We're only five days into the new year and it seems that 2021 is already out to get the Cleveland Browns. 

After clinching their first playoff spot in nearly 20 years with a win in Week 17, Browns fans had less than 48 hours to celebrate before they got the ugly news on Tuesday that multiple members of the organization, including coach Kevin Stefanski, have tested positive for COVID-19 and therefore will miss this week's playoff game against the Steelers. There is no team in the NFL with worse luck than the Cleveland Browns. 

Anyway, happy Tuesday to everyone, let's get to the rundown where we'll be spending plenty of time talking about Cleveland's situation heading into their wild-card game against the Steelers. 

As always, here's your weekly reminder to tell all your friends to sign up for the newsletter. All you have to do is click here and then share the link. If you know any Browns fans, feel free to sign them up, because they could definitely use some fun in their life right now.  

For the past 17 weeks, the Tuesday morning podcast was pretty simple: It was Ryan Wilson, Will Brinson and I rehashing the Monday night game. However, with no more Monday games, that means we had to come up with something else to talk about this week and that's exactly what we did.

Since our favorite thing to do during the offseason is to rank things, we decided to rank the coaching vacancies. Here's what we came up with: 

1. Chargers: You have Justin Herbert plus a core group of players that should help you compete right away. Plus you get to live in Southern California. The only downside is that you're stuck in the same division as Patrick Mahomes. 
2. Jaguars: You could easily make the case that this is the top job available. The Jags have the top pick in the 2021 draft (hello Trevor Lawrence), they have 11 total picks to restock their roster with and they have more than $100 million in salary-cap space. Also, it doesn't hurt that they're located in Florida, which doesn't have a state income tax. 
3. Jets: The Jets have two first-round picks and a lot of salary cap space, plus a general manager in Joe Douglas who's well respected around the league. The biggest decision any new coach will have to make (with Douglas' help) is whether to keep Sam Darnold or to grab a quarterback in the draft. 
4. Texans: If you want to be successful in today's NFL you have to have a great quarterback and the Texans have a great quarterback. Nothing else about this situation is ideal, but Deshaun Watson makes up for the shortcomings. 
T-5. Falcons and Lions: These two teams are in similar situations with aging quarterbacks that might not return next season. If Matt Ryan leaves Atlanta or if Matthew Stafford leaves Detroit, these teams could be looking at a total rebuild and total rebuilds are not fun for new coaches. 

To listen to today's episode -- and subscribe to the podcast -- be sure to click here.   

There is no team in the NFL with worse luck than the Cleveland Browns and you will never convince me otherwise. They waited nearly 20 years to get back to the playoffs, and now, it looks like the coach who ended the drought isn't going to be allowed to attend Sunday's wild-card game against the Steelers. 

The team announced on Tuesday that five members of the organization have tested positive for COVID-19, including head coach Kevin Stefanski. Under NFL rules, if you test positive for COVID-19, you're automatically out for at least 10 days, which means Stefanski won't be allowed to coach on Sunday in what will be the Browns' first playoff game since 2002. At this point, the only way Stefanski would be allowed to coach is if the result ends up being a false positive or if the NFL decides to postpone the game, which would be highly unlikely, considering the league hasn't really been willing change its schedule (The Lions had to play without their coaching staff in Week 16).

With Stefanski out, special teams coordinator Mike Priefer will serve as head coach for the game. Besides Stefanski, tight ends coach Drew Petzing and defensive backs coach Jeff Howard also tested positive along with left guard Joel Bitonio and receiver KhaDarel Hodge, meaning those four will also have to miss Sunday's game. The loss of Bitonio is especially significant, considering the Browns will be going up against a Steelers team that led the NFL in sacks this year. 

The NFL will now conduct contract tracing and there's a chance that more people could be sidelined if any other them had any close contact with the five people who tested positive. The Browns played without their receivers due to COVID in Week 16 and lost to the Jets.

