Good news, football fans: We appear to have four good games coming this weekend.
One would hope that would always be the case during an NFL playoff weekend, but the reality is, that’s usually not what happens. Just take a look at some of the wild card games we’ve had in the last four postseasons:
2017: The Jaguars and Bills played a game that was expected to be ugly, and went exactly as expected, with the Jaguars prevailing 10-3.
2016: All four wild card games stunk, with an average margin of 24 points. In the worst of the four games, Brock Osweiler’s Texans beat Connor Cook’s Raiders.
2015: The 8-8 Texans showed they didn’t belong in the playoffs, as Brian Hoyer threw four interceptions in a 30-0 loss in the wild card round.
2014: The Cardinals were stuck with Ryan Lindley at quarterback and they turned in one of the worst offensive performances in NFL history, gaining just 78 total yards in a loss to the Panthers.
There’s no guarantee that the four games we’ll see this weekend will be great, but there are positive indications. None of the games look like terrible mismatches. None of the teams are playing incompetent quarterbacks. All of the games look like good ones. For a change.