by Jazz Ray
Wednesday, Jan 07, 2026
A look at NFC Wild Card Weekend:
HOT TEAM – Five of the six NFC teams playing on Wild Card Weekend lost in Week 18, with only the Rams winning (over 3-win Arizona). Only Seattle, which earned the NFC bye by winning its final seven games and won two more games than anyone else in the conference, is on any heater.
COLD TEAM – SOMEBODY had to win the NFC South, so why not the Panthers? Carolina did have a signature win over the Rams in late November, but has been a big barrel of blah since then, ending the year with three losses in the final four games.
BEST QUARTERBACK – LA’s Matthew Stafford is poised to win the MVP award based on numbers that are slightly better than those posted by New England’s Drake Maye. Stafford led the league in passing yards (4,707) and in touchdown passes (46). Stafford is a -135 favorite to win.
BEST COACH – Of the teams playing this weekend, you could do a lot worse than Philadelphia’s Nick Sirianni. What Siriani did to the Chiefs in last year’s Super Bowl is still reverberating in Kansas City. The Eagles always seem to be in the mix and look to have no challengers in the NFC East.
BIGGEST SPREAD – The Rams are rightly 10-point road favorites over the just-happy-to-be-here Panthers. Carolina’s pass defense is ranked in the bottom seven in the league, and if the Panthers can’t get decent pressure on Strafford, the 10 points could be covered quickly.
LARGEST O/U – Books set this number at 46.5, and LA might have to do most of the heavy lifting on this one. Carolina’s offense failed to crack 20 points nine times this season and had 24 total points in the final two games.
The games:
(7) Green Bay Packers at (2) Chicago Bears
Saturday, Jan. 10 – 8pm
Line – Packers -1.5
Rubber game this season between the top two teams in the NFC North. They met twice late in the season, split the two games, and only one point separated them. Chicago’s Caleb Williams is a completely different QB from the one who struggled as a rookie last season. Then numbers aren’t significantly better, but there weren’t any QBs better late in games – he led the Bears to six fourth-quarter comeback wins.
(6) San Francisco 49ers at (3) Philadelphia Eagles
Sunday, Jan. 11 – 4:30pm
Line – Eagles -4.5
The NFL has stolen load management strategy from the NBA. Many of the Eagles’ starters on both sides of the ball sat out Week 18. San Francisco, meanwhile, went belly up in the final game against Seattle, hoping to steal the No. 1 seed. That didn’t work, so the Niners (whose highly ranked offense didn’t even score a touchdown against the Seahawks), have to fly across the country to take on the rested Eagles. Not an easy task.
(5) Los Angeles Rams at (4) Carolina Panthers
Saturday, Jan. 10 – 4:30pm
Line – Rams -10
A few teams with losing records have won a playoff game, and one of them was the 2014 Panthers, who beat the Cardinals on WC Weekend. It will take a superhuman effort (and probably a significant letdown by the Rams) to duplicate that feat. Carolina simply cannot match up with LA position by position.
HOT TEAM – Five of the six NFC teams playing on Wild Card Weekend lost in Week 18, with only the Rams winning (over 3-win Arizona). Only Seattle, which earned the NFC bye by winning its final seven games and won two more games than anyone else in the conference, is on any heater.
COLD TEAM – SOMEBODY had to win the NFC South, so why not the Panthers? Carolina did have a signature win over the Rams in late November, but has been a big barrel of blah since then, ending the year with three losses in the final four games.
BEST QUARTERBACK – LA’s Matthew Stafford is poised to win the MVP award based on numbers that are slightly better than those posted by New England’s Drake Maye. Stafford led the league in passing yards (4,707) and in touchdown passes (46). Stafford is a -135 favorite to win.
BEST COACH – Of the teams playing this weekend, you could do a lot worse than Philadelphia’s Nick Sirianni. What Siriani did to the Chiefs in last year’s Super Bowl is still reverberating in Kansas City. The Eagles always seem to be in the mix and look to have no challengers in the NFC East.
BIGGEST SPREAD – The Rams are rightly 10-point road favorites over the just-happy-to-be-here Panthers. Carolina’s pass defense is ranked in the bottom seven in the league, and if the Panthers can’t get decent pressure on Strafford, the 10 points could be covered quickly.
LARGEST O/U – Books set this number at 46.5, and LA might have to do most of the heavy lifting on this one. Carolina’s offense failed to crack 20 points nine times this season and had 24 total points in the final two games.
The games:
(7) Green Bay Packers at (2) Chicago Bears
Saturday, Jan. 10 – 8pm
Line – Packers -1.5
Rubber game this season between the top two teams in the NFC North. They met twice late in the season, split the two games, and only one point separated them. Chicago’s Caleb Williams is a completely different QB from the one who struggled as a rookie last season. Then numbers aren’t significantly better, but there weren’t any QBs better late in games – he led the Bears to six fourth-quarter comeback wins.
(6) San Francisco 49ers at (3) Philadelphia Eagles
Sunday, Jan. 11 – 4:30pm
Line – Eagles -4.5
The NFL has stolen load management strategy from the NBA. Many of the Eagles’ starters on both sides of the ball sat out Week 18. San Francisco, meanwhile, went belly up in the final game against Seattle, hoping to steal the No. 1 seed. That didn’t work, so the Niners (whose highly ranked offense didn’t even score a touchdown against the Seahawks), have to fly across the country to take on the rested Eagles. Not an easy task.
(5) Los Angeles Rams at (4) Carolina Panthers
Saturday, Jan. 10 – 4:30pm
Line – Rams -10
A few teams with losing records have won a playoff game, and one of them was the 2014 Panthers, who beat the Cardinals on WC Weekend. It will take a superhuman effort (and probably a significant letdown by the Rams) to duplicate that feat. Carolina simply cannot match up with LA position by position.