This situation is a disaster for both the NFL and the Browns. Asking a team to play short-handed during the regular season is one thing, but asking that in the playoffs seems absurd. On the other hand, postponing it doesn't really seem fair to the Steelers, who have already had to deal with multiple postponed games this season.

The regular season might be over, but that doesn't mean Pete Prisco is done with his power rankings for the year. Prisco will be punching out his rankings each week until the Super Bowl... unless the Groundhog sees his shadow. Prisco takes six weeks off if the Groundhog sees his shadow. Anyway, let's get to this week's rankings.      

For the third straight week, Prisco has the same teams in the same order in his top five. 

1. Chiefs (Same as last week)
2. Packers  (Same as last week)
3. Bills  (Same as last week)
4. Seahawks (Same as last week)
5. Saints  (Same as last week)

I'm not going to spoil the rest of the power rankings here, but I am going to give you a few nuggets: 

• The biggest drop this week went to the Miami Dolphins, who fell from ninth to 15th, which is fair, because you should definitely take a huge fall when you lose by 30 points in a game where your opponent played their backups for an entire half.   
• The biggest jump this week went to Washington. Should they have moved up for winning a game that Doug Pederson handed them on a silver platter? Probably not, but Prisco is a man of principle and he made sure to rank Washington in the top 14 since they're in the playoffs and only 14 teams make the playoffs. So yes, the 7-9 Football Team is ranked ahead of the 10-6 Dolphins. 
• If Prisco't power rankings hold up, the Buccaneers and Ravens will be the only two road teams to win in the wild-card round. He has Tampa Bay ranked ahead of Washington and Baltimore ranked ahead of Tennessee. 
• For the third straight week, the Jaguars are ranked dead last and since they won't be playing anymore games this year, I'm guessing this is where they'll end up in Prisco's final rankings after the Super Bowl.   
  

If you want to know where your favorite team ended up in Prisco's power rankings, be sure to click here. If you want to argue with Prisco over his rankings, you can do that on Twitter by clicking here. I argue with him all the time about everything.

If it's Tuesday, that means it's time for my weekly picks. One thing you'll notice about the playoffs this week is that for the first time ever there are six games being played during the wild-card round, which is why the NFL is calling this a "Super Wild Card Weekend." Seriously, that's what they're calling it and I bet they paid someone $900,000 to come up with that name. Personally, I would have gone with "Wild Wild Card Weekend" because nothing is wilder than putting a football game on Nickelodeon and that's exactly what will be happening on Sunday for the Bears-Saints game, which is kind of fitting, because that game features my wildest prediction of the week.  

With that in mind, here are two of my main picks for the week. 

• Colts at Bills (-6.5): The Bills have basically been unstoppable this season. If you look at their three losses, two of them came after they had to play in a rescheduled game and the third one came on a Hail Mary. The Bills are looking pretty unbeatable, which is why I'm taking them to win. The only thing that concerns me is the fact that they haven't won a playoff game SINCE 1995, but i'm going to ignore that and take Buffalo. PICK: Bills 34-27 over Colts. 
• Bears (+10) at Saints: Crazy things happen in the playoffs and if you want to get all your picks right, you have to make some crazy predictions and my crazy prediction this week is that the Bears are going to win this game. These two teams went to overtime back in Week 8 and that was when Nick Foles was still Chicago's starting quarterback. If Mitchell Trubisky can play slightly better than Foles did last time, then I think the Bears can pull off the upset. PICK: Bears 26-23 over Saints. 

To check out the rest of my picks for the wild-card round, be sure to click here. 

Apparently, the Giants weren't the only ones left upset by Doug Pederson's decision to bench Jalen Hurts on Sunday night, because it appears his own players were also upset about what happened. According to a very interesting report from the Philadelphia Inquirer , two defensive players literally had to be held back from approaching Pederson and let me just say that if your players are on the verge of wanting to fight you, then you're probably doing something wrong. 

