buffalo closed strong too, winning five of six. Josh Allen totaled 39 combined touchdowns; Trevor Lawrence had 38 – second and third in the league. The tension lies in identity. The Bills led the NFL with 2,714 rushing yards and 30 rushing touchdowns. Jacksonville allowed just 85.6 rushing yards per game, best in the league. Control of tempo decides survival.

Pick: Bills 30–24 Jaguars

Chargers at Patriots (-3.5):

New England returns to January for the first time since the 2019 wild card, carrying a heavy past. The Patriots won all three playoff meetings with the Chargers in the Super Bowl era. This return isn’t nostalgic – it’s functional. They led the AFC in scoring (28.8 points per game) and total yards (379.4), finding identity early with Drake Maye as their franchise quarterback.

Pick: Patriots 27–20 Chargers

Texans (-3) at Steelers:

Houston’s nine-game winning streak has reshaped perception – the longest since the 49ers of 2022. It’s not an illusion. It’s defense. The Texans led the NFL in yards allowed (277.2 per game) and finished second in points allowed (17.4). Pittsburgh plays against its own wait. AFC North champions for the first time since 2020, the Steelers haven’t won a home playoff game since January 2017. History versus momentum.

Pick: Texans 20–14 Steelers

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