NFL playoff predictions: Chargers could pull upset of the weekend

There are four wild-card games this weekend as the NFL playoffs get underway, and according to Times NFL analyst Sam Farmer, there’s no obvious favorite in any of the games.

“That’s the overriding theme this weekend,” he said. “There’s no chalk in the playoffs.”

Farmer, on the video above, picked his four winners from the weekend games, going with the favored Indianapolis Colts, Philadelphia Eagles and San Francisco 49ers to cover the spread. (Note: his predicted score in the 49ers-Packers game was 27-24, something that escaped our conversation on the video segment.)

But Farmer likes the underdog San Diego Chargers, an excellent road team, to upset the Bengals in Cincinnati. The Bengals, 8-0 at home, are the biggest favorite of the weekend, giving seven points.

Only six NFL wild-card teams have managed to win the Super Bowl, the most recent the Green Bay Packers in 2010. Is there a team playing this weekend that might be the seventh?

It’s certainly possible, says Farmer, adding that virtually all the top teams in the postseason suffered losses somewhere in the last three weeks of the regular season. But he’s sticking with the two teams he has gone with all season: Seattle and Denver.

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