Maximum Pain has been avoided. That’s your takeaway from wild-card weekend. The nightmare in its most debased form is dead.
You see, once Carson Wentz went down, there was only one worst-case scenario, and it had nothing to do with the composition of the playoff field, or the identity of the opponents they would ultimately face. Once the Falcons beat the Rams to earn their co-starring role in Saturday evening’s Wait, There’s Football On? Bowl, the sports books immediately made them an unprecedented road favorite, the same way they would have the Panthers, or the Saints, or 25 percent of the teams that did not even qualify for the playoffs, had they been coming to Lincoln Financial Field.