How does the NFL follow-up the greatest weekend in the history of our sport? With a loaded Conference Championship Weekend. And Cook has your picks!

If you had any doubt that the National Football League is the pre-eminent form of sport in America, and will continue to be for as long as we’re all here, that surely went away after this past weekend. I mentioned last week how the Divisional Weekend is traditionally the best weekend of each NFL season. This season’s offering topped all expectations people had, which were high to begin with because it’s the NFL.

The Bengals & Titans got things off to a roaring start, with the upstart Cincinnati club getting through to the AFC Championship Game on a field goal in the dying seconds. Heady stuff for a franchise that was widely expected to be among the bottom five this season. This would usually have been the biggest upset of a given day, but the 49ers outdid them by knocking the Packers & their nationally despised quarterback out with a field goal in the dying seconds. Both #1 seeds were one and done in one night. The kind of drama the NCAA wishes they could manufacture every year in their men’s basketball tournament.

You thought there was no way that the Sunday games could have topped that, and the day was destined to be a letdown. Especially after the Rams got out to a 27-3 lead in the first game of the day. You were wrong. Tom Brady led the Buccaneers back to a tie because that’s the sort of thing he does, and the only surprising thing about it was the Rams managed to kick a field goal in the dying seconds. Then Patrick Mahomes & Josh Allen put on a show the likes of which we haven’t seen since ever. The Chiefs ended up winning in overtime (without the Bills getting a possession, which led to all sorts of talk), but the fans were the biggest winners of all.

Well, maybe second-biggest. The National Football League was probably an even bigger winner than the fans. I’d go as far to say that their #1 status in American sports is even stronger than WWE’s #1 status in American sports entertainment. Not only is the NFL the most established brand by a mile, it’s also the most entertaining by a mile. No matter what problems we might have with rules or executives or whatever, it’s tough to argue that they aren’t doing everything right.

Of course, it’s going to be tough to top last weekend. At best, you can only have two instant classic games instead of four. However, we do have four teams that know each other very well, have met very recently, and will do their best to establish their dominance.

Sunday, January 30

Cincinnati at Kansas City (-7)

Feels like just 24 days ago the Bengals beat the Chiefs. pic.twitter.com/QCrF4FCEVR

— Lindsay Patterson (@LndsPatterson) January 26, 2022

With a win against the Chiefs, the Bengals will secure a second prime time game this season, per source

— The Bengalizer (@TheBengalizer) January 24, 2022

The Bengals don’t like being thought of as underdogs. Joe Burrow & C.J. Uzomah have been very adamant about that. As far as the team is concerned, they are that good, and they deserve to be in the spot they’re in right now. Which is an awesome mindset. However, from outside the locker room, the simple fact is that nobody in the world expected the Cincinnati Bengals to be in the AFC Championship Game five months ago. Not many more people expected them to be here at the end of the regular season, and not many more people expected them to be here last week.

Hell, I’ve been picking against them all this time. My blood is Bengals orange & black during football season, but with that comes the knowledge of what’s happened before. Thirty-one years without a playoff win. Zero road playoff wins prior to 2022. When your chosen team is constantly playing the role of Charlie Brown to Lucy, you get used to the outcome and don’t even entertain the idea of something else happening. Getting calloused to failure means it doesn’t hurt as much when it happens.

The fact the Bengals have gotten this far puts this team on a level most Bengals teams haven’t reached. As much as we loved the Marvin Lewis teams with Carson Palmer, Chad & Rudi Johnson, Willie Anderson, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Andy Dalton, A.J. Green, Andrew Whitworth & the various cast of weird characters on defense, they never accomplished as much as this team did. Those folks couldn’t win one playoff game, let alone two.

the bengals watching that game knowing they gotta go to KC to play the chiefs now gotta feel like one of the guys from gladiator felt watching maximus slice up the other gladiators knowing they had to fight him next

— Shea Serrano (@SheaSerrano) January 24, 2022

Bengals QB Burrow has indirectly challenged Chiefs fans to be loud at Arrowhead. He doesn't believe noise will be a factor. We'll see about that soon enough. You've been challenged Chiefs Kingdom! GET LOUD! In the famous words of my friend @KCWEIRDWOLF …DECIBEL UP! GO CHIEFS! pic.twitter.com/9UP4BMejwc

— Connie Jo (@cjkc_life09) January 25, 2022

The Kansas City Chiefs were supposed to be here. There was a brief period of time early in the season where their defense was the drizzling shits & Patrick Mahomes wasn’t quite the Mahomes of previous years where people wondered. I figured they would get back to form, and they did just that. The defense drastically improved, and the offense got back to being the Kansas City offense from the past few years. Given what’s happened on the NFC side of the bracket, it’s tough to bet against the Chiefs hoisting another Lombardi Trophy and Pat Mahomes adding another title to his record.

