{"id":396465,"date":"2026-01-09T03:30:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T03:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/396465\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T03:30:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T03:30:14","slug":"score-predictions-and-matchup-analysis-for-every-wild-card-round-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/396465\/","title":{"rendered":"Score predictions and matchup analysis for every Wild Card Round game"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why Tom picked the Eagles: Gennaro nailed it<\/a>; this one is tough. In the end, I had to make a decision between what I want and what I think is right, which is really the dilemma at the heart of this cursed exercise every week. I wanted to pick the 49ers for a number of reasons, including Brock Purdy<\/a>‘s renewed swagger, Kyle Shanahan’s coaching acumen and, ultimately, because I just like them more. As far as defending champs go, the Eagles have been, let’s say, unconvincing. They’ve notched some recent solid wins against competitive teams, like low-scoring squeakers over the Bills (13-12 in Week 17), Lions (16-9 in Week 11) and Packers (10-7 in Week 10), and they’ve handled themselves against also-rans like the Commanders and Raiders, but there is exactly one victory over a fellow playoff contender in which they broke the 20-point mark: that wild 33-26 win<\/a> over the Rams back in Week 3, which was, don’t forget, padded out by a freak return TD<\/a> from a 336-pound nose tackle. Over the last nine games of the regular season, Philly ranked 22nd in the NFL in EPA per play on offense — that’s Panthers\/Cardinals territory, folks. And much worse than the 49ers’ extremely appealing placement of third in the span, with Purdy returning from injury in Week 11. I don’t have much faith in the Eagles’ ability to move the ball, especially compared to the significantly livelier operation coming to town.<\/p>\n

So why don’t I permit myself to enjoy life and ride with San Francisco? Well, it’s that pesky other side of the EPA-per-play equation — the defensive side. In that arena, Philadelphia has been dominant, finishing sixth in the NFL on the season, well above where the Niners sit, in 25th — that’s Giants\/Cardinals territory, folks. The last time San Francisco faced an elite defensive squad with a ho-hum offense, one whole week ago, things played out just how the magical numbers whispered they would<\/a>, in a narrow Seahawks victory. And that was in Santa Clara. This Sunday, on the East Coast, with the Niners’ injury report<\/a> including crucial names like Trent Williams<\/a> and Ricky Pearsall<\/a> while the Eagles get healthier<\/a>, I’ve got to obey the math spirits again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Why Tom picked the Eagles: Gennaro nailed it; this one is tough. In the end, I had to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[4687,1807,3687,8850,7820,100096,1804,4058,1811,6337,1820,1815,6257,1239,1321,560,8852,99],"class_list":["post-396465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-analysis","tag-buffalo-bills","tag-carolina-panthers","tag-chicago-bears","tag-denver-broncos","tag-game-picks","tag-green-bay-packers","tag-houston-texans","tag-jacksonville-jaguars","tag-los-angeles-chargers","tag-los-angeles-rams","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-no-minute","tag-philadelphia-eagles","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-seattle-seahawks","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}