I thought Black Panther was really strong. My snap-reaction is that I'd put it in my upper tier just below Winter Soldier.

Over five years later, I still sometimes think about this dvo post when the snow starts coming down.

I'm wavering on my Bengals love with Tennessee being healthier than they've been for most of the season. The concerning mismatch here is Cincy's O-line vs the Tenn D-line. Still think they have a chance, but it looks like the last minute money is coming in on the home team.

Was surprised to find out that Aaron Rodgers is only a .500 QB (against the spread) in home playoff games. Also read this will be the coldest weather he's ever played in. While that would seem like extreme home field advantage for the Packers, the 49ers have the much better run game and defense. Still really liking the Niners to at least cover hear with a decent shot to win outright. The concerns here are that GB may be getting back some players on defense and if SF is downplaying Garoppolo's shoulder injury.

With both teams missing offensive line pieces, LAR/TBB looks like it might be decided by which QB better handles a ton of pressure. Bucs are more banged up than Rams and it's really an awful matchup for them, missing WRs as well, but they can always game plan to get the ball out of Brady's hand more quickly and I have a tough time trusting Stafford over Brady in a game like this. I really can't pick a side here.

Still think the Bills should be favored here. Playing their best ball of the year, while KC's defense has been slipping again and will be the weakest unit on the field tomorrow.

I still think we see at least 2 dogs win this weekend. Read a stat that this is the first time in a long time (don't remember the exact # of years) that there hasn't been a single TD or larger dog in this round.

I put some money down on Titans -4. I was slow on the draw and I had meant to bet when it was Titans -3.5, but whatever.

The Bills are the only dog I can see picking straight-up in this weekend's lineup, but I see that game as very close to a toss-up.

Well then. You clearly have a much better read on this weekend than I do. Interesting to see what tomorrow brings.

Yet I feel like the only thing I was right about was the Cincinnati offensive line. How do you take 9 sacks and still win the game?

While both games had exciting endings with buzzer beating FGs in tie games, it certainly wasn't how I drew it up in my mind. Got the results I wanted, but tons of mistakes in both games. Hard to believe these were among the best teams in the league this year, but I guess that was part of my complaint in the first place.

Watch the Bills, who we both thought was the top dog, be the only one to lose. Maybe an offense will even break 20 tomorrow.

Wirfs is out today. It'll be really interesting to see if they can protect Brady today.

Man. I feel sick for the Bills.

The defense they played to let them score with just 13 second left though.

Yeah, certainly, they blew it. I don't like NFL OT rules either, but the Bills had their chance to win and didn't. Don't know how you don't squib that kickoff to run some time.

Still have the bolded ones alive. Guess I need to figure out how to hedge with the Rams.

It's crazy that all games last weekend were such snoozers, and all four games this weekend were so good. And totally agree - I feel bad for the Bills too, but you can't let them score with :13 left. That's such a Buffalo thing to see.

I will say, the Guardians of the Galaxy were hilarious in Avengers: Infinity War. I think I easily laughed more during their on-screen time in that movie than I did in either of their own movies.

I don't know if that's a sign that their humor grew on me, or if their material was just that much better in Infinity War.

Glad you liked the Guardians/Thor combo because we're going to get more of it.

I always thought Batista should have come back as the Drax character in 2015. Much better than Bluetista.

I'm not sure that Alberto del Rio was ever as over as he was in that February 2014 PPV match in Minneapolis (Fast Lane?) against Batista, purely on the basis that WWE was openly trying to strong-arm fans into accepting the Batista face push that they were violently rejecting. The good fans of Minneapolis were NOT going to go along. I always wonder if Daniel Bryan specifically owes that city a debt of thanks for getting him his WrestleMania moment.

Just came across this MCU ranking from November. I haven't seen Shang-Chi or the Eternals yet and have some disagreements, but the gist of it seems okay:

https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/mcu-m...an-to-eternals

Feel they have Cap #1 (11), Iron Man 3 (16) too high.

Doctor Strange (17), Black Widow (15), maybe Captain Marvel (12) too low.

Not a terrible job otherwise.

Haven't seen them all, but Iron Man somehow being a lower-ranked origin story than Captain America is absurd to me. The follow-ups in the Captain America series were excellent, but that origin story was kind of just a dull foundation piece for those to be able to launch from and shine.

It sucks to have a Rams-Niners championship game, but I guess I settled on a rooting interest. From an email to a friend:

Mind you, this is just a flipside of what I tend to go with if the team from a city with civic connection and pride faces one of these sterile transplant cities; usually I go with the team that has an actual fanbase and not a pile of frauds. But obviously that can change when the "actual fanbase" is some bullshit like 49er fans.

I don't know about the rest of the fans, but after that Cincy win, I'm gonna be pretty toxic if the Niners don't help me cash that 100 to 1 ticket. Although I did hedge some, Rams winning through is worst case scenario for me.

Did you end up hedging this?

EDIT: Somehow missed the post directly above.

Good luck. Would be a hell of a win.

Things looked promising until that dropped INT. Can't complain too much though. Outside the futures plays, I treated the two games as their own things and did well with both dogs today (Cin +7.5, SF +3.5)

Yeah, sorry about the futures bet, glad that it sounds like you came out of it okay.

Seems correct imo.

Funny, I have pretty nasty things to say about the Seahawks fanbase too.

Of course, my only options are to harbor a lot of hatred for my own team's fanbase or to admit (incorrectly) that UW fans aren't that bad, since that's the overwhelming favorite college team in the Seahawks fanbase.