NFL Playoff Takeaways: Championship Round + Super Bowl Prediction

Photo by Jamie Squire from Getty Images

I really hoped the postseason would deliver after a lackluster regular seaosn.

Boy, has it ever?

Bengals defeat Chiefs 27-24

This game was simply a tale of two Mahomes.

In the first half, he was unstoppable.

The Chiefs scored 21 points, Mahomes couldn’t be stopped and it looked like we were headed towards a championship blowout.

And then, Mahomes got careless with the ball.

He left an opening for the Bengals to get back into it, and Joe Burrow wasted no time to get them back into it.

Just a few years ago, Joe Burrow was the quarterback for an LSU team that had one of the most boring offenses I had seen.

It was miserable to watch.

Since then, he had the greatest season a college quarterback has ever had while leading LSU to a national championship, and now he has the Cincinnati Bengals (!!) in the Super Bowl (!!!!!!) in his first full season as an NFL quarterback.

There are improvements, and then there’s Joe Burrow.

Rams defeat 49ers 20-17

Now, people know me.

They know I find Jimmy Garoppolo to be a bad NFL quarterback.

And with a bad 4th quarter performance capped off with a horrible game losing interception, it would be very easy for me to make fun of him and gloat about how I was right.

But I’m not going to.

Because this loss is not on Jimmy G.

This loss is on Kyle Shanahan.

I’m not even going to bring up the fact that it was yet another blown lead in the playoffs.

I will bring up that Kyle Shanahan, a proclaimed offensive guru, punted back to a loaded offense and another proclaimed offensive guru instead of trying to get two yards.

Two yards should be pretty easy to get when you have Deebo Samuel.

Oh, but that’s right, Deebo didn’t get the ball past 12:45 in the 4th quarter.

Who knows the reasoning?

Maybe he thought the Rams expected Deebo to get the ball, so he’d fool them by not using him as much.

But that’s getting too cute.

You give your most talented players the ball, no matter what.

Period.

Super Bowl Prediction

I picked the Bengals to beat the Raiders, but I doubted them against the Titans.

I doubted them against the Chiefs too.

I’ve doubted them against the top two seeds in the AFC, and both times they proved me wrong.

But I’m going to doubt them again.

Jeffery Simmons, almost single handily, tore the Bengals offensive line to pieces when the Bengals played the Titans.

I like Jeffery Simmons a lot.

He’s not Aaron Donald.

And even though the Bengals won, and I like Ryan Tannehill too, the Rams have a better offense and a better man eating defensive lineman.

That is why I have no choice but the break Cinderella’s slipper and pick the Rams to win the Super Bowl.