February 18, 2025

Today, I saw something rare and something beautiful on the front page ESPN.com: a story about the Philadelphia Eagles, more specifically the job that Howie Roseman has done with them. It’s a pretty basic fluff piece, but it’s still appreciated. However, it will not spare ESPN.com from my coming wrath.

I’m using my long-dormant Betting page to not only list the odds for these coming divisional round matchups but to combine and rank the “expert” picks from the ESPN, CBS Sports, and Sports Illustrated websites. I frankly don’t believe that all of the ESPN writers went 5-1 last week, and I question the two CBS Sports writers going undefeated, but they at least had a couple of 3-3 guys as well. Everything on the page will be preserved, though, so there will be no way for these writers to duck their takes, and boy, do we have some takes this week.

Every writer picked Kansas City to win the first divisional game Saturday, which is effectively a gimme for a seasoned bettor. While the vast majority of writers picked the Eagles to win their game against the Giants, two of them, John Breech of CBS and Seth Wickersham of ESPN, have the Giants upsetting us, and I cannot wait for those two writers to take an L on that pick Saturday night. The most popular upset pick was Cincinnati against Buffalo, which makes sense because the Bengals were just in the Super Bowl and the Bills didn’t look great against an opponent they were expected to blow out last week. I still believe in Buffalo, however, and after the way this game went during the regular season, the Bills will be fired up and ready to give their home fans a show. Finally, we had a couple of writers pick Dallas to upset San Francisco, and obviously I’m never picking Dallas in any game. The Niners are the much better team, and I love them at -3.5. I have some chalky picks this week, but I genuinely believe that Philly/SF/KC/Buffalo are in a tier of their own and are locks to advance to their conference’s championship games barring major injury.

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