We are down to the final four teams in the NFL playoffs, and if this was somehow your choice for a final four, I hope you placed your bet with the Caesar.

Every game was a walk-off win in one of the wildest playoff weekends in league history. Two titans of quarterbacking in the twilight years, Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers, fell to Matt Stafford and Jimmy Garoppolo, respectively, as the LA Rams and San Francisco 49ers advanced to the NFC title game. The Niners swept their divisional rivals this year, but the Rams are playing for the chance to host the Super Bowl in their own stadium. Aaron Donald called it a storybook way of ending the season, and for the passionate fan bases of both of these franchises, it feels that way.

Over in the AFC, Joe Burrow survived the physical beating put on him by the Tennessee defense to lead the Bengals to an upset over the top-seeded Titans. And all that was a prelude to arguably the greatest playoff shootout in league history between Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes

The fact that we can honestly say thirteen seconds is too much time for Mahomes to get into field goal range from his 25 yard-line is utter insanity. The AFC is loaded with young gunslingers, and Josh Allen has now proven he is one of the best quarterbacks in that bunch. However, after Sunday night’s game, Mahomes staked his claim to being the cream of the crop as he goes into playing in his fourth straight AFC championship game. Now, he finds himself facing yet another upstart in Burrow, who is the only quarterback to defeat Mahomes during the Chiefs’ brilliant run during the second half of the season.

It will be impossible to match the drama and emotion of last week’s slate of games, but both conference championship matchups, while not what we may have expected heading into the playoffs, should be hotly contested affairs.

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NFC CHAMPIONSHIP – 49ERS AT RAMS

This is the third time these two teams have played, with the Niners winning both regular season matchups. The first round went soundly to the 49ers, who pummeled the Rams at home, 31-10, but their Week 18 win in LA was more hotly contested. The Rams were playing for seeding and came out strong, but the Niners dominated the second half in their comeback 27-24 win.

In spite of being swept, the Rams were still able to take the division title, which is why they find themselves hosting their division rivals and they go into this game as slight favorites.

Both teams have defenses playing big-time football as the stakes get higher in the playoffs. After slapping around Kyler Murray and the Hopkins-less Cardinals in the Wildcard round, the Rams defense made key plays throughout their win over the Bucs. Tom Brady was sacked, stripped, and picked by the hard-hitting Rams defense on Sunday. The last few weeks, Von Miller has been flying around tackles while Aaron Donald continues to disrupt the interior, leading to the other nine defenders free to make splash plays due to the attention their two future Hall-of-Famers demand.

The 49ers, meanwhile, are riding their incredibly stout defense to playoff glory, shutting down two high-powered offenses on the road in Dallas and Green Bay to get to the title game. They’re fairly healthy and are able to stop all facets of an offense for sixty minutes; neither the Cowboys or Packers were able to sustain any kind of passing or rushing attack against a defense that is loaded at all three levels and a defensive coordinator calling excellent game plans against top-tier offenses.

The offensive side for both teams are where the question marks lie as we head into the title game. The Rams have a high-octane offense capable of dropping three or four touchdowns in one half, but in the latter part of the season, they have been turning the ball over at the most inopportune moments. It took a serious case of fumblitis on the offensive side of the ball (four lost fumbles) to fuel Brady’s furious comeback, with Cam Akers’ two fumbles proving to be hugely pivotal (one right before halftime inside the five and the other late in the 4th when the Bucs had no timeouts left). Their rushing game is still a bit of a weak spot, so if the Niners are able to keep Cooper Kupp and OBJ in check, the Rams might have trouble running their offense to its potential.

The 49ers, meanwhile, are battered on the offensive side, starting with their quarterback, Jimmy G. The man is playing through a torn thumb ligament and a shoulder injury to his throwing arm, which says a lot about his toughness (not bad for the GQ man) and also where Kyle Shanahan thinks Trey Lance is at in his development. Deebo Samuel is playing out of his damned mind, Greg Kittle continues to do what Greg Kittle does, and the rushing attack has some legs with Eli Mitchell back, but the limitations at quarterback are obvious when watching the team try to move the chains.

They weren’t able to put the Cowboys game away in the Wildcard round (a game that ended with some classic bizarre Mike McCarthy clock management), and they were unable to score a touchdown against the Packers (their only TD came on a blocked punt). The defense has been playing like a Super Bowl worthy unit, but the offense has to give them some kind of support against a Rams team that will find ways to score points.

PREDICTION

It is easy to make an argument for either team to come out on top Sunday. The crowd is going to feel more like a bowl game than a home game for the Rams; I suspect a lot of Niners fans will fill the stadium much like how they did in Week 18, so it is going to be a weird vibe for a NFC title game.

With no real home-field advantage and both rosters being stacked at key positions, this game will come down to who out-schemes who. Both coaching staffs are top-notch, so turnovers and special teams will be the big factors. I have a feeling both quarterbacks will have multiple turnovers, but I’m more concerned about how many times Jimmy G will be able to answer the bell after a Miller/Donald hit, especially if Trent Williams is out.

