Fandom is a funny thing. From when I first started watching football as a 5 year old in 1984 through 2017, I saw my favorite team make exactly one Conference Championship game. But from the 2018 season through last year, that same franchise made it 7 years in a row. I know many franchises have suffered worse fates than my Chiefs prior to the run but we certainly had our share of playoff heartbreaks, disappointing seasons, stretches of pure disaster and some hilariously bad and torturing moments. But when your team arrives…it is oh so sweet. I was able to live that life for the better part of a decade and hopefully the Chiefs will be back in the thick of things next year. But for this season, it is someone else’s turn. And lets take a moment and all be thankful it isn’t the Eagles. Lets take a moment and join Bills fans in feeling sorry for themselves, which they do best. I’m still working on my story on the Bills but don’t worry it is coming and every day they keep giving me new material. By Sunday night two teams will have punched their ticket to the Super Bowl and two fan bases will be ecstatic. Two other fan bases will be devastated and have to wake up on Monday morning and began to dream of next year being their year. So lets see who is going to win and who is going to whine. I went 3-3 in my Wild Card weekend picks. Last week during my favorite weekend of the year, I went 2-2. What does that mean for this weekend’s games? Absolutely nothing. But there is a chance that I continue my streak and go 1-1. My heart is for Broncos and Rams so based upon how this year has gone for me, you might want to put money on the Patriots and Seahawks. Only 2 more sleeps until we find out. Lets dive in.

The arrogant fan base vs the arrogant coach: Patriots @ Broncos

Since rejoining twitter a year or so ago, I have not tweeted once or even retweeted anything. Despite that, for some reason I have a few followers. Don’t look for me, there is no point. I literally don’t do anything on there besides follow an absurd amount of sports people. Obviously, I spend most of my time on the following section so that I can see any injury or other news updates from Adam Schefter, Ian Rappaport, Daniel Jerimiah, and Tom Pelissero all tell me the same thing in 4 consecutive tweets. But sometimes I flip over to the always entertaining “for you” section. Because I follow so many football type people it thinks I care what Jetsforlife4784 thinks about the overtime rules. Like the Jets would ever make it to overtime. Here is what I have discovered. All fan bases are basically the same. When things are good we are overly confident and obnoxious. When things are bad, we are overly dramatic and disparaging towards our team. The Patriots fans are arguably the exception. They are overly confident and obnoxious all the time. But when they are winning, its a whole other level. The Pats are obviously unbeatable and perfect in every way. I also watch a lot of First Things First. My wife watches it with me sometimes because she loves me and wants to spend time with me. “they never say anything good about the Broncos.” Is her statement most episodes. And she is right, they don’t. Kevin Wildes is on there and he seems like a great guy, but he is a Patriots fan. And he has been overly obnoxious of late. I guess it is probably how everyone who isn’t a Chiefs fan feels about Nick Wright. So perhaps I deserve it. But at least Nick will listen to arguments and then state why he thinks the Chiefs are better anyway. Wildes just takes any argument against his Patriots as utterly ridiculous and quite frankly epitomizes Patriot fans everywhere. Now mind you, I am know Patriot hater. I always respected and never really actively cheered for or against the Patriots besides the year they were trying to go undefeated, I did cheer for them then because that team was fun as hell to watch and the 72 Dolphins are stupid. But that doesn’t mean their fans aren’t ridiculous.

On the flip side, I have never liked Sean Payton. I respect him as a coach as he is very good. But he has always been cocky and arrogant and boy does he love to hear himself talk. I’ve watched a lot of Broncos games since he became coach. My wife one day said, “every coach must hate these halftime talks.” I said, not your boy Sean Payton. They often have to cut away from him talking just to cover the actual game. No one likes Sean Payton more than Sean Payton. I also don’t think he has a ton to be arrogant about. I mean, he is a great coach but he isn’t one of the greatest. He is just 10-8 in the playoffs. He has one super bowl win and only that one appearance. He has several underachieving years under his belt and has a handful of losing seasons. But if there is one person who thinks he is one of the greatest, it’s Sean Payton. And he has the chance to do something that no other head coach has ever done, win the Super Bowl with two different teams. If that happens, you know we will never hear the end of it. Speaking of funny fandom, the Broncos fans have their own thing going on. After two years of all Broncos fans telling us how great Bo Nix is and how he is a top 10 or even top 5 quarterback in the league and we “Bolieve!” and thinking anyone questioning Bo is ridiculous, act like not having that same QB is no big deal. We have Stiddy they say, we will be fine. It’s an odd place to be to feel like it doesn’t matter if your top 5 quarterback plays or if it is a guy who hasn’t thrown a pass in a regular season game in 3 years plays. Either way, they are the same. They will win easily. My own sister in law epitomizes the randomness of fandom. Just a couple of weeks ago, she was complaining about how the Broncos weren’t playing well and weren’t winning in the way she wanted them to. Just last week, she suggested I had the Broncos ranked too high in my rankings at 3. This week, even though her team is missing their starting quarterback, she seems very confident that her Broncos will win.

