NFL wild card round bold predictions: James Cook lights up Jags' defense; Steelers protect Aaron Rodgers

The 2025 NFL playoffs are finally here, and they're already serving us up the unexpected based off the initial bracket.

This postseason features the most playoff teams who lost 11 or more games the year prior: the New England Patriots, the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Chicago Bears, the Carolina Panthers and the San Francisco 49ers. These playoffs also have the most worst-to-first division winners all-time: the Patriots, Bears and Panthers. The 18-33 combined record from 2024 of the AFC's top three seeds in 2025 -- the Denver Broncos, Patriots and Jaguars -- is the worst previous season record by a conference's top three playoff seeds in NFL playoff history. 

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Jordan Dajani

That means the stage is set for the wild card round of these playoffs to get a little weird. So what could some of those things be on wild card weekend? Here's an educated projection of five bold predictions to kick off the 2025 NFL playoffs.

Odds courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook

QB Bryce Young recreates his best career game from Week 13 vs. Rams

Young threw for 3,011 passing yards in 2025, the fewest by a quarterback to make 16-plus starts and reach the playoffs since Minnesota Vikings quarterback Christian Ponder in 2012. Ponder produced only 2,935 yards passing despite playing alongside 2012 NFL MVP running back Adrian Peterson. Young's 87.78 passer rating is also the lowest among the 14 postseason starting quarterbacks and ranked seventh-lowest in the NFL this season.

The good news for Young and Co. is that he played the best game of his three-year career against the Rams, Carolina's wild card round opponent, in a 31-28 Week 13 win. It is Young's only game with a 75% or better completion percentage (15 of 20), three or more passing touchdowns (three) and no turnovers.

Young will hit all of those benchmarks once again on Sunday in his NFL playoff debut. 

Bears QB Caleb Williams gets sacked three times despite Micah Parsons absence

Green Bay has an NFL-low three sacks during its four-game losing streak that ended the regular season. That stretch coincided with All-Pro edge rusher Micah Parsons going down for the season with a torn ACL. Bears quarterback Caleb Williams has only been sacked once in the last three weeks, including zero times against the Packers in Week 16. 

Packers Pro Bowl edge rusher Rashan Gary, who hasn't recorded a sack since Week 8 at the Pittsburgh Steelers, will finally get to the quarterback, along with edge rushers Kingsley Enagbare and Lukas Van Ness, to match Green Bay's total in the last four weeks of the regular season. 

RB James Cook outduels Jaguars' No. 1 run defense for 100-yard game

The Jaguars enter the playoffs as the NFL's No. 1 run defense, allowing just 85.6 rushing yards per game. Bills running back James Cook is the 2025 NFL rushing champion with 1,621 yards in the regular season. That means Sunday afternoon will be the seventh playoff matchup between the league's No. 1 rusher and No. 1 rush defense since the 1970 AFL/NFL merger.

In the previous six such matchups, the No. 1 rusher got smoked by the No. 1 rush defense they faced, running for an average of 49.7 rushing yards per game. The 2025 Jaguars are the second team in the 21st century, along with the 2022 San Francisco 49ers, to not allow a 75-yard rusher in a game in the regular season. Not only will Cook go for more than 50 yards rushing against the Jaguars' No. 1 run defense, but he'll also explode for over 100 yards against Jacksonville. 

Here's why: none of the previous NFL rushing champions that faced the league's No. 1 rush defense in the playoffs had a quarterback who is as big a rushing threat as Josh Allen. Allen led all quarterbacks in rushing yards (579), making the 2025 Bills the first team with the NFL rushing champion (Cook) and the quarterback rushing leader (Allen) in the same season since the 1970 AFL/NFL merger. 

The threat of Allen will allow Cook to get the breathing room required to do what no one has against the Jaguars' run defense this season: run for more than 100 yards against them.

WR Stefon Diggs goes off for 100 receiving yards vs. Chargers' top five pass defense

Stefon Diggs has 100-yard playoff games with both the Vikings and the Bills. Only Keith Jackson has 100-yard receiving games with three different teams. Diggs will join Jackson in that elusive club despite the Chargers' defense being top five against the pass (179.9 passing yards per game allowed, fifth best in the NFL) and having a top 10 pass rush (45 sacks, tied for the 10th-most in the NFL).

Diggs will accomplish this feat because of how prolific Patriots quarterback Drake Maye has been going deep this season. Maye became just the fifth quarterback in the last 30 seasons to lead the NFL in completion percentage (72%), yards per pass attempt (8.9) and passer rating (113.5) all in the same year. He joined Tony Romo (2014), Brady (2007), Kurt Warner (1999) and Steve Young (1997) on that exclusive list. At the age of 23 years old, Maye became the youngest quarterback to ever lead the NFL in both completion percentage and yards per pass attempt in a single season, per CBS Sports Research. 

Maye is also elite going deep, ranking in the top two for completions, completion percentage and passing touchdowns on throws of 15 or more air yards. Even though the Chargers' defense is also in the top two in the same metrics defensively, Maye's and Diggs' connections will win out, and Diggs will go over 100 yards receiving. 

* Both sides are top two in the NFL in every category

Aaron Rodgers isn't sacked once vs. Danielle Hunter, Will Anderson Jr. 

The Houston Texans possess the NFL's No. 2 scoring defense (17.4 points per game allowed) and the league's No. 1 total defense (277.2 total yards per game allowed) thanks to the best pass-rush duo in the league: five-time Pro Bowl edge rusher Danielle Hunter (15.0 sacks this season, the third-most in the NFL) and two-time Pro Bowl edge rusher Will Anderson Jr. (12.0 sacks this season, tied for the eighth-most in the NFL).

Four-time NFL MVP and Super Bowl XLV MVP quarterback Aaron Rodgers can't quite dance around in the pocket as he used to at the age of 42, but with No. 1 wide receiver DK Metcalf back from his two-game suspension, Rodgers will get the football out to him quickly. So quickly, in fact, that Rodgers won't be sacked against Hunter and Anderson Jr. at all on Monday night.