If You Build It, They Will Come

  Our initial list had 117 Iowa Connections in the NFL with Miami and Tampa leading the way.  Both are playoff bound, so let's update the connections at the end of the season and see who we should be rooting for. We added three new connections.  Perrion Winfrey joined the Jets, La'Michael Pettway to the Patriots, and Jake Gervase on Minnesota.  

   Full disclosure, I am a Minnesota Vikings fan.  Yes, a year of rooting for them and the Iowa Hawkeye football team has made my heart unable to be donated because of too much stress.  However, I will maintain some integrity with the blog and continue to show who Iowan's should root for in the playoffs, I just might give T.J. Hockenson double points :) Here are the Iowa Connections of the 14 remaining teams.  Three teams tied for the top this year with six connections (Baltimore, Miami, Buffalo).  Cincinnati is threatening to ruin their offseason by only having one connection.  6 - Baltimore :  Mike Devlin  /  Tyler Linderbaum  / Geno Stone / Kristian Welch (Iowa) , Charlie Kolar (ISU), John Harbaugh (Iowa City) 6 - Miami: Steve Ferentz (Iowa),  Darrell Bevell / Tyron McKenzie (ISU),  Elijah Campbell (UNI), Andrew Van Ginkel /  ZaQuandrew White  (Iowa Western) 6 - Buffalo : Ike Boettger /  AJ Epenesa ...

Let's see how the Wild Card round finished: **** 5 - 1 **** (0) Las Vegas at (3) Cincinnati (3) New England at (6) Buffalo (0) Pittsburgh at (6) Kansas City (2) Philadelphia at (3) Tampa Bay (2) San Francisco at (3) Dallas (2) Arizona at (3) Los Angeles Rams Note: (#) is the number of Iowa Connections Just Dallas kept us from a perfect week.  

 If your NFL team is out, it's nice to have a team to root for.  Below are the teams ranked by the thing that matters to this blog: the number of Iowa Connections.  TLDR Go Buffalo!  Boo New Orleans! Iowa Playoff Connections 2 - Tampa Bay : Tristan Wirfs / Anthony Nelson (Iowa) 4 - Buffalo : Ike Boettger /  AJ Epenesa  / Micah Hyde (Iowa), AJ Klein (ISU) 4 - Green Bay : Christian Kirksey / Josh Jackson (Iowa), Allen Lazard (ISU), Dominique Dafney (W. Des Moines) 3 - Kansas City : Ben Niemann / Anthony Hitchens (Iowa), Kelechi Osemele (ISU) 3 - Tennessee : Parker Hesse/ Desmond King / Amani Hooker (Iowa) 2 - Washington : Ross Pierschbacher (Cedar Falls), Brandon Scherff (Iowa) 2 - Los Angeles Rams : Austin Blythe / Jake Gervase (Iowa) 2 - Baltimore : LJ Fort (UNI), Kristian Welch (Iowa) 2 - Cleveland : Adrian Clayborn / Derrick Willies (Iowa) 2 - Chicago : David Montgomery (ISU), James Da...