Weekly Gold — Wild Card Week: It’s Time to Raise The Stakes!

5 min readJan 7, 2021

Welcome to Champions Round!

🎉 Play Seven Stakes Now

The NFL regular season is over, but the fun is just getting started here at Champions Round! It’s time to raise the stakes!

Our Seven Stakes contest is live and your picks are due by January 9th!

Here’s how it works: Create or join a league with friends. We will ask seven questions which have multiple right and wrong answers. These are the stakes! Make your choices, watch the results live, team with the highest score wins!

Here are the questions for the NFL Playoffs:
Win the Super Bowl, Advance to the Super Bowl, Advance to the Conference Championship, Advance to the Divisional Round.

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Then you will be asked to pick a Super Bowl MVP, a NFL Playoffs Game Prop and finally a NFL Playoffs Player Prop.

You will be awarded points based on the Odds we have set. For example: If you pick the Kansas City Chiefs to win the Super Bowl and they win it you will earn 180 Points. If they don’t win, you will score zero. The goal, as always, is to earn the most points!

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Download the Champions Round app (available on iOS and Android) and create a Seven Stakes league today!

#RaiseTheStakes

🏆 Fantasy For Good

One last thing about our Seven Stakes game mode. We wanted to add in a charity component so here’s the deal: The LEAGUE that scores the most total points in our Seven Stakes contest will have a donation made by Champions Round to the charity of the league’s choosing. We will donate $1,000 in their names.

Yes, the goal is to beat your league mates. However, if you’re out of the running, you can still cheer on bets all the way through the Super Bowl. We’re all about crowning champions, but we can help uplift some folks along the way. That’s ultimately what we’re all about.

#FantasyForGood

🥇 Weekly Awards

Week 17 Fantasy MVPs:
Cam Newton, Jonathan Taylor, Derrick Henry, Kirk cousins, Brandin Cooks, Marvin Jones Jr., Justin Herbert, Antonio Browns, Tom Brady, Sterling Shepard, JK Dobbins.

Week 17 Fantasy LVPs:
Allen Robinson, Kareem Hunt, Todd Gurley, Rob Gronkowski, DK Metcalf, Kyler Murray, Evan Engram, Ito Smith, Devin Singletary, Malcolm Brown.

Final MVP Standings:
1. Aaron Rodgers
2. Josh Allen
3. Patrick Mahomes
4. Derrick Henry

Final Regular Season Power Rankings:
1. Chiefs
2. Packers
3. Bills
4. Saints
5. Ravens

🎙 The Champions Round Show: Wild Card Edition

Chase Payne joins us to talk Seven Stakes, Fantasy For Good and his Wild Card predictions
Michael Grandinetti dials in to discuss his Seven Stakes picks and his best bets for Wild Card week.

💰 Golden Nuggets — Wild Card Predictions

This year we get SIX Wild Card games. So, here we go.

Saturday, January 9th

Bills 42 (-6.5) — Colts 28
The Bills are as hot as any team in the NFL right now. Playing in front of some home fans in Buffalo, the Bills should have their way with the Colts. However, if the Bills run defense can’t slow down red-hot Jonathan Taylor, they could have some issues.

Seahawks 23 (-4) — Rams 20
People seem to be sleeping on the Seahawks. All they do is win close games. I’ll take Russell Wilson in any playoff game, especially with the Rams’ issues at QB.

Buccaneers 27 (-9) — Washington 24
Here’s where it gets interesting. Tom Brady has been phenomenal of late, but he’s struggled in primetime games this year. Meanwhile, the NFC champs are being completely written off. This team plays incredible defense. I think Brady will probably find a way to sneak this one out, but don’t be surprised if Washington pulls the upset.

Sunday, January 10th

Ravens 37 (-3) — Titans 34
The best game of the weekend. The Titans took out the Ravens in the divisional round last year. The Ravens are playing incredible ball right now and the Titans defense is pretty awful. Still, this should go down to the wire. Can Lamar get it done in the playoffs? I think so.

Saints 35 (10) — Bears 21
Not much to say about this one. The Bears are flawed. The Saints are a solid team who should get by Chicago without much of an issue. However, I don’t believe the Saints will be long for the playoffs.

Steelers 27 (-6) — Browns 20
The Browns are dealing with COVID issues and the coaching staff will be severely depleted. It’s hard to beat a team like the Steelers twice in a row and the Browns have a negative point differential on the season. Pittsburgh hasn’t played an entire good game in about 6 weeks, but should find a way to win and cover this week.

👀 Moments of Payne

Jalen Hurts getting benched in the middle of the game broke my heart. In the midst of a rivalry game with huge playoff implications, Jalen became collateral damage to a ‘business decision’. For days I’ve sat with it, trying to understand why Doug Pederson would make a move like that. Considering everything at stake, I’ve concluded there are only two reasons this could happen.

1. Gross Incompetence
2. Pettiness by sticking it to Giants fans.

Neither of which are fair Jalen or the Eagles players risking lives and health to play this game.