KIWA Sports is back with more predictions for this year’s NFL Playoffs! Hopefully it isn’t your first time here, but if it is, here is what is going on:
Sam, Nate, Katie, and Anna send out their individual game picks for the week. They are trying to predict the obvious favorites as well as chaotic upsets for ultimate bragging rights here at KIWA.
We started this segment in Week 10 of the regular season; a total of nine weeks and 548 selections were made from the KIWA crew. Now, it’s time for us to have a little playoff of our own alongside the big boys in the NFL.
Final Regular Season Standings
| # | Player | (W-L) |
| 1 | Nate Broek | 87-50 |
| T2 | Anna Stallman | 85-52 |
| T2 | Sam Heyn | 85-52 |
| 4 | Katie Loger | 77-60 |
Going into the final week of our regular season, it was a dead lock for the first place spot between Nate and Anna. This came from an impressive comeback from Anna and a not-so-hot week for Nate in Week 17. However, she wasn’t able to truly finish that comeback with her selections in Week 18. She finished two games behind Nate, the #1 seed going into the playoffs.
Three games behind the frontrunners going into Week 18 was Sam, who had a stellar 12-4 week, closing the gap and managing to tie for second with Anna in the final regular season standings.
The story of Katie’s regular season was living for chaos, with the 3-14 Jets being a very popular upset selection for her this season. This strategy, however, didn’t pan out, finishing 4th in our regular season standings.
To get a look at each selection from our final week of the regular season, see KIWA NFL Picks – Week 18.
With these standings, our four pickers have been seeded and enter the KIWA NFL Picks Playoff.
Playoff Structure
Round One
| # | Semifinal #1 | # | Semifinal #2 |
| 1 | Nate Broek | T2 | Anna Stallman |
| 4 | Katie Loger | T2 | Sam Heyn |
Round Two
| # | Championship | # | Third Place |
| TBD | Winner of Nate vs. Katie | TBD | Loser of Nate vs. Katie |
| TBD | Winner of Anna vs. Sam | TBD | Loser of Anna vs. Sam |
Now that they have been seeded, like the NFL postseason, prior regular season standings are meaningless going forward. Each correct pick in the KIWA Picks Playoff is awarded point values based on the importance of each NFL playoff game.
To correspond with NFL play, we must factor that there are 14 total teams involved in their playoff as well as the unique wildcard structure for the AFC/NFC’s #1 seed (four rounds needed). But, there are only four players here at KIWA (two rounds needed). Because of this, each round of our playoff will last two weeks of the NFL playoffs.
Round One contains the six wildcard matchups (1/10 through 1/12), each worth one point. along with four divisional matchups (1/17 and 1/18), each worth two points for a full potential of 14 points.
Round Two only features three games, the NFC and AFC Championship (1/25), each worth three points, as well as the Super Bowl (2/8), worth four points, for a full potential of 10 points.
If there is a tie in points at the end of a round, the matchup will follow a point differential system. The first tiebreaker goes to whoever scored higher in total point differential from all their selections in that round. If the tie still isn’t broken, it goes to the player whose unique pick had the highest point differential.
We’ll see if the playoff here at KIWA follows a similar trend of the regular season rankings. Anything can happen, however; we may just see chaos unfold in year one.
Round One
Semifinal #1
| #1 | Nate Broek (87-50) | 0 | 0 | Katie Loger (77-60) | #4 |
| Point Diff. | 0 | 0 | Point Diff. |
Wildcard Matchups (1pt each) – January 10, 11, and 12
| Away | # | Home | # | Nate’s Pick | Pts. | Diff. | Katie’s Pick | Pts. | Diff. |
| Rams | Panthers | Rams | Rams | ||||||
| Packers | Bears | Bears | Bears | ||||||
| Bills | Jaguars | Bills | Bills | ||||||
| 49ers | Eagles | Eagles | 49ers | ||||||
| Chargers | Patriots | Patriots | Patriots | ||||||
| Texans | Steelers | Texans | Steelers |
Divisional Matchups (2pts each) – January 17 and 18
| Away | # | Home | # | Nate’s Pick | Pts. | Diff. | Katie’s Pick | Pts. | Diff. |
| TBD | TBD | ||||||||
| TBD | TBD | ||||||||
| TBD | TBD | ||||||||
| TBD | TBD |
——
Semifinal #2
| #2 | Anna Stallman (85-52) | 0 | 0 | Sam Heyn (85-52) | #2 |
| Point Diff. | 0 | 0 | Point Diff. |
Wildcard Matchups (1pt each) – January 10, 11, and 12
| Away | # | Home | # | Anna’s Pick | Pts. | Diff. | Sam’s Pick | Pts. | Diff. |
| Rams | Panthers | Rams | Rams | ||||||
| Packers | Bears | Bears | Packers | ||||||
| Bills | Jaguars | Jaguars | Bills | ||||||
| 49ers | Eagles | 49ers | Eagles | ||||||
| Chargers | Patriots | Patriots | Patriots | ||||||
| Texans | Steelers | Texans | Texans |
Divisional Matchups (2pts each) – January 17 and 18
| Away | # | Home | # | Anna’s Pick | Pts. | Diff. | Sam’s Pick | Pts. | Diff. |
| TBD | TBD | ||||||||
| TBD | TBD | ||||||||
| TBD | TBD | ||||||||
| TBD | TBD |
Round Two
Stay tuned for the second round of our playoff when the four remaining NFL teams clash for the NFC and AFC Championship on January 25th.
