Welcome to the Tuesday edition of the Pick Six Newsletter!I hope you enjoyed watching J.J. Watt on Christmas night, because that will be the final time you ever get to see him play in a home game. The three-time Defensive Player of the Year sent shockwaves around the with a tweet on Tuesday where he appeared to .I should have known something big was coming today because the Chargers made the playoffs last night, and the Chargers ALWAYS get overshadowed by something. The good news for Chargers fans is that we'll be breaking down last night's game in today's newsletter, plus we'll be taking a look back at J.J. Watt's career.Here's your weekly reminder to tell all your friends to sign up for the Pick Six newsletter. To get them to sign up, all you have to do is with them. All right, let's get to the rundown.The Chargers are in the playoffs! I repeat, the Chargers are in the playoffs! One year after choking away a playoff berth, the Chargers made up for it by clinching one on Monday night with a 20-3 win over the Colts. After the game, Ryan Wilson, Will Brinson and I broke everything down and here are three
Marcus Kruger Jersey key things we covered on the podcast: Chargers defense dominates.When the Chargers win, it's usually because their offense has a big game, but on Monday, the defense actually carried them to the victory. The defense got to go up against Nick Foles and they absolutely feasted on him. The Chargers sacked Foles SEVEN times in the game with two of those coming from Morgan Fox. The defense also recorded three interceptions on a night where the only defensive mistake came from Derwin James, who was ejected for an illegal hit (You ). The Chargers offense wasn't great, but it didn't have to be, thanks to the way the defense played. Justin Herbert turned the ball over
Dominik Kahun Jersey twice, but there were also plenty of bright spots for the offense, with most of those coming from Austin Ekeler (79 total yards, two touchdowns) and Keenan Allen (11 catches for 104 yards). The Chargers offense will definitely have to play better than it did Monday if they want to advance in the playoffs this year.Colts offense looks horrible with Nick Foles.The Colts offense might have finally hit rock bottom, which is saying a lot considering how bad this team has looked on offense all season. With Foles running the show, the Colts were a total disaster: Not only did Foles throw three interceptions, but he was sacked seven times AND Indy didn't convert a single third down (0 for 10). This score probably would have been uglier if not for an inspired effort from a Colts defense that forced two turnovers while sacking Justin Herbert four times. One of those sacks led to a fumble in the second half that gave Indy po se sion on the Chargers' 21-yard line, but the offense squandered that opportunity away, just like it squandered away any chance Indy had of winning.Chargers clinch playoff berth. For the first time since 2018, the Chargers are headed to the playoffs. The win over the Colts officially clinched a spot for the Chargers, and now, they can look to improve their seeding. As things stand right now, the Chargers are the sixth seed in the AFC, but they're also still alive to get the fifth seed, which could be big, because if that happens, they would end up playing the AFC South champion. On the other hand, if the Chargers get stuck with the sixth seed, they'll be forced to open the postseason against either the Bills, Chiefs or the team that wins the AFC North. The thing about the Chargers is that they're absolutely dangerous and they have the talent to beat anyone, but they're also the Chargers and no one would be surprised if they got upset in the first round. This is going to be an interesting team to watch come playoff time.We talked about those three things, and to be honest, we spent most of our time breaking down what might happen with the AFC playoff picture. If you want to listen to the rest of our recap, be . You .If you need more playoff content, we broke down the AFC wild-card race, and you
Marian Hossa Jersey can . We also tried to figure out which NFC teams might end up .If you read Prisco's Power Rankings last week, you're going to notice that not very much has changed since then. First of all, the top eight teams in this week's rankings are in the exact same spot as they were last week. I'm gue sing Pete got lazy due to the holiday. With that in mind, let's check out Prisco's top five heading into Week 17:EaglesBillsChiefsBengals49ersDropped out: No oneI'm not going to spoil the rest of the Power Rankings here, but I am going to give you a few nuggets. Here's what has changed since last week:For the second straight week, the biggest jump went to the JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS. Following their win over the Jets on Thursday
Luc Snuggerud Jersey , Prisco vaulted them up four spots from 17th to 13th, which means the Jags have now moved up 11 spots over the past two weeks. The Jags (7-8) have put themselves in a position to steal the AFC South from the Titans (7-8), and that will happen if Jacksonville can beat Tenne see in Week 18 (This week's game against the Texans has no bearing on the division title race).The biggest jump in the NFC went to the Carolina Panthers, which was mildly surprising, because I wasn't sure if Pete even knew they existed. Following their dominating win over the Lions, Prisco moved them up four spots from 25th to 21st. The Panthers could take a huge step toward winning the NFC South title on Sunday if they can beat the Buccaneers. The biggest drop this week went to the Browns. Deshaun Watson has been the most expensive disappointment in the NFL this year not named Ru sell Wilson. Following the Browns' lo s to the Saints, Prisco dropped them four spots, from 21st to 25th. As for the bottom of the rankings, we have big news: There's a new team ranked last and that team is the Denver Broncos. If you need a recap of what life has been like for the Broncos over the past 48 hours, here's a quick one: They gave up 51 points to the Rams, their QB got made fun of by a "SpongeBob Squarepants" character, their coach
NHL Chicago Blackhawks Jersey got fired and Prisco moved them to the bottom of his power rankings. Not a great week for Denver.If you want to know where your favorite team . If you want to argue with Prisco over his rankings, you . I argue with him all the time about everything.If it's Tuesday, that can only mean one thing: It's time for my weekly picks.Last week, I fell flat on my face with an 8-8 record and obviously, I blame that poor showing on the fact that I drank way too much eggnog in the lead up to Christmas. You should never drink eggnog while making picks, everyone knows that. I won't be drinking any eggnog this week, so let's hope that means I'll do better than I did last week. Anyway, here are three of my picks for Week 17: Dolphins at Patriots (-2.5) (1 p.m. ET, CBS):The Dolphins are in the midst of
