Steve Brownlee

Injuries, injuries, injuries.

It always seems to make a lot of difference this time of year, but does it seem worse this year as the status of key players on multiple teams seems to change from day to day?

I’ve been hearing about various Philadelphia Eagles players being in, out or somewhere in between.

Of course, their opponent, the Green Bay Packers, are working through the same situation, especially bad as it not only affects starting quarterback Jordan Love, but his backup Malik Willis.

Plus top receiver Christian Watson is certainly out for the entirety of the playoffs.

Then there’s the Detroit Lions, who despite looking great against San Francisco and Minnesota at the end of the season, still have a lot of defensive players out. And you know how it looked in that 48-42 loss at home to Buffalo not that long ago on Dec. 15.

Then shifting gears, I heard Friday morning about the NFL moving Monday night’s Rams-Vikings game out of Los Angeles and to the Arizona Cardinals’ home stadium in the Phoenix area.

They were citing the need to have 100 to 150 first responders and police ready at any NFL game, and they don’t want to take away those personnel if they need to be available to deal with all the wildfires going on around L.A.

Should be interesting to see if it affects the Rams focus-wise, with players or their relatives having to worry about their homes in Southern California.

So onto this weekend’s wild-card round schedule, which I found out quite recently is no longer called the Super Wild Card Round — just as I was going to use that term for the first time. They put the “super” in front to denote the extra two games that were added in that round back in 2020:

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Today, 4:30 p.m.

AFC No. 5 seed Los Angeles Chargers (11-6) at No. 4 Houston (10-7), TV: CBS — My only worry is if the Chargers can take advantage of some problems in the Texans’ defense. However, this L.A. team can still win a low-scoring game. Chargers, 20-16.

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Today, 8 p.m.

AFC No. 6 Pittsburgh (10-7) at No. 3 Baltimore (12-5), TV: Available ONLY on Prime subscription service — OK, imagine if the NFL or Prime or whoever makes these decisions had chosen to put the Packers-Eagles game available ONLY on Prime. And you wonder why people didn’t care about catching the killer of that major health care provider recently? Or why some people romanticize computer hackers?

OK, as far as this game goes, this game might not end up worthy of major TV coverage anyway, unless the Steelers can figure out their offense.

Plus, I saw on ESPN Friday morning that since Baltimore made a big change in their defense with one of their better players available again, they’ve gone from one of the worst defenses to No. 1 as far as scoring goes. Ravens, 27-17.

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Sunday, 1 p.m.

AFC No. 7 Denver (10-7) at No. 2 Buffalo (13-4), TV: CBS — I heard wildly different versions of this game between ESPN and Fox/FS1 this week.

The pundits on ESPN said this was a bad-luck matchup for No. 2 seed Buffalo, that they’ve drawn a tough Denver team that matches up with them well.

Then the Fox guys were saying they couldn’t believe that Buffalo was only a nine-point favorite and should be favored by more.

So who do you believe? Well, I think Buffalo is vulnerable mainly because of its defense, or lack thereof.

And then I heard this stat, which resonated as it seems logical, that first-year quarterbacks — like Denver’s Bo Nix — have won just five playoff games in the history of the NFL, the most recent in 2013, when Seahawks rookie Russell Wilson beat another rookie, the Redskins’ Robert Griffin III.

Finally, there was one more little nugget — that while the Bills can never get by Baltimore and Kansas City in the playoffs, they always get to play those elite AFC teams, meaning they win their playoff “preliminaries” beforehand.

OK, I’m sold. Bills, 34-29.

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Sunday, 4:30 p.m.

NFC No. 7 Green Bay (11-6) at No. 2 Philadelphia (14-3); TV: Fox — You’ll notice up to this point it’s been all AFC matchups. Now it’ll be the NFC for the final three games of the weekend.

As I mentioned at the top, injuries could play a major role in this game.

But I want to go back to the actual team matchups as it seems like all the injuries are going to cancel each other out.

The Packers, unfortunately as you’ll know as a Green and Gold fan, haven’t been able to beat the top three teams in the NFC — Detroit, Minnesota and Philly.

They’ve been close in just about all those — the point differential is 22 points in those five games, 10 of those points coming at home vs. Detroit — plus the Eagles game was played at the start of the season and in Brazil.

But between Saquon Barkley and home field advantage, I have to take the Eagles, 29-26.

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Sunday, 8:15 p.m.

NFC No. 6 Washington (12-5) at No. 3 Tampa Bay (10-7); TV: NBC — OK, here’s a quiz question: What’s the only team this season to beat both NFC No. 1 seed Detroit and No. 2 seed Philadelphia?

That would be the Buccaneers.

That said, here’s another rookie QB, Washington’s Jayden Daniels, playing a road playoff game.

But how often has that road rookie’s team won two more games than the team he’s playing, like it is here?

I hear bad things about Tampa’s defense, in particular it’s pass coverage due a lot to injuries among its safeties and cornerbacks.

Going on that, plus Daniels’ ability to protect the ball, I’ll take the Commanders, 24-22.

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Monday, 8:15 p.m.

NFC No. 5 Minnesota (14-3) vs. No. 4 Los Angeles Rams (10-7), at Glendale, Ariz.; TV: ABC & ESPN — I can’t remember ever seeing a neutral-site playoff game, of course other than the Super Bowl.

It was already obvious that Minnesota should be the favorite, just based on them almost capturing the No. 1 seed in the NFC until Sunday night’s loss at Detroit.

And even though the Lions made Minnesota look bad, that should just steel the Vikings into regrouping and figuring out how to improve.

Meanwhile, the Rams were just trying to get through their game last week by playing as few impact players as possible.

I like a team that’s trying to stay sharp, or in Minnesota’s case, was forced to stay sharp right until the end. Vikings, 31-24.

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Last week — 12-4, 75 percent. Regular season total — 183-89, 67 percent.

Steve Brownlee can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 552. His email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.