The 2023 NFL regular season is in the books, and Super Wild Card Weekend is upon us as the 2024 NFL Playoffs begin. It is win-or-go-home time in pro football, and we have six huge matchups on tap. It all starts Saturday with the No. 5 seed Cleveland Browns traveling to face the No. 4 seed and AFC South-winning Houston Texans (4:30 pm ET, NBC), and it wraps up on Monday Night Football with another 4-5 matchup when the NFC South champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers host the free-falling Philadelphia Eagles (8:00 pm ET, ABC, the ESPN family of networks). With that in mind, let’s get to our NFL Super Wild Card Weekend picks, predictions, and odds.
In between these two games, there is one more on Saturday and three on Sunday. Saturday night, fire up your Peacock app at 8 pm ET to see the AFC No. 6 seed Miami Dolphins take on the No. 3 seed Kansas City Chiefs. Then, Sunday afternoon starts with the AFC No. 2 Buffalo Bills hosting the No. 7 Pittsburgh Steelers (1:00 pm ET, CBS), followed by the NFC No. 2 Dallas Cowboys hosting the No. 7 Green Bay Packers (4:30 pm ET, FOX), and then the NFC No. 3 Detroit Lions take on the No. 6 Los Angeles Rams (8:00 pm ET, NBC).
There are storylines galore in these games. We have the 2024 NFL Playoffs' oldest quarterback (Joe Flacco) going against the youngest (CJ Stroud). There is also the Tyreek Hill Revenge Game in Dolphins vs. Chiefs, the Mike McCarthy Bowl between his former Packer and current Cowboys, and two QBs traded for each other will go head-to-head when Matthew Stafford and the Rams travel to face Jared Goff and the Lions.
As for the other games, can the Eagles right their sinking ship? Is Baker Mayfield a playoff-winning quarterback after all? Do the Steelers have any gas left without TJ Watt? And can Josh Allen figure out how to best his toughest opponent… himself?
We’ll find out the answer to these questions and more when the first round of the playoffs wraps up on Monday night. But before we hit those games, let’s look back on how we did picking games in this space through 18 weeks of the regular season.
It was a wacky week in the ClutchPoints NFL Week 18 picks, predictions, and odds column, which we knew coming in, and as the final week of the season always is. Still, we fought through and still came up 11-5 straight-up while walking away with no harm, no foul at 8-8 against the spread. So, with the 2023 NFL season in the books, we went down making money overall. The final mark is 174-98 (63.9%) straight-up and 143-118-11 (54.7%) against the spread. Not too shabby.
Previous NFL Picks & Predictions: Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10 | Week 11 | Week 12| Week 13 | Week 14 | Week 15| Week 16 | Week 17 | Week 18
Now, here are the NFL Week Super Wild Card Weekend picks, predictions, and odds.
Courtesy of FanDuel, here are the NFL odds
Cleveland Browns (-2.5) at Houston Texans
The Texans are the most surprising team in the NFL Playoffs this season. With rookie quarterback CJ Stroud and first-year head coach DeMeco Ryans, many (including myself) picked the team to finish at the bottom of the NFL standings.
They are a shocking postseason team, though, and should get a lot of credit for being here. That said, if Trevor Lawrence and the Jacksonville Jaguars didn’t choke so badly, they wouldn’t be hosting this game.
But here we are, and 38-year-old Joe Flacco starting for the Browns in the playoffs wasn’t something many people had on their BINGO cards either.
With Flacco, it seems like the other shoe should drop soon, but that hasn’t happened yet. He’s still managing the Browns games almost flawlessly, and the defense is wreaking havoc on the other side. Yes, the D is better at home, but this unit should be able to get after Stroud in a way he hasn’t seen in a while.
At some point, Flacco and the Browns will come back to earth, but in Houston, that won’t happen yet. So, the Browns-Texans pick is for the away team.
Pick: Browns 24-20
Miami Dolphins at Kansas City Chiefs (-4)
This game has the potential to be the most fun game of the entire weekend. However, both these teams are a little off coming into the postseason, so this may not have the fireworks that many expect, especially with the possibility of historically low temperatures in the forecast.
On the Kansas City side, the pass-catchers still aren’t up to snuff, and to paraphrase the infamous Gisele Bundchen line, Patrick Mahomes can’t throw it and go out and catch it, too. Still, the defense has improved from the last few years, and Mahomes is still Mahomes. No word yet if Taylor Swift is going to be at the game, so we don’t know how to factor that into the line right now.