Yeah, the Bengals did win the Week 17 game, and it’s not like the Chiefs were disinterested and started a bunch of back-ups or anything like that. They were trying to win that game. It’s definitely something that’s been overlooked by Vegas & the media, where one wonders if the smart bet is against the spread.

The one drawback the Bengals have had this postseason is fair to bring up against a Chiefs team that scores so many points. Evan McPherson has been the Bengals MVP so far, and has been lights out from 50+ yards this season. He’s a great weapon to have, but everybody in the world knows that the Bengals won’t go to the Super Bowl if he’s kicking four field goals. The Bengals need to be scoring touchdowns against this Kansas City Chiefs team that will be cited as one of the great offenses of all time twenty years from now.

I feel like the Chiefs will win by 10 points. On one hand, I’ll be bitter. On the other hand, the Bengals will have had one of the best seasons in the history of the franchise, and it’ll be tough to complain. There’s no guarantee the Bengals will get back to this point with Joe Burrow at the helm, no matter how much we wish it so.

At least my friend Dustin James will be happy. We might part ways after this game, as football’s a serious piece of business worth taking seriously. Should the Bengals somehow win, Dustin James would send a hitman after me. He says he wouldn’t, but I know better. He’s a cutthroat sumbitch that would want my head on a platter if the Chiefs were eliminated here. The difference between somebody happy to be here and somebody that won once and now thinks it’s their birthright.

The Chiefs think it’s their birthright. I think they’ll win, and continue to think they have a birthright to go to Super Bowls and do tomahawk chops.

San Francisco at LA Rams (-3.5)

Rams record since the start of the 2019 season

vs the 49ers : 0-6

vs everyone else : 33-12

— Jordan Elliott (@splash_cousin) January 26, 2022

Can we get a Red out in Levi south this Sunday? 🤔

— Ambry Thomas (@Tavonn_) January 25, 2022

The 49ers certainly seem to have the Rams’ number. Six straight wins over the Los Angeles Rams, including a win that got them into the playoffs to begin with. Had the Rams taken care of business in Week 18, they might be playing the New Orleans Saints, the Green Bay Packers, basically anybody other than the San Francisco 49ers. It goes to show just how important those final games can be, even if coaches & players want to act like they aren’t.

I know people want to tell me that Matthew Stafford got to the next level once he beat the Bucs, and people want to tell me that Jimmy Garoppolo can’t be trusted. See, this is a tricky thing. I would like to trust Jimmy, but my friend Mina Kimes doesn’t, and now people want to trust Jimmy G because Mina never played football. Well, I didn’t play much football either, so Jeff Garcia wouldn’t trust my opinion either. Unless he knew that I had a penis. An important thing to have when you’re discussing football.

Matthew Stafford led us to victory in the final drive with his 44-yard throw to MVP candidate Cooper Kupp and Pro Bowl kicker Matt Gay made the field goal!! I'm so excited the Rams won because I'll be at SoFi next Sunday to watch the Rams beat the 49ers to go to the Super Bowl!😁

— Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) January 23, 2022

Sean Payton: “We didn’t make it to the playoffs and we’re rooting against the Rams because of that.”

Saints would've been in the playoffs if the Rams beat the 49ers in Week 18. (Non-PI call probably also on his mind).

— Ari Meirov (@MySportsUpdate) January 25, 2022

That being said, the Rams have looked as good as anybody else during the playoffs. We have to ignore that bit where the Bucs came back from a 27-3 deficit, because the Rams did end up winning. Cooper Kupp is getting MVP talk again, which is kind of weird because the MVP is only based on regular season activity. We choose to forget that when we need something to talk about. The Rams do have a bunch of star players, who so far have stepped up in big situations like star players tend to do.

It does seem that the 49ers will have the homefield advantage. It also seems like a close game, so even if I think the Rams will win, it could be a three point game. Should the 49ers win, it’ll be because of Deebo Samuel, who I’m not sure anybody has an answer for.