ETBLITZ POWER PICKS | Title games today to decide the Super Bowl teams; here’s how we see it

(Photo courtesy of USATODAY.COM)
EDITOR’S NOTE: ETBlitz.com has only had two points of issue with its server in its near two-year history: on Dec. 1, 2023, and this past week. Unfortunately, some stories were affected and this is one of them. This story should have appeared Sunday morning, and it’s our regret that it was unviewable to many. Here it is, in its entirety, and we’ll return shortly before Sunday, Feb. 9 for our final picks of the season.
By MITCH LUCAS
There are three football games left in the 2024 season, and all of them, of course, decide the National Football League’s champion.
The two conference championship games are today: the NFC Championship at 2 p.m. on FOX, featuring wild-card Washington – in the playoffs in a meaningful way for the first time since the 1991 season – visiting their NFC East Division rival Philadelphia. And at 5:30 p.m. locally, on CBS, it’s Kansas City hosting Buffalo.
Kansas City is led by former Whitehouse High School standout Patrick Mahomes at quarterback, and is attempting to be the first NFL franchise to ever win three consecutive Super Bowls.
Our ETBlitz.com panel has been picking the outcomes of games since the final weekend of August, the first weekend of September, and that comes out to exactly 402 games before these two title games today.
Here’s how things look.
Joe Hale, the longtime East Texas sportswriter, has pulled away to the point that it’s laughable. Joe leads the field with a record of 299-107, and with just three games left to pick – today’s title games, and then the Super Bowl on Feb. 9 – no one can catch him.
My daughter, a student at Kilgore College who helps ETBlitz with social media and occasionally writes a column here called “Ashtyn’s World,” is second in the standings this year with a 282-120.
Kilgore Independent School District board member and my buddy, Dereck Borders, is in third (278-124), and in my little understated way, I’m fourth, but having a not-so-great year with a 273-129 mark.
My son Jacob, a Creative Video major in the athletic department at the University of Alabama, is a step behind me (272-130), and then it’s KISD instructor and one of our photographers, Dennis Jacobs (266-136), a multi-time champion at these picks that some of us have done every year for, oh, about 31 years.
Yeah, you’d think I’d be better in 402 games than 273 wins, huh?
Freelance photographer Ronnie Sartors is a win behind Dennis (265-127), but has 10 less games to his credit simply because he started a week after the rest of us.
ETBlitz.com assistant editor Clayton Fletcher has a 258-144 record before today’s games, and our young, talented photographer Alex Nabor is a game back (257-145). And then my wife and ETBlitz’s executive editor, Jenna Lucas, is 251-151.
So, how did everyone see today’s title games?
NFC Championship, 2 p.m., FOX; Washington at Philadelphia: Dereck, Clayton, and Alex all like Washington, in those horrible, awful, dreary, dreadful (did I mention awful?) uniforms, to go into Philadelphia and upset the Eagles. The rest of us – Ronnie, Jenna, Ashtyn, Jacob, Dennis, and myself – think the Eagles will hold serve and earn another trip to the Super Bowl. The Eagles’ right tackle, by the way, who wears No. 65, is former Kilgore College standout Lane Johnson. This is fairly well-documented; ETBlitz.com has had more than one story on Lane, who helped fund the weight training center here on the KC campus, but wanted to point out he’s still in that starting lineup, and is likely to be a hall-of-famer one day.
AFC Championship, 5:30 p.m., CBS; Buffalo at Kansas City: So – as much as I would love for Buffalo to go into Kansas City and close the mouths of the arrogant Chiefs (yes, I said it), it’s not going to happen. Or at least, I don’t believe it is. Not today. And joining me in that belief are Dereck and Ashtyn, because we are all, in fact, sane people. The ones who are insane in this matter are everyone else: Jenna, Jacob, Alex, Clayton, Dennis and Ronnie, who have all picked Buffalo to somehow pull this off, facing the Chiefs, the hostile crowd, and – well, you fill in the blank there.
We’ll be back shortly before Super Bowl LIX (59) for our final picks of the season.
Y’all think Joe Hale will win?