Prisco’s picks for the NFC and AFC championship games are Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs to make it to the Super Bowl, and the Lions and 49ers will play a close game.
Last week I went to the dogs, and my picks were a lot like what dogs say when you walk them.
They smelled just as bad. I did not do well in the divisional round. Both straight and against the spread, I lost three times.
That’s not good. And I should have been right when I said that the Green Bay Packers would beat the San Francisco 49ers. It was the only ATS win I had. I am now 172-110 straight upwards and 140-131-11 ATS for the season.
After last week, you’d think I’d stay away from dogs. But when it pertains to my ATS picks, I’m going back to them. I think one of them will win the match outright.
The Kansas City Chiefs, led by Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, are going to Las Vegas to play the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl rematch from four years ago. They have a chance to do something very rare: win again.
In the AFC championship game on Sunday, the Chiefs beat Lamar Jackson as well as the No. 1 seeded Baltimore Ravens 17–10.
This is their fourth trip to the Super Bowl in five years. After a few hours, Brock Purdy led the top-seeded 49ers to a 34–31 win over the Detroit Lions in the NFC title game.
The Chiefs (14-6) want to become the first team since Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in 2003-04 to win back-to-back titles.
Each team plays the other at Allegiant Stadium on February 12. FanDuel Sportsbook put the 49ers as 2 1/2-indicate favorites at the start of the game.
The last time these two teams played in the Super Bowl, Purdy was still two years away from being the last pick in the 2022 NFL draft. He will try to guide the 49ers (14-5) to a record-tying seventh title in their eighth trip.
The Chiefs came back from being down 20–10 in the fourth quarter to beat the 49ers 31–20. It was coach Andy Reid’s first Super Bowl win on February 2, 2020.
Kansas City tried to win again the next year, but Brady along with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers stopped them.
It will only happen three times in the last five years, and the Chiefs will be the third team to do it.
In the past five years, only the Steelers of Pittsburgh (1970s), the Dallas Cowboys (1990s), and the Patriots (2000s and 2010s) have won three Super Bowls.
Last year in the Super Bowl, Mahomes led the Chiefs to a 38–35 win over the Philadelphia Eagles.
In the wild-card round, they beat Miami 26-7, and last week, they beat the Bills 27-24 in Buffalo. It was Mahomes’s first playoff game away from home since the Super Bowl.
Last year’s NFC title game was dominated by the Eagles, and Purdy hurt his elbow badly enough that he had to have surgery. He came back for the first game of the season and helped them get a bye in the first round.
Yesterday, Purdy led the Niners again from a 17-point deficit to beat Green Bay 24–21. This week, he did the same thing against the Lions.
When it comes to Super Bowl wins, only New England as well as Pittsburgh have more than San Francisco. The last time they won was after the 1994 season.
Reid will lead a team to the Super Bowl for the fifth time. He is now tied with Tom Landry for third place with nine, tied with Bill Belichick for ninth, and six behind Don Shula for sixth. Reid was the Eagles’ coach in 1999 when the Patriots topped them to win the Super Bowl.
Ryan Reid beat Kyle Shanahan, the coach of the Niners, in the Super Bowl the first time he played. Shanahan was in charge of Atlanta’s offense when the Falcons lost Super Bowl 51 after being ahead 28-3 to Brady and the Patriots.
Mahomes has been named NFL and Super Bowl MVP twice. He will start in his fourth Super Bowl, which ties with the likes of Joe Montana, Terry Bradshaw, Peyton Manning, Roger Staubach, and Jim Kelly for third place, after Tom Brady’s 10 and John Elway’s 5.
The most important question is whether Taylor Swift will be able to get to Las Vegas in time to see her boyfriend play in the New Year’s Bowl.
Swift is set to perform in Japan just 24 hours before the game. She celebrated with Kelce on the field after the win over the Ravens.