Steve Brownlee

By STEVE BROWNLEE

Journal Sports Editor

Well, it’s been a wild ride this week for a whole bunch of teams NOT in the NFL playoffs.

There have been, as of Thursday afternoon, nine vacancies in head coaching positions, including the ones that happened during the regular season and the New York Giants’ job that was filled by John Harbaugh on Thursday.

Doing a little arithmetic, with 32 teams in all and 14 making the playoffs, there are 18 that didn’t get into the postseason dance.

That means exactly half those left-out teams are changing coaches. Actually, now that I think of it, that’s not quite true since one of the vacancies is for a playoff team, the Pittsburgh Steelers.

So actually, eight of 18 teams out of the playoffs fired their coach.

And it sounds like the Green Bay Packers are still up in the air with whether Matt LaFleur will return.

I’m thinking that as of Thursday, LaFleur might have a little more leverage as one of the two coaches that might be on par with him, Harbaugh, is out of the running.

The other is Mike Tomlin from Pittsburgh, and actually with him stepping down from his position, my understanding is that he’s still under contract with the Steelers if he decided he wanted to coach somewhere else next season.

That would very possibly mean there’d have to be compensation if the Packers wanted him, like the trade of a player or a hefty cash payout.

But it sounds like Tomlin is out of coaching for at least a season, so it probably won’t matter anyway.

While LaFleur’s future still hangs in the balance in Green Bay, the Lions are looking for an offensive coordinator after they let John Morton go. Fired Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel is supposed to be a leading candidate, at least if he doesn’t get another head coaching job, possibly with the Browns.

Well, let’s let those teams battle it out for who they’re going to hire for all these open positions.

We can take a look at the divisional round, the second round, of the playoffs for this weekend. I didn’t mention it last week, but these games are listed in chronological order, and team records include the wins that the wild-card teams picked up last week:

• AFC No. 6 Buffalo (13-5) at No. 1 Denver (14-3), 4:30 p.m. Saturday, TV: CBS — I thought I heard early in the week that the Bills were favored in this game even while being on the road and playing on a short week (last weekend they played on Sunday).

Now, though, the latest odds I could find list the Broncos as a point-and-a-half favorite. Seems fair, since Denver doesn’t really have much in the way of playoff experience, while Buffalo, and especially quarterback Josh Allen, has tons of it.

However, don’t forget that Broncos head coach Sean Payton also has plenty of playoff experience and he gets pretty aggressive with his coaching style.

That plus the mile-high air of Denver and a banged-up Allen, and I’ll take the Broncos, 24-19.

• NFC No. 6 San Francisco (13-5) at No. 1 Seattle (14-3), 8 p.m. Saturday, TV: Fox — The 49ers proved they’re a resilient bunch by knocking off the defending Super Bowl champs in Philly last weekend, even with a bunch of players, especially on defense, injured.

But those injuries mounted even further against the Eagles with all-everything tight end George Kittle going down with a torn Achilles.

I see this as too much like the Packers-Bears game last week. The visiting team was game, but there were just too many shortages in personnel to take advantage of an inexperienced home team. Seahawks, 28-23.

• AFC No. 5 Houston (13-5) at No. 2 New England (15-3), 3 p.m. Sunday, TV: ABC, ESPN — This might be the most intriguing matchup simply because of the Texans having probably the best defense AND the worst offense in this edition of the playoffs.

I really like these hounding defenses vs. young QB matchups, and I just think of it as 11-on-1, so I automatically assume the “D” has the advantage from the get-go.

Sure, Patriots signal caller Drake Maye is at least one of the favorites, if not THE favorite, for NFL MVP, but like they say, this is a different animal, the second round of the playoffs. Give me the Texans, 20-16.

• NFC No. 5 Los Angeles Rams (13-5) at No. 2 Chicago (12-6), 6:30 p.m. Sunday, TV: NBC — Who knows what to make of the Bears, who didn’t show up for about 2 1/2 quarters vs. the Packers on Saturday, only to pull off the stunning comeback.

Green Bay was a wounded team, literally, and I don’t see the Rams allowing that kind of instant production on demand. But L.A. does have an offense high-powered enough to build a big halftime lead like the Packers did.

So I’ll take the Rams, 34-30.

• Last week, 4-2, 67 percent.

Journal Sports Editor Steve Brownlee’s email address is sbrownlee@miningjournal.net.