So for anyone not aware of what I’m doing this offseason - which you should because its consumed the majority of my recent posts - is I’m flipping a quarter and comparing it to Yahoo!’s NFL expert Chris Carter’s playoff picks. I chose Chris not to pick on him personally, but its his picks and breakdowns which are being featured on Yahoo!’s NFL Playoffs section.

So what I’ve done is gone in order in terms of staring time, and flipped a quarter to “predict” the winner of each game, where heads is the home team and tails is away. Currently, after a strange Sunday, I’m still one ahead on Chris. In round one, my quarter correctly predicted 3 of 4 games, and 2 of 4 in round two. Essentially, my original thinking was that predicting the playoffs is such a crap shoot, that can’t anyone, even a quarter, finish the playoffs with a .500 percentage of correct predictions?

That’s the way it’s shaping up right now, as my quarter’s 5 of 8 is outperforming Yahoo!’s Carter who is 4 of 8 - exactly .500.

This weekend’s contests should really challenge the quarter, but the way I see it, even if the 25 cent piece gets one game correct this weekend, Chris and the quarter go into the Super Bowl in a tie with 6 correct picks out of 10 (if he gets both correct this weekend). So, onto the picks

Game 1: AFC Championship, NYG at GB

Really, this is the game my quarter was hoping for. Although Green Bay plays great at home, the G-Men have played almost as well on the road. Meaning that in my mind, there’s no solid prediction here. Even a good pick isn’t much more than a 50/50 shot in the dark. Chris Carter picks Green Bay - big surprise - since he has only picked two away teams to win on the road so far in the postseason.

The coin flip: Heads

Game 2: AFC Championship, SD at NE

This is the one I’m worried about. New England is the clear favorite, and I’m locked into whatever the coin says. Last week I got lucky with New England, but then again, the coin also took Dallas who was considered to be a heavy favorite. Since Chris Carter is not insane, he has taken New England, which if I didn’t have the coin I’d take in a heartbeat too. Note though that Chris, a former player, really seems to believe in the homefield advantage; in the Divisional and Conference rounds his predicted winners have all been the home teams.

The coin flip:crap…Tails

So in the end, the predictions going into this weekend are:

Well, the good news is that worst case scenario, the quarter and Chris Carter go into the Super Bowl all tied up for the playoffs. And if - and I do heavily and deliberately emphasize the word IF - the Chargers were to pull off one of the bigger upsets in playoff history, then the quarter and I would clinch the competition which of course, Chris Carter has no ideas he is partaking in.