The NFL postseason begins Saturday, and this could be the wildest postseason in years. There is no dominant, clear-cut favorite in the bunch—and without Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs in the field, we’re guaranteed to have a new AFC representative in the Super Bowl for the first time in four years. But first is an intriguing slate of wild-card games. Who will emerge from Round 1 and be one step closer to Santa Clara? The Ringer’s NFL staffers make their playoff picks below.
Steven Ruiz: A cold chill went down my spine when I realized I had picked an all–AFC South conference title game, but the Jaguars are the AFC’s most balanced team, and the Texans have the best defense on that side of the bracket, and possibly in the NFL. It’s not as out there as it would have seemed even a month ago. I like Houston and Jacksonville, but I don’t think either team is good enough to beat the Seahawks or Rams. I picked Los Angeles to come out of the NFC West because they have the only quarterback I trust to play well in three consecutive games against top competition. It doesn’t hurt that the Rams are the best team in the division and would’ve had the 1-seed if not for the most bizarre two-point conversion you or I have ever seen. Rams 31, Jaguars 23.
Sheil Kapadia: Do I feel good about either of these selections? Of course not. But this was my preseason prediction, and I couldn’t really think of a good reason to stray from it now. We’ve come too far! The Eagles offense could lay an egg in any given week, but they still have a lot of talent, and I trust this defense against pretty much any opponent. In other words, they’re going to be in every game. As for the Bills, this is probably the worst team they’ve surrounded Josh Allen with in recent years. The defense is flawed, and I wish the group of pass catchers was better. But look at the quarterbacks in the playoffs. Allen is in his own tier. It’s a tough draw that will almost certainly require three road wins. At the end of the day, I figured that this has been a weird NFL season, and Allen finally getting over the hump with this team might be a perfectly weird way to end it.
Nora Princiotti: Let’s get weird. For a long time, a small group of teams and their superstar quarterbacks have headlined top playoff matchups, but not this year. Technically, the possibility exists of an Aaron Rodgers–Bryce Young Super Bowl. Or Caleb Williams–C.J. Stroud. Sam Darnold–Drake Maye. It’s chaos out here! We’re going to see some stuff we’ve never seen before. Like: a Bo Nix–Trevor Lawrence AFC championship game, with the Jaguars able to muster enough explosiveness on offense to get past the Broncos. Or: Darnold and the Seahawks defense making their way through Jordan Love and the Packers plus a more seasoned Rams squad on the way to a Super Bowl win against Jacksonville, with Darnold making a handful of big throws late and the Jags defense lamenting a pair of near interceptions they couldn’t pull down.
Danny Kelly: The Rams may have fallen to the fifth seed after losing a close one to the Seahawks in Week 16, but they’re still built to win it all. Matthew Stafford is playing some of the best ball of his career, Puka Nacua is unstoppable, Davante Adams should be back for the wild-card round, and this team brings the type of balance you really need in the postseason—with a highly efficient run game and a defense that can get after the opposing quarterback. Add in the coaching and schematic genius of Sean McVay, and I think the Rams are still the team that no one is going to want to face in these playoffs.
Diante Lee: It’s hard to feel certain about any matchup in this postseason, but I do know which units I trust most: Los Angeles’s offense and Houston’s defense. I want to see elite units collide in Santa Clara, not just a matchup of teams that get hot in the playoffs. I’m going with Los Angeles to win it all in this matchup. The Rams have the best quarterback–head coach combination, arguably the best tandem of receivers you can ask for against man coverage, and a defense that causes juuuuuust enough havoc to make any game competitive. With a win, quarterback Matthew Stafford will get his John Elway–esque sendoff and head coach Sean McVay will take a big jump in the all-time ranks.