The report also notes that two offensive starters, including center Jason Kelce, directly approached Pederson during the game and asked him why Hurts was being benched for Nate Sudfeld. The move came in the fourth quarter of a game the Eagles were trailing just 17-14. 

In yesterday's newsletter, I wrote that I was fine with Pederson's decision as long as his players were on board with it, but if they're not, then the Eagles might have an issue. The bottom line is that players play to win and if they feel like their coach isn't coaching to win, that can potentially create a rift. 

After Philly's Week 14 upset win over the Saints, Kelce had said that the Eagles should be doing everything in their power to win. 

"I think, at all times in the NFL, the focus should be winning the football game," Kelce said. "Nothing else takes precedence. No player evaluation. Not amount of curiosity from anybody within the organization. Everything is focused in this league, in my opinion, on winning games." 

Pederson was already on the hot seat and if he's now lost the respect of multiple players in the Eagles locker room due to the way he coached on Sunday night, that could make for a very interesting offseason in Philadelphia. 

Although Aaron Rodgers seems to have the MVP locked up, there's still a tight race going for the MGP (Most Generous Player) and that race is between Russell Wilson and Tom Brady. During Week 17 action, both Brady and Wilson went out of their way to make sure that one of their teammates would be able to qualify for a major financial bonus. 

Here's what happened in each situation: 

Wilson: In this case, wide receiver David Moore was in line to land a $100,000 bonus this year if he ended the season with 35 receptions, but the only problem is that with under 30 seconds left to play on Sunday, he was still at 34 receptions after recording zero catches against the 49ers. With just 22 seconds left, the Seahawks were going to kneel the ball on the final play, but Wilson decided to change the call at the line of scrimmage to a pass and that change paid off when Moore caught his first pass of the day and more importantly, his 35th pass of the season. For a guy who played the season on a one-year, $825,000 contract, that extra $100,000 will probably come in handy.  

Brady:  The Buccaneers situation was slightly different. In this case, Antonio Brown needed 45 catches on the season to earn a $250,000 bonus. Going into the game, Brown had just 34 for the year, so hitting the bonus didn't seem likely. However, with 2:14 left to play, Brown had caught eight passes against the Falcons, which meant he would need just three more to hit his target number and Brady made sure that happened. Instead of kneeling the ball and ending the game, Brady threw three straight passes to Brown. First he threw a screen, then he threw two shovel passes that traveled about one-foot through the air. Brown's base salary this year was just $1 million, so the $250,000 is definitely a nice bonus. The receiver will also make an extra $750,000 if the Buccaneers win the Super Bowl. As for Brady, he also cashed in a big bonus. The quarterback earned $562,500 for finishing in the top five in passing yards in the NFL. 

The moral of the story here is that nice guys -- like Brady and Wilson -- don't always finish last. 

I'm not sure how I forgot to mention it yesterday, but Seattle's Jason Myers and Green Bay's Mason Crosby both made history by finishing the year by making 100% of their field goals. Myers went 24-for-24 on the season, which is insane when you consider that before this year there were only two kickers in NFL history who had attempted 20 or more kicks and made all of them (Mike Vanderjagt and Gary Anderson). As for Crosby, he finished 16-for-16 on field goals, making him one of just five kickers in NFL history to have hit 100% of their field goals in a season where they attempted 15 or more. 

I don't want to jinx either of them, but Anderson's perfect season ended in the playoffs when he had one of the most famous misses of all time. During the 1998 NFC title game, Anderson had a chance to ice the win with 2:18 left, but he missed a 38-yard field goal that would have given the Vikings a 30-20 lead over the Falcons. Instead, the lead was just a touchdown and Atlanta would come back to win. 

Anyway, I won't be around tomorrow and that's because I'll be taking the day off to call every Browns fan I know to console them. They definitely need to be consoled. Although I'll be on the sideline, Cody Benjamin will be here to captain the ship and since he's an Eagles fan, I'm hoping he'll share with us whether he also wants to fight Doug Pederson due to the way the game ended on Sunday night.