While the 49ers are healing up and preparing for their umcoming opponent, there will be 8 teams fighting for their collective lives. This looks to be a pretty good bunch of games. They are :

Saturday, Jan. 7th
6.Bengals(9-7) vs. 3.Texans (10-6), 4:30 pm NBC
6.Lions (10-6) vs. 3.Saints (13-3), 8 pm NBC
Sunday, Jan. 8th
5.Falcons (10-6) vs. 4.Giants (9-7), 1 pm FOX
5.Steelers (12-4) vs. 4.Broncos (8-8), 4:30 pm CBS

All these games have pretty cool story lines. Saturday gives us the Bengals vs the Houstons. The Bengals, left for dead in March, with the Carson Palmer holdout, and the general turmoil (OchoCinco, TJ Houshmanzadah, drug busts, jail time, etc) that usually surrounds that team, came together under rookie QB Andy Dalton (3400 yards), and rookie wideout AJ Green (1,054 yards) to be one of 3 AFC North teams to reach the playoffs. They play the Houston Texans. A team making it’s first visit to the playoffs. They had a magical seaosn underway until they were decimated by injuries. Especially at the QB position. Matt Schaub got hurt in the TB game, Hot Tub Matt Leinart got hurt the next week in the Jacksonville game, and TJ Yates was injured vs Tennessee in week 16. Which led to ancient Jake Delhomme to play their last game. Cincy lost to Houston in week 14 but won 2 of 3 after that. Houston closed out the season with 3 straight losses after that win over Cincy.

Houston is banged up too badly, even if Yates comes back to start this game. Cincy wins 27-17. An upset that really isn’t.

The other Saturday game should be a real barn-burner. The Lions and Saints can both score anywhere on the field at any time. Both teams play on carpet, so this should be a high scoring affair. If last weeks’ game showed anything, it’s that Detroit can score on the road oni the real stuff, putting 41 up in GB in a losing effort. but that’s a later concern. We all know about Brees and Stafford having big seasons. The rub is, NO has not lost at home all year. NO beat Detroit pretty handily 31-17, but that was the game the Ndomakong Suh was suspended for his Indian burn arm stomp. Detroit should feel pretty good about themselves though, at least offensively. On the defensive side? Well, hard to say. NO is 29th in pass defense, but they blitz a lot. They could rattle/hurt Stafford. Detroit has Suh and Fairley up front, but they rank pretty low in pass and rush defense (22nd and 23rd respectively). Their saving grace is they are +11 in give/takeaway.

This one likely comes down to who holds the ball last. NO wins 44-41.

Sunday we have the Falcons and Giants. Probably the least interesting game to me as neither team is really playing very well right now. The Falcons show flashes of brilliance at times, but they also show long stretches of blehhhhh. They have a 4,000 yard passer in Ryan and a 1300 yard rusher in Michael Turner, but they lay stinkers a little too much. Losing to TB? Ouch. Like the Saints losing to the Rams. Their defense is pretty non-descript, but they do stop the run pretty well. The Giants? For all the guts and glory around all the comebacks by Eli and co. there were a lot of painfull losses. Washington beath them 2x, Seattle beat them at home. And other playoff teams beat them (us, NO, and GB). They did beat NE in NE, but seemed to blow their wad with that until the win over Dallas. They can look masterful for long stretches, but as the Niners did to them, they can look out-of-synch and inept as well. They fall behind too much, and it usually kills them.

Coughlin’s head explodes as his team falls behind big yet again, and they can’t dig out. Atl wins 30-20.

Ahhh, Steelers – Broncos. The Molester vs the Annointed one. Blue Collar vs the Knight in White Satin. Worthlessberger vs Teblow. What would normally be a cakewalk for the Steelers is tempered by the fact that Big (dickhead) Ben is very hobbled by the dreaded high-ankle sprain he suffered during the week 14 win over Cleveland. He showed vs the Niners that he isn’t nearly as effective with a bad wheel than he is when healthy. Why he was left in that game when all was decided is a different question, but it didn’t seem to matter either way. Pittsburg still won games, but faced very few tough teams, minus their loss to us. Denver? Well, they are a train-wreck offensively these days, and playing the #1 defense in the NFL shouldn’t help ol’ Timmy Two-step at all. Tebow, for all his late-game heroics, and blind-faith aww-shucks giggling in his pressers after wins or losses, has but up dreadful numbers these few starts this year. The 7-1 record in his starts this year were tempered by the ghastly play during the last 3 hideous losses. To the tune of 30/63, 439 yds, 1 TD 4 picks for a 46.3 rating while being sacked 10 times. This looks to be a loooow scoring game. Take the under. Even if it will likely be 11.

This will be a field position / punting / FG kind of game. Unless Pittsburgh forgets to watch for Tebow scrambles.  Pittsburgh wins 16-6.

Should be a wild and wooly wildcard weekend wallopalooza . . .