Riley McAtee: I believe the Rams are the best team in football, but failing to win the NFC West means their path to the Super Bowl is long. They’ll likely be on the road for every playoff game, and even their wild-card matchup against the 8-9 Panthers is no gimme—L.A. lost in Carolina just six weeks ago. So I’m defaulting to the team that I think is the second best in the league, the Seahawks. Seattle has arguably the best defense in the NFL, the likely Offensive Player of the Year in Jaxon Smith-Njigba, and one of the best home-field advantages in sports thanks to Lumen Field’s ferocious crowd. Seattle ended the season ranked first overall in DVOA. The X factor is, of course, Sam Darnold. Seattle’s mercurial QB creates an ever-present possibility of an untimely meltdown (like his four-interception game against the Rams in Week 11), but because they earned the bye, the Seahawks just need to get three decent games out of him to hoist the Lombardi Trophy. I am not ready for the phrase “Super Bowl champion Sam Darnold” to become reality, but he and the Seahawks have by far the clearest path to Super Bowl LX. Plus, a new pope was elected this year—the last two times that happened, the Seahawks reached the Super Bowl. It’s preordained.
Lindsay Jones: I am ready for the most chaotic NFL postseason in years, and if that means an all–AFC South conference championship game? Well, bring it on. As much as I have loved the Matthew Stafford late-career MVP push and Drake Maye’s emergence, to me, this season has been about defense, and Seahawks-Texans would be one hell of a defensive battle. Mike Macdonald’s creative, confusing, and aggressive scheme against DeMeco Ryans’s line-up-and-knock-you-out unit? Sign me up for that, even if that means I’m predicting this season ends with the very weird image of Sam Darnold holding the Lombardi Trophy.
Austin Gayle: The Rams and Seahawks are the best NFC teams on paper. The Bills have the best quarterback of all the playoff teams, the Patriots’ Drake Maye should win the regular-season MVP, and the Broncos have an elite defense, a top-flight coaching staff, and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. One of those five teams should probably win the Super Bowl. But if the 2025 regular season was any indicator, chaos is going to ensue.
There are no easy games in the wild-card round. You could argue that Los Angeles should coast to a win as 10.5-point favorites over the Panthers, but the Rams lost to this team in Charlotte (where they’ll play Saturday) six weeks ago. Jim Harbaugh and Justin Herbert aren’t going to be an easy out regardless of their banged-up offensive line, and Jesse Minter’s defense could be the best Maye has faced all season (perhaps other than the Browns). Allen is a superhero, but his supporting cast on both sides of the ball has been a problem all year. The Eagles offense has been unimpressive all season and has rarely resembled the unit that fed off explosive plays last postseason. And can you really count out Mike Tomlin’s Steelers with all of the voodoo magic that has gotten them to this point? Definitely not, especially against a Texans offense that hasn’t been able to iron out its kinks all season. With four home underdogs and no real surefire top teams, this weekend could already be a bracket-buster. Then add in that Bo Nix and Sam Darnold, the two quarterbacks of the two 1-seeds, can both go into bozo mode at any moment, and everything gets flipped on its head.
Some really dumb shit will probably have to happen for neither no. 1 seed, neither MVP candidate, and Josh Alien to miss the Super Bowl, but we’ve seen dumber shit happen this season. I’m here for mayhem.
Anthony Dabbundo: There’s no flawless team in a wide-open and balanced NFL playoffs this year, but the Rams are the squad with the fewest holes. They didn’t get a bye, but they drew by far the easiest first-round matchup. They have the most proven and reliable head coach and quarterback combination. They were the league’s most efficient offense this season by EPA per drive. Their defense generates pressure on opposing quarterbacks at a top-five rate. They’ll need to survive inconsistent special teams and a secondary that doesn’t always hold up against quality passing offenses, but the Rams have the pedigree, and the analytical profile, of a potential champion.
I chose the Rams over the Bills ultimately, but my pick to win the AFC is whichever team wins the wild-card game between Buffalo and Jacksonville on Sunday. The Jaguars have transformed their offense in the back half of the season to include more vertical passing, and they are the most balanced team in the AFC. However, they have the misfortune of drawing the AFC’s best quarterback, who will be rested heading into Round 1. Therefore, I went with the Bills in a close game. You could sell me on six different teams winning the AFC (sorry, Pittsburgh), but Buffalo is the one I kept circling back to.
Danny Heifetz: Defense wins championships. The Seahawks have the best defense in the NFC. We've seen elite defenses carry Trent Dilfer, Brad Johnson, and noodle-arm Peyton Manning to the Super Bowl. Sam Darnold is playing better than those guys.
