Today's best Divisional Round bets
One tough game to read, plays in the other
Yesterday’s games were a bit of a bummer, as we got the split taking the two favorites, but I’d argue both were pretty clearly the right side. That was more or less indisputable in the Eagles’ big win, but the Jaguars did stick around and if it weren’t for a late Jamal Agnew fumble inside the 10-yard line, they might have had a shot to win.
But Patrick Mahomes’ ankle was obviously a major story, and it obviously impacted the Chiefs’ offense across multiple possessions during the second and third quarters. I love to talk about how football is a game of possessions, and when you’re trying to cover 9 points, you can think about needing to score on two more possessions than your opponent. Because there are on average about 11 possessions per game for each team, and you’re not likely to completely shut out your opponent for all 11 of theirs, you’re probably talking about something like scoring on five possessions to three, or six to four or what have you. Having three or four possessions — and arguably more, but it’s worth noting the Chad Henne possession ended in a touchdown — negatively impacted in the middle of the game creates a much more difficult path to covering that type of spread as the end game approaches.
And still KC very well could have! But the timeouts lined up such that it made sense to play super conservatively with the ball late — because of course they didn’t want to push Mahomes, and they didn’t really need to — so they punted with just enough time that Jacksonville was going to be able to make a field goal and kick a fruitless onside kick and lose by 7. You could see it all play out before it happened.
Both of the Chiefs’ final two drives while up 10 were situations where they typically would be attacking, either trying to add to their lead or proactively running out the clock by holding the ball, but they got just one first down and had two pretty quick punts instead. I’m not sure what the point of all of this is other than to make some definitive argument that Mahomes’ ankle injury is why the Chiefs didn’t cover, which isn’t probably in dispute for many.
Alas, we move on to Sunday. I wrote a few notes in Discord about why I’m staying away from the Bills-Bengals game today, which I want to pass along here:
Cincinnati OL is the biggest storyline in the game for sure, and why I’m not playing a side or the total. There are basically two paths to this game as I see:
1) It’s a significant issue, Bengals struggle offensively, Bills and under are sharp sides.
2) CIN overcome it — and Burrow is capable — in which case CIN and over are sharp. (Bills might still win but spread is too large in this outcome.)Have gone back and forth all week. We’re not helped by both teams struggling against division opponents last week, which in both cases you can argue that opponent just has their number a bit and they might look sharper this week, or that it’s a sign of some legit concerns. Trust the Bills more but it’s a bigger spread than it would have been a few weeks ago, without the OL concerns. Will be a fun one to watch.
That commentary relates to the Bengals having significant injury concerns along their offensive line, and it’s a storyline that is impacting the spread and definitely has had me leaning Buffalo’s way all week, but to be honest the spread has never really been a smash. Even with the concerns, I think there is still a case to be made that Cincinnati can not only be competitive, but can win, especially if some of Buffalo’s issues against Miami last week crop up here, which is something everyone seems to be ignoring as a possibility (and maybe rightfully so, as I’m half expecting Josh Allen to look like he did in his two playoff games last year — unstoppable — just like everyone else seems to be expecting).
But I do have plays for the 1990s nostalgia rematch we’ll get later in the day, so let’s get to it.