Vegas Nation staff predicts conference championships, Super Bowl

Each of the last two NFL seasons has ended with a Super Bowl champion winning the Lombardi Trophy in their home stadium.

The Vegas Nation staff expects that streak to end this season. Nobody is predicting the Cardinals to win Super Bowl LVII, which will be played on Feb. 12, 2023, in Glendale, Arizona.

That would break up a streak started by the Buccaneers’ victory over Kansas City in Tampa in 2021 and continued by the Rams, who beat the Bengals at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, earlier this year.

Before those two games, no host team had ever won a Super Bowl. The panel does expect history to be made again this season, however.

The Buffalo Bills are the trendy pick to win the first Super Bowl in franchise history, a victory that would ignite a mass celebration in western New York and help longtime followers of the downtrodden team begin to heal from four consecutive Super Bowl losses of the early 1990s.

In fact, four of the five predictions in this poll call for the ovewhelming favorite and chalky play to come through at the end of the year.

It would mark the rare occurrence of a preseason favorite actually living up to those lofty expectations.

Here are the staff predictions for the postseason:

AFC championship

Ed Graney: Bills over Chargers

Vinny Bonsignore: Bills over Raiders

Adam Hill: Ravens over Chargers

Sam Gordon: Bills over Bengals

Heidi Fang: Bills over Ravens

NFC championship

Ed Graney: Rams over 49ers

Vinny Bonsignore: Buccaneers over Rams

Adam Hill: Packers over Eagles

Sam Gordon: 49ers over Buccaneers

Heidi Fang: Rams over Buccaneers

Super Bowl LVII

Ed Graney: Bills over Rams

Vinny Bonsignore: Bills over Buccaneers

Adam Hill: Ravens over Packers

Sam Gordon: Bills over 49ers

Heidi Fang: Bills over Rams

Las Vegas Review-Journal