Seen by many as the best weekend of the NFL season, the Divisional Round of the Playoffs is upon us.

We are down to the final eight teams, with just seven games remaining of the 2025 campaign. Wild Card weekend was, for the most part, ‘wild’, and saw the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles crash out, the Buffalo Bills willed to victory by their superhuman quarterback and the final game in charge of the Pittsburgh Steelers for Mike Tomlin.

It was quite the weekend. Four teams that did not win their division – Buffalo, Houston, the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers – all won their Wild Card matchups and join the New England Patriots and Chicago Bears, who did take a title, in moving on to join the respective #1 seeds, Seattle (NFC) and Denver (AFC).

The games ahead of us start of Saturday and will contain, for the first time since 2000, three quarterbacks in their first or second season, in New England’s Drake Maye, Denver’s Bo Nix and Chicago’s Caleb Williams.

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Buffalo Bills (#6) @ Denver Broncos (#1)

Fresh off their bye, the #1 seed Broncos host the Bills in their first home playoff game since the 2015 AFC Championship decider.

The Bills beat the Jacksonville Jaguars at the bell on Wild Card weekend, marking their first road playoff win since the Jim Kelly Bills beat the Dan Marino-led Miami Dolphins in the 1992 AFC title game. The Broncos have entered the playoffs as the AFC’s top seed eight times, and six of their previous times atop the rankings have seen them make the Super Bowl. Both sides are looking to make their 11th conference championship game, with the Bills playing in the title game just last season. Indeed, these two sides have previously met in the title game back in the 1991 season, when a Bills win saw them advance to Super Bowl XXVI, one of four consecutive Super Bowl appearances for the Bills between 1990-1993.

During the regular season, the Broncos led the league with 68 sacks, ranked second in total defense (278.2 yards per game allowed) and rushing defense (91.1 yards per game allowed) and ranked third in scoring defense (18.3 points per game against). Tasked with slicing up this defense will be Josh Allen, who passed for 273 yards and a touchdown while rushing for 33 yards and another two scores against the Jaguars, and James Cook, who led the league in rushing yards and ranked fourth among all players with 1,912 yards from scrimmage.

The Bills own a 22-22 playoff record, including a 2-0 mark against the Broncos, who are 23-20 in postseason play. The last playoff clash between these two sides came last year, when the Bills scored 31 unanswered points to beat the Broncos 31-7 in the Wild Card round.

PREDICTION: The Broncos will make life very difficult, but Josh Allen finds just enough magic to send his side one step closer to the Super Bowl.

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San Francisco 49ers (#6) @ Seattle Seahawks (#1)

A rematch of the Week 18 clash to decide the #1 seed in the NFC, the 49ers follow up their road win over the Eagles to take on the Seahawks, fresh off their bye.

The Seahawks are hosting their first playoff game since 2020 and are looking for their first postseason win since 2019, when they, like their opponents last week, won in Philadelphia. The 49ers are looking to become the first NFL team to play in 20 championship games, while the Seahawks are looking for their fifth berth, having played in the NFC title game three times and the AFC once.

In the regular season, the 49ers ranked 10th in points scored and 13th in points allowed, while the Seahawks were third and first in the same categories. Seahawks wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba led the NFL with 1,793 receiving yards — also a Seahawks franchise record — and a Seahawks win would see him become the first player to lead the league in receiving and play for a #1 seed in the title game since Jerry Rice of the 49ers in 1994.

This will be the third playoff meeting between these two NFC West rivals, with each side winning one of the previous meetings. Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold spent the 2023 season with the 49ers, starting one game and passing for 297 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. His opposite number, Brock Purdy, is 5-2 in the postseason and has at least 250 passing yards in his last four playoff games. 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey, one of the offensive stars of the 2025 season, has at least 100 yards from scrimmage in seven of his eight career playoff games, including 114 against the Eagles. He boasted 2,126 yards from scrimmage in 2025.

The 49ers are 40-25 in postseason play, while the Seahawks are 17-19.

PREDICTION: The Seahawks defense has too many teeth for the 49ers, and their offense make just enough plays to send Seattle to the title game.

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Houston Texans (#5) @ New England Patriots (#2)

Making their third consecutive appearance in the Divisional round, the Texans travel to New England to face a Patriots team who have won each of their last eight matches at this stage of the playoffs.

The Texans dispatched the Steelers 30-6 in Pittsburgh on Monday night while, on Sunday night, the Patriots defeated the Los Angeles Chargers 16-3 for their first playoff win since they won their sixth Super Bowl in SBLIII.

The Patriots ranked second in points scored in the regular season, while the Texans ranked second in points allowed. Both sides are pretty good at shutting down the run, with the Texans ranking fourth with just 93 yards allowed per game and the Patriots sixth with 101. This will be the third postseason meeting between these two sides, with the Patriots winning both previous matches, with the most recent coming in the 2016 Divisional round. A win for the Texans would see them earn their first ever berth in the AFC Championship round, while that round was somewhere the Patriots visited with insane regularity during the Brady-Belichick era. They made the title game in eight consecutive seasons between 2011-18.

Texans QB C.J. Stroud has at least 245 passing yards in his last three playoff games, while Drake Maye — in his first playoff game — racked up 268 yards against the Chargers last week. Patriots head coach Mike Vrabel, a three-time Super Bowl winner as a player, spent four seasons on the coaching staff of the Texans before becoming head coach of the Tennessee Titans. His opposite number DeMeco Ryans — like Vrabel, a former linebacker — has a 5-3 record in the playoffs as a head coach after a 1-2 record in the postseason as a player.

The Texans are 7-8 all-time in postseason play, while the Patriots are 38-22.

PREDICTION: The Patriots return to the title game after an almost unbearable seven-year absence after squeaking by the Texans.

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Los Angeles Rams (#5) @ Chicago Bears (#2)

Both sides were made to work hard to get here, with the Rams just about edging by the Carolina Panthers 34-31 in Charlotte and the Bears overcoming an 18-point deficit to beat the Green Bay Packers 31-27 thanks to 25 points in the fourth quarter.

This will be Sean McVay’s 15th playoff game with the Rams and, incredibly, he’ll be coaching against his 15th different team. The Rams win over the Panthers was their first road playoff win since 2021, while the Bears win over the Packers marked their first playoff victory anywhere since the 2010 season. The Rams have not won multiple road games in the same postseason since 1989, while the last time Soldier Field witnessed two home wins in the same campaign was 2006, having also done so in 1985. The Bears made the Super Bowl in both of those seasons.

Rams quarterback and MVP frontrunner Matthew Stafford has thrown at least two touchdown passes in his last eight playoff games, the second longest streak in NFL history, and averages exactly 300 passing yards in playoff games in his career. His favourite weapon, Puka Nacua, averages 108 receiving yards in his postseason career and had 111 last week. Bears quarterback Caleb Williams dropped 361 passing yards on the Packers in his first ever playoff appearance last week, the most yards by a playoff debutant since 2011 — when a youngster named Matthew Stafford had 380 for the Detroit Lions against the New Orleans Saints…

Rookie tight end Colston Loveland had quite the day against the Packers too, finishing with the second most yards in a playoff game from a first-year tight end in NFL history (137).

These two sides have met twice before in the postseason, the first time back in 1950 with the Rams winning 24-14. The most recent meeting came in the 1985 NFC title game, where the legendary Bears defense led by DC Buddy Ryan shutout the Rams in a 24-0 win.

The Rams are 28-29 in the playoffs in their history, while the Bears own an 18-20 record.

PREDICTION: Of course they’ll leave it to the last minute, but the Bears will find a way past the Rams.