You think the weather was bad in Kansas City last night when the Chiefs hosted the Miami Dolphins? The weather in Buffalo today is worse, bad enough to prompt the National Football League powers to shift the scheduled playoff game between the Bills and Pittsburgh Steelers from this morning to tomorrow afternoon.
Two Wild Card games will be played today, while the Steelers and Bills will join the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Philadelphia Eagles in Monday contests. The first game on today’s revised schedule will begin at 1:30 p.m. Pacific Time when the Dallas Cowboys host the Green Bay Packers. The late game today will pit the Los Angeles Rams in Detroit against the Lions.
The Rams and Lions matchup has high drama in that Detroit is hosting their first playoff game in 30 years and looking for their first postseason win since the 1991 NFL season. And, the Lions get this rare shot at a postseason win for their home fans against the quarterback they traded to the Rams two years ago in the blockbuster exchange that brought Jared Goff and a number of high draft choices to the Lions.
Detroit has spent those draft picks well, everyone of them is currently on the Lions roster and making a major contribution to Dan Campbell’s success as a head coach in Detroit. Pause on that for a moment; because success and head coach in Detroit is akin to oil and water. They just haven’t gone together for a long, long, long, long time.
Since Joe Schmidt enjoyed moderate success from 1967 to 1972, compiling a winning mark of 43-35-7, sixteen sideline mentors have rolled through the Motor City and 14 of them left town with a losing record. And one of the winning records was a 4-3 mark gained by Interim Head Coach Gary Moeller who took over after Bobby Ross was fired mid-season. The only other coach to compile a winning record on the Lions sideline was Jim Caldwell, who in a four year stint that began in 2014 was released with a record of 36-30.
Even Dan Campbell, who has guided the Lions for three seasons, still hasn’t advanced his record in Detroit to positive numbers. Since 2021, Campbell has a won/loss mark of 24-26-1 including this season’s playoff earning record of 12-5.
So, Goff gets to battle the man he was traded for when the Rams determined they needed a more consistent signal caller serving as their field general. The trade worked for Los Angeles, they won Super Bowl LVI over the Cincinnati Bengals in Stafford’s first year with the team.
The trade has also paid off for the Lions who have added a number of top notch players through the draft picks gained in the trade, and just importantly the development of Goff into a much more competent quarterback than he was in Los Angeles. Now, if this trade really pays off for the Lions, it will shine today when Goff beats his old team.
Which, by the way, I think he will.
In the afternoon contest today, we get a battle between a pair of teams that are nearly as common in the playoffs as Santa Claus is on Christmas. The Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers both have rich NFL histories that include multiple Super Bowl wins. This weekend, which has seen severe cold weather at two NFL sites, brings to mind a game known as the “Ice Bowl.” In that 1967 NFL Championship Game, Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers beat Tom Landry’s Dallas Cowboys on a frozen Lambeau Field with temperatures of 13 below zero. The Cowboys and Packers have met eight previous times in the postseason, with each team winning four games.
So, today is the rubber match between these two longtime NFL powers. The Cowboys are favored in this one, but our numbers offer a clear indication that the touchdown underdog Packers are going to upset Mike McCarthy’s Cowboys and move onto the Divisional Round.
Qoxhi Picks: Green Bay Packers (+7) over Dallas Cowboys