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Houston +9.5 over BALTIMORE
A lot has changed since these teams met in Week 1, but to whose benefit is it? The Texans lost that game 25-9 at home, but were surprisingly everyone – especially survivor pool players – by hanging in at halftime down 7-6. C.J. Stroud threw for 242 yards that game and Nico Collins had 80 receiving yards, setting the stage for breakout seasons by the duo. Baltimore, on the other hand, was held to 265 total yards of offence. Ravens coach John Harbaugh has a 9-8 record coming off a bye, which includes an OT win over the Rams this season in which he failed to cover. With the temperature forecast to be around freezing and with an indoor, warm-weather team coming north, we wouldn’t dare take the moneyline here, but a backdoor cover is certainly in play for Stroud and Co.
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SAN FRANCISCO -9.5 over Green Bay
The biggest worry here is that the Packers do what they did against the Cowboys, getting up early and never looking back. If that’s the case, the Niners have been historically bad under Kyle Shanahan at producing comebacks. But, with a week to recover from some bumps and bruises, this 49ers team will be fired up coming out of the gates. Green Bay’s defence is a real sore spot and can be exploited by a solid game-planner like Shanahan. While the Pack are more than a happy-to-be-here team, this will be the end of the road for one of the youngest teams in playoff history, but something to really build off in coming seasons.
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DETROIT -6.5 over Tampa Bay
The Lions had the only real hard-fought win of wild-card weekend and will be all the better for it. They scrapped it out against the Rams and have earned another home game for the Detroit faithful. While there was a lot to like about the Bucs win over the Eagles, man did Philly look disappointing. That was a team that completely fell apart down the stretch and just didn’t show up for the playoffs. The Bucs are the first team in a decade to advance in the playoffs despite ranking in the bottom third of the league in offence and defence in terms of yardage and weren’t much better analytically, either. They’re going to be hard-pressed to replicate that sort of effort on the road against a team playing with a ton of heart. While Jared Goff will make some mistakes, it won’t be enough to keep Tampa in this game.
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BUFFALO -2.5 over Kansas City
They saved the best for last as this lines up to be the game of the weekend. Buffalo has a chance to exorcise a playoff ghost and has home-field advantage over the rival Chiefs. Patrick Mahomes has yet to play a road playoff game in his career and rarely been an underdog at all. But, when he is in that rare situation, he has an outstanding ATS record of 8-1-1 – including last year’s Super Bowl. Thankfully for both sides, weather shouldn’t be the biggest factor this week after both suffered through their wild-card wins. That also makes it hard to gauge just what their true playoff form looks like. When these teams met earlier this season, the Chiefs were a silly offensive offside call away from scoring the win. That started Buffalo’s improbable run to the playoffs – and we don’t see it ending here.
LAST WEEK: 5-1
PLAYOFFS: 5-1
REGULAR SEASON: 134–130-8
2024-01-19 12:37:14
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