Wild Card Weekend Before It Starts: Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin has led his team since 2007. Over that time, he has led his team to the postseason 12 times. He has seven AFC North titles, three AFC Championship appearances, two Super Bowl appearances, and a world championship from Super Bowl XLIII.
That year, he was only 36, making him the youngest head coach to hoist the Lombardi Trophy. He still holds the record for most non-losing seasons in a row to start a coaching career (18 and counting).
The only coaches with longer streaks at any point in their careers are Tom Landry (21) and Bill Belichick (19). When Belichick left the New England Patriots, Tomlin became the league’s longest tenured active head coach. He has a career record of 191-117-2, which has him headed for the Pro Football Hall of Fame at some point, but there are three numbers that are a quiet cause of concern for Steelers fans.
The first number is .444 – Tomlin’s career playoff winning percentage (8 wins, 10 losses). The second is four (the team’s current losing streak as an 8-2 and then a 10-3 start became a 10-7 finish). The third is five (the current playoff losing streak). The last time the Steelers won a playoff game, Barack Obama was President of the United States, and the year was 2016.
Analysis for Wild Card Weekend Before It Starts
The Steelers haven’t made a Super Bowl in 14 years. Before the 2024 season, the team gave Tomlin a three-year contract extension, but at the time, team owner and president Art Rooney II addressed the playoff drought by saying, “There’s an urgency. I think everybody, myself, Mike, guys that have been on the team for a while…everybody, we’ve had enough of this. It’s time to get some wins. It’s time to take these next steps.”
Now, the Steelers enter the playoffs as just the third team in league history to go into the postseason on a losing streak of four or more games.
How will they do? That’s just one question we’ll address in this list of sports betting tips for this coming weekend, as the wild-card playoff round is upon us.
^Which upsets make the most sense?
Denver Broncos
The Broncos head to Buffalo as 8 ½-point underdogs and have a +349 moneyline to win straight up. Their defense is one of the top units in the NFL. Cornerback Patrick Surtain II is probably going to pick up the Defensive Player of the Year trophy. The offense has figured some things out, and rookie quarterback Bo Nix is showing plenty of confidence.
Even if you overlook the numbers from Week 18, when Denver trounced the JV players that the Kansas City Chiefs trotted out there, the Broncos are a team to be reckoned with. Yes, they lost to Cincinnati in Week 17 in a must-win game for both teams, but they can deal Buffalo some problems. Remember how the Bills couldn’t stop giving up 40+ points per game a few weeks ago? The Broncos’ coaching staff has all of that film. I’m liking Denver to cover, and I also can look into past playoff performances from Buffalo to find example after example of the Bills underperforming in the postseason, so an outright win wouldn’t shock me at all.
Green Bay Packers
The Packers are 4 ½-point underdogs in Philadelphia on Sunday and have a +188 moneyline to win straight up. The Eagles still have Jalen Hurts in the concussion protocol, and Kenny Pickett’s ribs are still sore. Even if Hurts can play, if he has rust to shake off for a quarter or more, that could give the Packers time to build an early lead.
Check the video from Green Bay’s playoff wins in Dallas and their near-win in San Francisco from last year to get a sense of how well they start their playoff games. In Week 1, the Eagles beat the Packers down in Brazil, but you could say that the Packers were the better team in that game before Jordan Love went down. Love is still questionable with an elbow injury, but if he can finish this game, the Packers have a real chance. I like Green Bay to cover and am not opposed to a moneyline wager to pick them to win and advance.
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Los Angeles Rams
The Rams (+1) get to play Minnesota at home, and they’ve already beaten them once this season at SoFi Stadium, racking up a 30-20 win. So, yes, the Vikings have 14 wins, but one of those three losses came against the team that they’ll see in the first round.
Rams coach Sean McVay has won at least once in three of his last five trips to the postseason, and while the Rams have lost four playoff games under his watch, that’s only happened once at home. The Vikings also have to deal with the mental part of the game, as they absolutely got thrashed in the second half by Detroit, letting a 10-9 game turn into a 31-9 fiasco.
Washington Commanders
The Commanders (+141) head to Tampa Bay in what might be the tightest game of the six we have on tap for wild-card weekend. Both of these teams can score in bunches – and both of these teams have defenses that can be quite generous to the opposing team. I do think the defenses step up this week, thanks to the additional pressure of the playoffs, and I also think that both quarterbacks come out with so much adrenalin that the first quarter or so will move pretty slowly.
Once things unfold, though, I really do think that the last team with the ball will end up winning. This is definitely a value pick for the upset if you think Washington can outlast Mayfield and the Bucs.
^Wild Card Weekend Before It Starts: Will the Kansas City Chiefs pull off the three-peat?
No team has won three straight Super Bowls. The Green Bay Packers did win the last NFL Championship before the first NFL-AFL Championship, which is what the first two games were called before the creation of the name “Super Bowl” for this showdown, and then they won the first two NFL-AFL Championships. It’s true that the Chiefs only lost one meaningful regular-season game, when they went to Buffalo back in the middle of November. Yes, they lost in Week 18, but their key starters were watching the game in street clothes.
Patrick Mahomes
It’s also true that Mahomes has led his team to at least the AFC Championship game in every season as the starting quarterback. On the other hand, quite a few of these wins came down to luck at the end. The offense had a hard time protecting Mahomes in the pocket, and the defense, while strong, gave up more chunk plays through the air than they have in past seasons.
The Chiefs and the Lions both finished with 15–2 records, but the Lions posted a +222 point differential, the best in the league. The Chiefs’ point differential is only +59. That ranks 11th in the NFL – and third in the AFC West. Can the Chiefs keep grinding out wins on demand? Or is someone going to shut this team down before they get to the Super Bowl?
^Wild Card Weekend Before It Starts: What can the Vikings actually do in these playoffs?
Yes, Minnesota finished 14-3. However, only three of their wins came against teams that made the playoffs – one against Houston, back in the early part of the season when the Texans were still rolling, and two against Green Bay. All of their losses came against playoff teams – two against Detroit and one against the Rams. If the Vikings can get by the Rams, they could head right back to Detroit for a divisional game if the other seeds hold.
Vikings vs Lions?
If the Packers or the Commanders pull off the upset, then the Vikings wouldn’t see Detroit until the NFC Championship. It’s hard to see the Vikings getting by Detroit, given the vulnerabilities that the Lions exposed in Week 18, but the smash mouth defense the Vikings were playing through three quarters at Ford Field should help them build leads against everyone else. So I don’t see the Vikings making it past the Lions in any event, but it wouldn’t surprise me to advance until they go back to Ford Field to take another L.
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