The Cincinnati Bengals (11-7 SU, 11-7 ATS) beat the Las Vegas Raiders on Wild Card Saturday, 26-19, covering as 6-point home favorites in the process. With the win, they earned the privilege of tangling with the AFC’s top-seeded Tennessee Titans (12-5 SU, 10-7 ATS) in Nashville.

The Tennessee Titans know their opening playoff opponent.

After sitting out wild card weekend as the AFC’s No. 1 seed and watching six games worth of action, the Titans will prepare this week for the Cincinnati Bengals in their AFC Divisional Playoff game on Saturday at Nissan Stadium.

Joe Burrow and the Bengals won their first playoff game in 31 years with Saturday’s victory over the Las Vegas Raiders.

How to watch Tennessee Titans vs. Cincinnati Bengals in AFC Divisional Playoff game

Time:  3:30 p.m. CT on Saturday, Jan. 22

Place: Nissan Stadium in Nashville

TV:  CBS (NewsChannel 5 locally)

Announcers:  TBD

Streaming: NFL app (locally); NFL Game Pass (radio stream)

Radio:  104.5-FM in Nashville (Titans Radio affiliates can be found here)

Cincinnati defeated the Las Vegas Raiders 26-19 at Paul Brown Stadium in an AFC wild-card game on Saturday. It was Cincinnati’s first playoff victory in 31 years, since before cell phones were capable of sending texts, as memes on the internet reminded folks in the days preceding the game.

Saturday, January 22nd, 2022

3:30PM (CT) on @NFLonCBS

— Tennessee Titans (@Titans) January 17, 2022

But the win wasn’t just about ending the longest playoff win drought in the NFL. It was about the first step in making a run at the AFC title.

Over the course of the season, Cincinnati went from the projected cellar dweller in the AFC North to division champs, ending a six-year stretch without a playoff appearance. That journey included an overtime loss to the Green Bay Packers, one of the top teams in the NFL, and a Week 17 win over the Kansas City Chiefs, the AFC representatives in last year’s Super Bowl.

Those performances indicated Cincinnati wasn’t just a team that could win a playoff game. They showed the Bengals can hang with the best in the NFL.

For the second time this season, the Bengals needed to hang tough against the Raiders in order to pick up a win. The first came on Week 11 and set the tone for the second half of Cincinnati’s season.

The second victory was much more significant. It gave the city of Cincinnati something it hasn’t experienced in decades and set the table for the Bengals to have a truly special postseason.

“We expect to beat everybody that we play, not just hang with them,” Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow said after the game.

Burrow added: “I mean, it’s exciting. But this is expected. This isn’t like the icing on top of the cake or anything. This is the cake. So we’re moving on.”

The race to Super Bowl LVI began on Saturday with two games, Sunday gave us three and we’re now down to one game for Super Wild Card Weekend in the NFL with Monday night’s matchup between NFC West foes, the Los Angeles Rams and Arizona Cardinals.

That’s right — betting on playoff football! If you want to stay sharp over the course of the weekend and are looking for a bit of help doing so, you’ve come to the right place.

Cardinals at Rams

Time: Monday, 8:15 p.m. ET (ESPN), stream on fuboTV (try for free)
Open: Rams -4.5
Current: Rams -4

How to watch the Arizona Cardinals vs LA Rams

“Monday Night Football”

6 p.m. Monday on ESPN and ABC 15.

“Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli”

6:15 p.m. Monday on ESPN2 and ESPN+.

Our story isn’t written yet. pic.twitter.com/lpRXM58QjG

— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) January 14, 2022

How to watch the Arizona Cardinals and LA Rams in the NFL playoffs?

Standing and screaming.

That’s the recommended method. Whether with joy or agony, well, that’s the question. It’s been such an up and down season for Arizona, and the last few weeks have definitely been the down part. After starting the season 7-0, it’s been a bumpy ride for the Cardinals, including losing four of their last five.

So yeah, “on edge” is also a pretty good way to describe the mood for watching. That sounds a little more optimistic than “with dread” or “an impending sense of doom.”

What time is the ‘Monday Night Football’ playoff game on ESPN?

It’s the first-ever playoff game on “Monday Night Football,” and ESPN is offering a few options. Whether any of them will be worth watching ultimately is up to the Cardinals and the Rams, of course, but at least there’s some variety.

The traditional broadcast, with Steve Levy doing play-by-play and Brian Griese and Louis Riddick providing analysis, starts at 6 p.m. Arizona time on ESPN. This will also air locally on ABC 15.

“Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli” will also cover the game, starting at 6:15 p.m. Arizona time on ESPN2 and ESPN+. I like the Manning brothers in this format, though some don’t. It’s the best alternative broadcast anyone’s come up with yet, and there have been many attempts.

Series History

Los Angeles have won 11 out of their last 14 games against Arizona.

