When the schedule was released in May, I sat down and charted each team's full schedule, eventually coming up with division winners, playoff seeding, and ultimately my Super Bowl picks. These are all from May/June, so in retrospect some look a little odd, but overall let's see how it all plays out.
(Again, remember: these predictions were made after the schedule release, so before the Rodgers situation was ironed out, before Cam Akers got hurt, before we knew anything about the Michael Thomas surgery...bear with me).
In the AFC, I was really high on Tennessee and Cleveland, and liked the Chargers and Cincinnati to sneak into playoff spots ahead of semi-struggling Baltimore, Pittsburgh, New England, and Miami. Currently, Tennessee and Indianapolis are having a rough start to the season, but the Bengals so far look like they might be making a playoff run yet.
The NFC is filled with talent and lopsided divisions. After the draft I was very high on Dallas, Washington, and Arizona, and especially the Rams after the Stafford acquisition. My Green Bay predictions were during the "if Rodgers plays, it won't be in Green Bay" phase. That didn't turn out happening, but, we have to stick with it.
In the AFC, Cleveland got the 2 seed due to a tiebreaker with Kansas City. In the NFC, it was a bit more complicated, going down to several tiebreakers to decide seeding between Dallas and the Rams, and the three 11-6 wild card teams (2 from the same division).
The playoffs begin and the home teams dominate save Washington, who defeats Minnesota on the road to advance. The divisional round finds the superior defenses winning out, with Buffalo, Cleveland, and Tampa winning at home and the Rams finding a way to take down the Cowboys in Dallas.
The 2021 season comes to a head with Buffalo defeating the Browns at home and the powerful Rams taking down the champs in Tampa. That leaves the Rams to host Buffalo in their home stadium (much like Tampa last year), and take home the Lombardi after making some serious off-season moves and surviving the tsunami of injuries that plague every NFL team.
Let's see how it all plays out.
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