The first game of the "on paper," scintillating slots round after last week's "not good," matches the AFC "4" seed Cincinnati Bengals and the homestanding, AFC top seed, Tennessee Titans.

In the 4:30 or so, CBS with Eagle start, the 3 plus point(s) favorites, Titans hope to raise the home team's record in slot 1 games to (43-9). The (42-9) "going in" record "reduces" to 14 of 17, an incredible win percentage of .823.

The nine road team slot 1 game winners went on to 3 Supe wins ('71 Cowboys and the former and current Baltimore teams, '06 Colts and '12 Ravens) 2 Supe losses which means they won the subsequent conference title game ('92 Bills and '03 Panthers) and 4 lost the next game/conference title tilt ('77 Raiders, '83 Seahawks, '01 Eagles, and '08 Ravens). By the way, 2 of the road slot 1 winners, the '71 Cowboys (it was not based on record) and the '06 Colts (the top seeds Chargers and Ravens lost, giving the Colts a home tilt/semi.)

Linking the Packers of Green Bay, a team with a first round bye and home slots tilt for the 8th time starting in '96 (the only time they won the Supe with that advantage) and Tennessee, I go back to the NFL/AFL days of (1960-1962) and 1967.

In those first 3 cited seasons ('60-'62), both teams, the Packers and the Houston Oilers played for the "all the way" (cue Eric Carmen and The Raspberries) league titles with no Super Bowl following it. In '67, a berth in the second Supe awaited the league title game winner.

Once in '60 the Oilers won and the Packers lost, once in '61 both teams won and in both '62 and '67, the Packers won and the Oilers lost in the title games, with '67 being in effect a "semi."

There has been one instance of both the Packers and the Titans as the Tennessee based team each playing a conference title tilt on the same day/year, that a scant 2 years ago when both Kansas City in route to its second Supe win and SF, the Packers opponent in slot 2 tonight, in route to its second straight Supe loss after wins in their first 5 such games, handed the Titans and Packers respectively "semis." defeats.

Getting to a Cincy/S.F. link, the teams played for Super Bowl berths on the same day/year in both '81 and '88 with both teams winning, before SF prevailed in both subsequent Supes, "covering" the first, but not the second.

I will add regarding SF/Cincy that in the '81 slots but not the '88 such, the teams played on the same Sunday, each winning. In the only other same day SF/Cincy playoffs, the Niners wild card round win at Green Bay followed the 5th of 7 straight (hey I cite my coincidences thus as I typed "straight" Scott Simon interviewing writer Mr. Edmond White said there are also mentions of "STRAIGHT sex" in the 80 plus year old writer's latest book) Cincy wild card round losses, a streak that ended with their (-6) by 7 win vs the Raiders in the first of last week's 6 wild card round games.

Enjoy the slots! I will try to do the same.