The truth of the matter is, we all see things in our rose colored glasses. Or in this instance, Orange and Blue or Navy and Red glasses. Even all our national commentators on ESPN, NFL Network and Fox Sports 1 are biased. But luckily there is one man who can put his emotions and feelings aside. I’m the Sean Payton of random sports blogs and I am the best one out there. So lets take a look at the actual game.

The Patriots and Broncos played the 32nd and 31st easiest schedules this year. Which is pretty odd, but it also helped them win 14 games each. The Patriots won most of their games easily. The Broncos well…not so much. The Patriots have an MVP caliber quarterback. The Broncos have a guy who hasn’t played in 3 years. The Patriots just beat two elite defenses. They also beat two pretty bad offenses. The Broncos just beat who most think is the best quarterback in the league. Just ask ESPN. They love that guy. But it took overtime, a bizarre interception and a couple of pass interference calls to do so. Both teams have really good coaches. Neither is overly humble. One guy wants to make sure you see him hugging each player in the tunnel on the way to the locker room. The other guy is still talking to the halftime reporter about the Broncos strategy for the 4th quarter if they are down 3 with 7 minutes to go. I think these are two very good but imperfect teams. The Patriots defensive line has looked great the last two weeks but they will have a harder time against a very good Broncos O Line. While I value Bo Nix more than Broncos fans do apparently, I do think Stiddy will play well. Payton has a history of getting the most out of his back up quarterbacks. I think both teams are pretty evenly matched. The Broncos have just 1 loss at home and the Patriots are undefeated on the road. I’ll be cheering for the Broncos so my family and especially my wife stay happy. And so that Kevin Wildes will shut up on First Things First. But because I think these teams are pretty equal, I think Bo Nix will be missed and his lack of presence will be the difference in the game. Bo isn’t perfect and I’m not sure if he is a top 10 quarterback. But with the game on the line, he has proven to be a top 5 maybe even a top 3 quarterback and this year you could argue he is 1 of 1 in those scenarios. Broncos lose a heartbreaker even though Stiddy plays a great game he can’t quite bring them through in the end.

Patriots 27 Broncos 24

MVP vs Sam I Am: Rams @ Seahawks

In the second game we get two great teams that one could argue have been the best teams most of the year. The Rams have the championship pedigree. They have the coach, the quarterback and the weapons. Seattle has the defense, the home field advantage and some weapons of their own. Seattle annihilated what was left of the 49ers last week. Meanwhile, the Rams struggled again against the Bears after squeaking by the Panthers. The Rams have been in my eyes the best team all year. They are far from perfect but they have the coach and quarterback I believe in the most. I trust their offense more than any offense in the playoffs. Their defense is talented but it just hasn’t looked great the second half of the season but they did quite well against the Bears high powered offense.

On the other side, we have Sam Darnold. Sam I am is the mystery in all of this. I do not like turnovers Sam I Am. Would you like them in a dome? would you like them when playing at home? Would like them when things are fine? Would you like them playing from behind? Would you like them when your team is becoming toast? Would you like them when it matters most? Would you like them here or there? would you like them everywhere? Despite Sam’s best efforts the answer is yes. Especially against the Rams. In the first match up Sam turned the ball over a lot and they lost. In the second game, he turned over the ball a lot and they were way behind but came back with a punt return and a series of bizarre plays including the oddest 2 point conversion I have ever seen. Last week there wasn’t much pressure on Sam because the 49ers couldn’t do anything. But the Rams seem to have Sam’s number. And despite the Seahawks defense being elite, the Rams seemed to have their number too.

Seattle has the homefield, the better D and great coaches. Ultimately the thing I trust the most in this game is Stafford and the thing I trust the least in this game is Darnold. While it will be close, I think Darnold will make too many mistakes and the Rams advance.

Rams 31 Seahawks 24

And there you have it, Rams vs Patriots, mark it down. Or bet the opposite and make some money. We will see what happens on Sunday.