On the other side, the high-performance sports car that is the Dolphins offense is banged up right now. Seemingly everyone is hurt to some degree, but Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle’s injuries are the most concerning. They will both play, but at less than 100 percent, they are not the weapons they usually are.
In the end, it’s not about the injuries for Miami, though. It’s about their makeup.
The team has looked like bullies when they play the dregs of the NFL, and when they play good teams, they get stuffed in a locker. The Dolphins simply can’t beat good teams, and while the Chiefs aren’t a great squad, they are still a good one.
Pick: Chiefs 35-28
Pittsburgh Steelers at Buffalo Bills (-10)
The biggest spread of the weekend comes in the game between the red-hot Bills and the Steelers, who will be missing their best player, TJ Watt, for this game.
This should be a blowout, as the spread suggests, but while the Steelers don’t have their best defensive weapon, they do have any team facing the Bills’ biggest weapon, Josh Allen. This game — and maybe the whole playoffs — is about Josh Allen vs. Josh Allen.
Allen has looked like the greatest quarterback ever at times during their current five-game winning streak, but he’s also still making horrific decisions and turnovers at times. Just like the Bills could have been the No. 2 seed (which they got) or out of the playoffs in Week 18, the range of outcomes for this game is vast as well.
The Bills could win this one by a billion or lose and go home because Allen throws three picks. It all depends on which Bills QB shows up.
That said, when making a pick in this NFL Week Super Wild Card Weekend picks, predictions, and odds space, you have to go with the most likely outcome, which is the Bills expose this Steelers team that is holding things together with duct tape and string.
Pick: Bills 31-17
Green Bay Packers at Dallas Cowboys (-7.5)
These are all tough matchups here in the NFL Super Wild Card Weekend, predictions, and odds. It’s the playoffs. They should be. That said, there is one game that we are most confident in here, and that is Packers-Cowboys.
Dallas got a huge boost earning the No. 2 seed in the NFC, and they will now get home games in the first two rounds — providing they win — and could even go home throughout with a 49ers upset. That is important because one of the absolute truths of the 2023 NFL season is that the Cowboys are incredible (and undefeated) at home and not all that good (4-5) on the road.
And when Dak Prescott and the Dallas defense are on at home, the scores are usually not close. The Cowboys scored at least 30 points in all but one of their home games, and put up 40 or more four times at AT&T Stadium.
With all due respect to the Packers, who are building something — if they get a new defensive coordinator and Jordan Love keeps getting more accurate — they are not ready for this Cowboys team in Big D.
Pick: Cowboys 40-23
Los Angeles Rams at Detroit Lions (-3)
Lions head coach Dan Campbell kept the pedal to the metal in Week 18 — as he does — and it resulted in rookie tight end sensation Sam LaPorta and key kick returner Kalif Raymond getting hurt. That is tough news for the Lions.
On the other side, the Rams got to rest in Week 18 against the 49ers with their playoff spot locked up, and they come in as healthy and ready to go as any NFL team at this time of the year.
This game is the hardest one to pick in this NFL Week Super Wild Card Weekend picks, predictions, and odds column. The Lions are the better team overall, but they don’t have any experience in this kind of spot. What the Rams have in Matthew Stafford on one side and Aaron Donald on the other are two players who won a Super Bowl just two seasons ago, and that is worth a lot.
Ultimately, while a Rams upset is absolutely something that seems plausible, the Lions are better from top to bottom and are at home. It’s not a pick I love, but it’s the one we have to make in this spot.
Pick: Lions 27-23
Philadelphia Eagles (-3) at Tampa Bay Buccaneers
This is the NFL Playoffs. It’s time to go big or go home. That’s why we have to throw at least one upset in the mix, and this one is it.
Something is rotten in the state of Philadelphia right now, and only the Eagles know exactly what it is. The team has lost five of its last six, and as a squad that looked like the best team in the NFL earlier in the year, that points to a major problem.
And while the Buccaneers may not even deserve to be in the playoffs after barely winning the dreadful NFC South, here they are, and watch out for teams once they get in. The 7-9 Washington Commanders gave Tom Brady and the Buccaneers everything they could handle in early 2021, and the 7-9 Seattle Seahawks beat the New Orleans Saints in the 2010 postseason.
The 9-8 Buccaneers have a winning record, but they are still the worst team in the playoffs right now. That doesn’t mean they can’t beat the Eagles, though, and that’s exactly what they will do.
Pick: Buccaneers 21-20
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