I don’t have a ton for official bets today, but still want to talk through the Divisional Round a little bit. It’s a fascinating slate, where I think the market has correctly set some pretty big lines as it sees this being the stage of the playoffs where we weed out the true contenders from the pretenders.
At the same time, the NFL playoffs are wild. Football as a sport is wild, where a dozen or so key plays — turnovers, third- or fourth-down conversions, drive-extending penalties — can really swing the win probability if they tend to lean one way. And they do sometimes! There’s variance in this game.
That’s why you do see underdogs win in the playoffs, often when they “get hot at the right time” and are able to play up into the vicinity of better opponents, and then usually take advantage of some of that positive variance. And I think we do have live underdogs at some really intriguing moneyline numbers — both Houston and Green Bay are more than +400 at some books, and are at least +350 pretty universally, while Tampa Bay is over the +200 mark. If your thing is sprinkling on underdogs, I think you could do worse than this year’s Divisional Round.
And then there’s Kansas City and Buffalo, with Patrick Mahomes playing his first road playoff game. I thought Mahomes played incredible last week, elevating his game for the playoffs, but at the same time that the potentially fatal flaws of the 2023 Chiefs were present, including drops and just poor effort on some really well-thrown balls by his pass-catchers.
Of course, Rashee Rice did have a monster game, and his continued breakout does improve the whole situation quite a bit by just giving Mahomes a second reliable target, particularly as Travis Kelce starts to fade a bit and maybe isn’t even considered that reliable anymore. On the flip side, you have Josh Allen also playing at an elite level, but also dealing with his top pass-catcher (in this case Stefon Diggs) showing some production decline. And with Gabe Davis out again, he’ll need Diggs to step up, as well as his own rookie in Dalton Kincaid.
That’s a fascinating game, and I don’t have a pick for it. If you told me Kelce stepped up, Playoff Mahomes looked unbeatable, and the Chiefs’ defense played well enough for Kansas City to go into Buffalo and win, I’d totally believe that. On the flip side, if you told me Allen was strong, the Chiefs’ supporting cast came up small (again), and the Bills rolled at home, I’d believe that, too.
If I had to play one pick from each game, my play there would be KC on the moneyline, just taking a bit of plus money on what i think is essentially a coinflip (KC’s defensive and coaching edges are probably not being discussed enough). If I had to play one from each game, I’m not even sure what I’d do for Houston and Baltimore, and I talked myself out of the under in Detroit despite Tampa’s games going under that number in 8 of their past 10 (because it just does seem like one with late scoring). I think my play for Detroit would be taking the Lions -6, or else the over.
But I do have a pick from Green Bay and San Francisco, right after announcing this week’s $100 Underdog winner.
This week’s $100 Underdog winner is Discord user “jsantoro1357”. Congrats! That will be deposited directly into your Underdog account.
As always, all minus bets are bet to win 1 unit, all plus bets are risk 1 unit.