FMIA: Bills over Packers in Super Bowl LVII, Huge Year for Josh Allen, and More Predictions for 2022 Season

Labor Day. Time to stick my neck on the line so you can throw tomatoes at it, and at my head.

I’m picking an Arctic Circle Super Bowl: Buffalo-Green Bay.

I’m picking the Packers to make their first Super Bowl in 12 years by—isn’t it ironic?—going on the road to get there. Man, wouldn’t that be sweet for Aaron Rodgers. And I’m picking the Bills to get off the 0-4, three-decades-old, wide-right schneid to win the first Super Bowl in franchise history. Portable tables of western New York, beware.

Buffalo was almost good enough to win it last year, as we all saw, marauding through the AFC playoffs with 83 points in eight quarters. Then the thud of overtime in Kansas City happened. This year, I think they eliminate all doubts, and all doubters.

The AFC is absolutely loaded. (Tell us more, Mr. Insight.) All four AFC West teams are serious contenders. Baltimore and Cincinnati are. Tennessee is. Indianapolis and Miami could be. Add Buffalo, and that’s 10 teams that wake up this morning thinking they could play into late January. When Matt Ryan might be the ninth-best quarterback in the conference, you know you’ve got a very deep pool of teams that could win on any given Sunday. Or Monday. Or Thursday.

The NFC’s not as deep, but some upstarts—Saints, Vikings, Eagles—could grow into serious threats. I see all making the playoffs.

As for the Rams, trying to become the first team in 18 years to repeat, there’s a lot to like about them. Except the schedule. Since the NFL began handing the Super Bowl champs the Thursday night home game to begin the next season, no titlist has opened with a tougher foe than the ’22 Bills. And I can’t imagine any champion has had 10 games against returning playoff teams. If the Rams win the NFC, however