Playoff predictions, round 1

Sure, I'm stupid enough to post my playoff predictions. For gambling purposes, the most important thing you need to know is that I went freaking 3-8 last year, and two of those wins were Pittsburgh. The other one was Philly's first round win at Minnesota. Yes, I went 0-FOR-FOUR last year's divisional playoff weekend.

- Patriots over Ravens. New England's hard not to like at home, even without Wes Welker, since they went 8-0 there this season. This game should look a lot like the second Ravens-Steelers game from a couple of weeks ago.

- Cowboys over Eagles. I'm rooting for the Eagles here so I can keep jabbing my Cowboys fan friends that the Rams have a 6 to 0 edge over Dallas in postseason wins since 1996. But Dallas is just playing too well right now, and the difficulty of beating the same team three times is a busted myth: the team with the first two wins in the regular season gets the third in the playoffs 59% of the time. Andy Reid sure does get to a lot of NFC Championships, though.

- Jets over Bengals; Packers over Big Dead. I grouped the Bengals and Big Dead together for the same reasons; they both got KILLED last week by the same team they'll face in the playoffs. No, Arizona didn't play Kurt Warner. Is he really a 26-point difference? The Bengals didn't play Cedric Benson. Is he a 37-point difference? The Bengals had their starters in early Sunday night, and the Jets just pulled away to a big lead. For all the talk the Dead weren't playing starters, wasn't that Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin I saw in the highlights? Arizona can't paper over that they played a lot of starters and were still getting killed. The Packers and Jets weren't just squeaking by; they both won in romps.

Bill Simmons doesn't trust the Jets. By and large, I get that. But here's what nags me. Despite three Super Bowl appearances between them, the Bengals and the Big Dead are still two of the worst franchises in all of sports, let alone the NFL. Their histories have mainly been filled with futility and incompetence. Where do either of them get off throwing away the game before the playoffs? Think about the history of these teams. Is it a history that inspires you to think they can show up the weekend after a huge blowout and just turn the switch back on?

Some franchises can pull that off. These two? The Bungles and the Big Dead? No. They invited back the bad karma they've always had. Their karmic debts lead to my karmic bets.