There will be gadget plays and trickery on both sides, and McVay and Shanahan are going to make some high-risk calls that announcers will be baffled by. In the end, however, I think Matt Stafford is able to make more big plays than Jimmy G, leading the Rams to become the second straight team to host a Super Bowl in their home stadium.

Final Score: Rams 27, 49ers 21

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AFC CHAMPIONSHIP – BENGALS AT CHIEFS

In so many ways, Sunday night’s epic between the Buffalo Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs felt like the AFC Championship game. Two of the best teams going blow-for-blow in one of the absolute most bat-shit crazy fourth quarters in a NFL playoff game ever. The swings in the final two minutes leading into overtime probably caused a network outage for Apple watches monitoring the heart rates of their consumers watching, so we can only imagine how spent the Chiefs players and staff felt Monday morning.

After such an exhausting game, it’s easy for players to say it’s no big deal and it’s on to the next one, but a game like Sunday night’s can sometimes be more draining they let on, especially if they find themselves in a game where their generational quarterback has an opponent able to trade shots with him for sixty minutes.

Enter Joe Fackin’ Burrow.

This is one cold-blooded dude. Burrow is the first quarterback ever to be selected first in the NFL Draft one year and lead his team to the conference championship game the next season. He is the first quarterback since HOFer Len Dawson in 1966 to get sacked nine times and win a playoff game. He plays with the poise of a ten-year vet, and his supreme confidence in himself has rubbed off on everyone on that team, all the way to their ridiculously clutch rookie kicker.

This whole Bengals team, while young and unproven in the playoffs, has an underlying swagger to them that is difficult to describe. Most young teams would have crumbled in Tennessee under the overwhelming pressure the Titans front seven put on the Bengals all game, but they kept their cool and never let the moment be too big.

They also are the only team to beat Kansas City since Halloween.

This wasn’t a “we played them tough but lost” kind of moment for Cincy, either. This was a “we can beat the big boys” moment. Jamarr Chase had 266 receiving yards on 11 catches as the Bengals shut down the Chiefs in the second half in a comeback win. Burrow followed up his legendary performance the week before against the Ravens to drop 446 yards and 4 touchdowns on the Chiefs’ defense. The Bengals held the Chiefs to a field goal after halftime during their frenzied come-from-behind victory.

This is a game that could easily turn into a horse race. Patrick Mahomes has been unbelievable the last three months, and with Travis Kelce, Tyreek Hill, and their plethora of weapons running wild, the Chiefs are almost impossible to contain. The Bengals, while inconsistent at times during the year, have the ability to pop off with the best of them, and their pool of skill players is almost on par with the Chiefs.

Burrow may not be on the level of Josh Allen yet, but this is a big-game quarterback who set the collegiate record for touchdowns in a season, currently has the fourth-most passing yards in a single game under his belt, and already beat the Chiefs this year. He will not find the moment too big for him come Sunday.

We could be staring at another unexpectedly brilliant shootout.

With both offenses capable of dropping 30 on any given night, this game will come down to which defense is able to make more plays than the other. Both defenses have been pretty good down the stretch (with their Week 17 game being a notable anomaly), but these offenses will push them to their limits. Hill and Chase are borderline uncoverable, so it will be interesting to see how the defensive coordinators play their coverages to keep those two burners in check while dealing with the other dangers in the passing game (Kelce for KC, Boyd/Higgins combo for Cincy).

Joe Mixon could be a key advantage over the Chiefs’ committee approach, but KC held him in check in the previous matchup, in part because of how far behind the Bengals were in the first half. Both of the defenses will be under duress come Sunday, but they will need to make big stops in order to give their quarterback the opportunity to win the game.

PREDICTION

I find it difficult to bet against Patrick Mahomes at this point in time because thirteen seconds was too long to give him to get his team 55 yards for a game-tying field goal. He’s a magical football unicorn, which makes all the negative reporting about him and the Chiefs in the first half of the season that much more hilarious. He has set such a standard for himself that we view “good” as “underwhelming”, and now we literally expect this dude to tie or win a game if he has THIRTEEN SECONDS TO DO IT. It’s unreal.

That being said, games like the Bills classic can be mentally and physically exhausting. The Bengals went through hell in Tennessee, but what the Chiefs experienced was several levels above that. I’m figuring there’s about a 60% chance that the first quarter is a bit sluggish for both offenses before the quarterbacks are able to settle in. A lot of pundits will expect a clean Chiefs win, but I think Burrow and the Bengals push the Chiefs to the limit once more.

The fourth quarter of this game will have some magical moments. While it won’t be as insane as the Bills/Chiefs battle, the Bengals will give the defending AFC champions everything they can handle until the Chiefs are able to control the last few minutes for a game-winning field goal as time expires.

Final Score: Chiefs 30, Bengals 28