• Dec 13, 2021 – Los Angeles 30 vs. Arizona 23
• Oct 03, 2021 – Arizona 37 vs. Los Angeles 20
• Jan 03, 2021 – Los Angeles 18 vs. Arizona 7
• Dec 06, 2020 – Los Angeles 38 vs. Arizona 28
• Dec 29, 2019 – Los Angeles 31 vs. Arizona 24
• Dec 01, 2019 – Los Angeles 34 vs. Arizona 7
• Dec 23, 2018 – Los Angeles 31 vs. Arizona 9
• Sep 16, 2018 – Los Angeles 34 vs. Arizona 0
• Dec 03, 2017 – Los Angeles 32 vs. Arizona 16
• Oct 22, 2017 – Los Angeles 33 vs. Arizona 0
• Jan 01, 2017 – Arizona 44 vs. Los Angeles 6
• Oct 02, 2016 – Los Angeles 17 vs. Arizona 13
• Dec 06, 2015 – Arizona 27 vs. Los Angeles 3
• Oct 04, 2015 – Los Angeles 24 vs. Arizona 22

This Sunday the Cowboys roll into Week 6 red hot, winners of four straight games. Dallas will face one of their tougher tests of the season this week as they travel to Foxborough to take on the Patriots.

Before the Cowboys and Pats square off, here are three bold predictions for Sunday’s matchup.

The defense keeps their streak intact, intercepting Mac Jones two times

Turnovers have been a big problem for the Patriots through five games. New England has given the football away nine times, tied for the third-most in football, and has turned the ball over two or more times in four of their five games.

As is usually the case, when a team struggles to take care of the football the quarterback is almost always at the center of the problem. New England signal-caller Mac Jones has proven this true.

The rookie first-round pick is one of the eight quarterbacks in football with five or more interceptions on the season, and he could have many more. Jones has thrown 10 interceptable passes and has 14 danger plays on the season, via Player Profiler, showing he’s lucky to have just five interceptions.

For the fourth straight week, the Cowboys get to go up against a quarterback that has struggled to take care of the football, once again playing perfectly into their defensive strategy.

The Cowboys keep their interception streak alive on Sunday, courtesy of Trevon Diggs and Damontae Kazee, picking off the rookie signal-caller twice.

Cee Dee Lamb scores a rushing touchdown

If there’s one thing that the Cowboys should try to do more on offense after a fantastic start to the season, it’s get the ball in CeeDee Lambs’ hands more. Lamb has had a nice start to the year, catching 24 passes for a team-leading 348 yards (14.5 Y/R) and scoring two touchdowns, but the Cowboys should find creative ways to get him the ball even more.

On Sunday the Cowboys will do so but in a non-conventional way. We’ve seen Lamb take snaps at running back in the Chargers, Eagles and Giants games this season, and we saw him score a rushing touchdown in Week 16 of last year.This week, Kellen Moore cooks up a play to get the ball to Lamb in the backfield, and #88 has reservations for six. Lamb scores the second rushing touchdown of his career on a play that ends up being pivotal to the overall outcome of the game.

The Dallas Cowboys caused the biggest roster wave of the young 2021 season when they announced the release of linebacker Jaylon Smith on Tuesday evening. Smith has been an integral part of the Dallas defense for the last four years but his play had eroded to the point people wondered why it took so long. While the timing of a Week 5 release was odd, and several questions that needed answers were asked, it wasn’t shocking to anyone paying attention to his play or the composition of the Cowboys’ roster.

That composition brings to light a new quandary. Less than 24 hours after the Cowboys announced their surprise-timing release, the New England Patriots joined the fray in releasing two-time All-Pro cornerback Stephon Gilmore. Gilmore of course has been on the radar of Cowboys’ fans for a long time. His future availability has been written about on this site numerous times, and now it becomes a reality. But instead of having to trade for him, teams can now open their wallets to bring him into their fold. Should the Cowboys be one of those teams to pursue him? Here’s a look at the pros and cons of such an overture.

The Cowboys have moved away from a heavy zone concept and are running man coverage in over 60% of their snaps this year. Diggs is shadowing opposing team’s No. 1 receiver, but when teams are able to employ numerous top-level threats, the other receivers have been able to eat. Look at how Chris Godwin, Antonio Brown and Mike Williams terrorized the DBs in the first two weeks of the season, or how the Panthers’ passing attack scored in rapid fire in the fourth quarter when Diggs went out in Week 4.

Dallas Cowboys offensive lineman La’el Collins has sued the NFL and Commissioner Rodger Goodell and is seeking an injunction to halt his five-game suspension over substance abuse violations.

Collins has already served three games for the suspension and filed his lawsuit in Collin County, which encompasses Frisco, the location of the Cowboys’ headquarters.

It claims that Collins missed drug tests when the labor agreement reached in 2020 no longer allowed suspensions over missed tests or positive tests for marijuana. According to an AP report, the NFL called the suit “meritless.”

Collins’ suspension was announced the day after Dallas’ 31-29 loss to defending Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay in the opener. The remaining two games of the suspension are Sunday at home against the New York Giants and Oct. 17 at New England.

The lawsuit says the NFL misled an arbitrator by saying Collins had previously been suspended four games when he hadn’t. The NFL eventually decided to fine rather than suspend Collins over missed tests in early 2020.

In November 2020, the league was prepared to suspend Collins fives games over missed drug tests. The union negotiated a reduction to two games, but an appeal led to an arbitrator reinstating the five-game ban.

Collins’ representatives said the league announced the suspension with another appeal pending. The lawsuit claimed the announcement violated the confidentiality clause in the agreement between the league and the union over substance-abuse policies. The 28-year-old Collins is on his third contract, the most recent a $50 million, five-year extension signed in 2019.