Six Wild Card games kick off the NFL’s road to the Super Bowl. There are a certain few that you can’t miss under any circumstance.
Christmas cards have nothing on the NFL’s relative equivalent.
The league is moving onto its sixth expanded playoff bracket, which is best-known for its crowded Wild Card Weekend that expands to Monday night. While the top seeds respectively rest in Denver and Seattle, six attractive games linger on the opening docket — though some games carry a brighter spotlight and a larger potential to live up to the round’s namesake.
With a busy weekend and more ahead, TeamFB7 ranks the six upcoming matchups in terms of their watchability, storylines, and potential for chaos.
6. Rams @ Panthers
(Saturday, 4:30 p.m. ET, Fox)
It is, perhaps unfortunately, a little apparent that the Panthers’ shocking home victory over the Rams was more of an outlier than anyone in Charlotte would care to admit.
Dave Canales and the Panthers certainly deserve credit for ending a seven-season playoff drought and handling business in the dreary NFC South. But if any of the weekend’s matchups have the potential to get ugly in a hurry, it’s this one: despite carrying South honors, the Panthers come in limping as losers of three of their final four. The Rams, on the other hand, will likely enter the hub of NASCAR with some road rage with national doubt creeping into their corner after they coughed up the NFC’s top seed and the bye that comes with it. Style points don’t procure advancement, but the Rams would likely love a confidence booster going into what many believe is an assured NFL Divisional round trip.
The prior Week 13 clash (a 31-28 Carolina win in an early Sunday window) hints that the Panthers have the ability to at least make this one interesting. But when the league is willing to end the Houston Texans’ monopoly on the bittersweet Saturday at 4:30 timeslot, visions of a blowout are hinted to be particularly prevalent.
5. Packers @ Bears
(Saturday, 8 p.m. ET, Prime Video)
It feels like gridiron blasphemy to trash a rare playoff meeting in the NFL’s oldest rivalry, especially considering the two sides’ original meetings in 2025 (a split series decided by a combined nine points) lived up to their respective billings.
But a lasting aura of “what if” hovers over this one thanks to a plethora of Packer injuries: Tucker Kraft and Micah Parsons have long lingered on injured reserve while medical questions also follow assets like Zach Tom, Dontayvion Wicks, and franchise quarterback Jordan Love. Chicago also has some lost panache on defense (i.e. C.J. Gardner-Johnson) that could affect the path forward.
Another classic could well be in store in the Windy City, especially in what could stand as one of the final cold weather classics staged at Soldier Field. With the sidelined star power, though, the game as is resembles a modern comic book movie in the sense that things might get ugly and toiling in the early going before things are saved by an explosive third act.
4. Texans @ Steelers
(Monday, 8:15 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN)
Slugfest or scintillating? None of the six games on the docket carry such polarizing potential.
At first glance, it’s fair to ponder if situating a 42-year-old Aaron Rodgers against this form of the Houston defense could border on some form of elder abuse. But Rodgers and Co. have quietly amassed a streak of four wins in their final five, including the fantastic finale against Baltimore that extended their campaign. Their reward is facing a Houston group that’s out of the 4:30 slot and into the status of “that one team you don’t want to face in January” after a nine-game winning streak followed up a tepid start.
The defensive firepower on each side will probably keep scoring at a premium but it might be worth watching just for audiences to get to know this Texans group that threatens to be a lasting force: only three of their last nine games were broadcast in an exclusive window and two of those were respectively pushed to streaming and NFL Network.
3. 49ers @ Eagles
(Sunday, 4:30 p.m. ET, Fox)
At first glance, many may scoff at the supposed prestige of this matchup.
San Francisco killed off most of the goodwill garnered from a win over Chicago with a no-show in the Pacific Northwest last Saturday. The defending champion Eagles have been equally meandering, as questions about their offense have reached a boiling point while they took advantage of a dreary division and a manageable schedule.
But hints of desperation of both sides will make this one grand: while there are still some lingering medical woes (the loss of left tackle Trent Williams looms particularly large), the 49ers have a chance at a better go at the Eagles after ailments marred their matchup in the 2023 NFC title game. Philadelphia, on the other hand, has had a rollercoaster championship defense and would love to take advantage of a national opportunity to remind the world of what it is. It’s fair to assume that neither team would be favored in a potential Divisional advancement, but with the end of their respective windows potentially drawing closer, a Philadelphia fracas could produce fireworks.
2. Chargers @ Patriots
(Sunday; 8 p.m., NBC)
Are the kids truly all right? The NFL world is about to find out.
Even with the fickle nature of the NFL playoff bracket, both of these coastal elites have the makings of January mainstays. For now, however, Justin Herbert and Drake Maye feature burning questions that will trail them until a progressive answer is found. Herbert’s queries center on whether he’ll finally earn a postseason breakthrough while Maye probably wouldn’t earn any love in a College Football Playoff-style NFL poll after the Patriots’ victories left a few things to be desired.
If the NFL has its way, this will be the first of several cross-coast competitions between these pinball wizards fully capable of burning out the scoreboard. The original edition usually proves to be the best one, though, and the league obviously has high hopes after placing it in the peacock-branded primetime post.
1. Bills @ Jaguars
(Sunday, 1 p.m. ET, CBS)
A brilliant season for one side is going to end in Wild Card disappointment. With Josh Allen and Trevor Lawrence in tow, not to mention a plethora of complementary weaponry, this rematch of the 2017-18 Wild Card tilt hardly resembles the previous postseason slugfest commandeered by Blake Bortles, Tyrod Taylor, and a 10-3 win for the cats.
No matchup on this NFL Wild Card Weekend has more for each side to collectively gain or lose. In Duval, for example, Jacksonville has the makings of a lasting playoff power but the Lawrence era knows how fleeting postseason glory can be: following an epic comeback win over the Los Angeles Chargers and a respectable challenge against the champion Chiefs in 2023, the Jags went without in the prior two seasons before this fall’s resurrection. Trapped in a small market and a rollercoaster division, Jacksonville must take advantage of every opportunity it gets.
As for Buffalo, the deck is completely set in its favor: no other team on the AFC bracket knows the playoff grind better and its ultimate nemesis remains stationed in Kansas City. There’s a prevailing aura of now or never for the Bills, who shockingly haven’t fallen rear-backward into a Super Bowl despite otherwise dominating this decade. True to the star-crossed nature of the Western New York struggle, the first step of this attainable journey comes against a team that is firing on all cylinders and is also carrying the bittersweet burden of having something to prove.
Geoff Magliocchetti is on X @GeoffJMags
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