The Win Column: Predict the high school playoffs

Hey y’all. Big news this morning: The Falcons are reportedly sending veteran safety Jessie Bates III to the Jaguars in exchange for draft picks … and maybe a white flag with “2026″ written on it.

We’ll discuss further — and take a poll — momentarily.

First we gotta tackle some local teams who actually made the playoffs.

POSTSEASON PROGNOSTICATORS, ASSEMBLE

High school football playoffs? High school football playoffs.

With a bracket challenge to boot. Just for you.

The top teams: The regular season’s over, and the No. 1 teams in the AJC Varsity rankings are as follows.

• 7A: Buford
• 6A: Thomas County Central
• 5A: Cartersville
• 4A: Sandy Creek
• 3A: Appling County
• 2A: Heard County
• A: Johnson County
• Private: Prince Avenue Christian

All eight finished the regular season undefeated, the first time that’s happened since 2015. And here’s a fun fact: Top-ranked teams have gone on to win state championships 37.3% of the time since 1982.

Full list of first-round matchups here.

The drama: The folks in charge moved Class 4A’s opening games to Saturday, citing a shortage of officials. That’s not unusual.

The fact that top-ranked Buford is the No. 9 seed in the 7A bracket is a little sillier (thanks, new playoff formula!). Undefeated Cartersville, Sandy Creek and Johnson County failed to get their classification’s top seed, too.

And what happened to Chamblee (6A) and Coosa (2A) proved even more unsavory.

• GHSA officials initially told both schools they’d made the playoff cut.
• About three hours later, they sent an email saying oops, never mind.

Apparently, some scores were submitted a tad late. Updated calculations punted Chamblee and Coosa in favor of Veterans and Utopian Academy, respectively.

“I was disappointed. I was upset,” Coosa’s coach said. “If they did not know that it was finalized at that moment, they shouldn’t have released it.”

The challenge: Think you know how things will play out from here? That’s what the AJC Varsity Playoff Challenge is for!

Starting at noon, readers like you can pull up a bracket from any classification, take their best stab and submit it for the chance to win a $200 Visa gift card.

Full legalese here, but the gist is ...

• You’ve got until noon Friday to get entries in.
• You can submit one (1) bracket in each classification.
• Prize goes to the top finisher in each class.

What are you waiting on? Get to it!

MORE GOOD STUFF TO KNOW

💰 Hot off the presses: ESPN and the College Football Playoff reached a five-year deal that will expand the CFP field to 24 teams next season — while eliminating Power 4 conference championship games. (More on this year’s CFP and top-ranked Georgia in just a few.)

⚾ The Braves’ Alex Anthopoulos and other MLB general managers are in Las Vegas this week for their annual offseason gathering. Big deals are more of a Winter Meetings thing (at least in years without a lockout looming), though foundations could be laid for the future.

“We can improve all over the place — the rotation, the offense and, certainly, in the bullpen,” Anthopoulos said. “You just don’t know what opportunities are gonna present themselves.”

🏆 The Atlanta Dream have a big offseason ahead, and general manager Dan Padover says flirting with a championship “makes you want it even more.”

• Between Padover, the Hawks’ Onsi Saleh and the Falcons’ Ian Cunningham, three of Atlanta’s five pro teams have bald GMs. Make of that what you will.

🏀 The Hawks have all of a sudden won four in row and sit at 7-4. Ahead of tonight’s home game against the Lakers, beat writer Lauren Williams took a closer look at what we can learn about Atlanta’s start to the season.

OK, ABOUT THE FALCONS ...

AJC columnist Michael Cunningham led his latest Weekend Reflections column by officially declaring the Falcons bound for another losing season. And that was before they sent one of their best defenders to the Sunshine State.

Per reports, trading Jessie Bates III will net Atlanta a second-round pick in the 2027 draft and a fifth-rounder in 2028.

That’s a pretty strong return, especially with Bates’ contract expiring at the end of the season.

It may also be a sign of surrender.

After Sunday’s dismantling in Madrid, the Falcons sit at 3-6. Factor in division losses, and that’s worst in the NFC South. Not by much, though.

• Carolina: 3-5
• New Orleans: 3-5
• Tampa Bay: 3-6
• Atlanta: 3-6

A familiar situation, and one that previous Atlanta administrations have used to justify playing out the string — but the Bates deal suggests the current Falcons brain trust is more concerned about the long-term than trying to conquer the worst division in football.

The Win Column endorses that approach, especially with Kansas City (6-2), Minnesota (6-1) and Detroit (6-2) all looming on the schedule.

“The Falcons will have to win six of their last eight games to avoid a ninth consecutive losing season,” Mr. Cunningham wrote. “They’ve given no indication they can produce a sustained run of winning football.”

Indeed. The team still believes in itself, and we’ll see if anyone else gets shipped out (or in) before Tuesday afternoon’s trade deadline — but I think we’re just about done here, folks.

📊 How about you? Vote here or shoot an email to tyler.estep@ajc.com.

GEORGIA BACK ON TOP

How good are Georgia football fans feeling right now?

Well ... DawgNation’s Jeff Sentell passed along a text message from a friend, who had the following experience at church:

• Our preacher asked the question “How many of y’all talked about the Dawgs yesterday?” The congregation laughed and many held up their hand. Then he asks, “How many of you talked about Jesus yesterday?” Our congregation fell quiet. Then a guy on the third row says, “I thanked him for all them points.”

Good stuff.

When combined with Miami’s loss to Notre Dame, Georgia’s 42-7 road romp over Ole Miss was enough to propel the Bulldogs to No. 1 in the AP poll. They’ll presumably occupy the same position when the new College Football Playoff rankings come out Tuesday night (Mike Griffith’s forecast here).

Long way to go yet, “humility’s only a week away,” etc. etc. But Georgia’s defense is looking early 2020s-style dominant of late — and everyone else is usually in trouble when Bulldogs start talking like this.