Saints, Buccaneers Among Biggest Betting Favorites For Wild Card Weekend

The National Football League postseason is officially here.

First-round byes have been awarded to the Kansas City Chiefs and Green Bay Packers for winning their respective conferences and now the single-elimination gauntlet begins.

You can throw those playoff seeds out the window, too. Bookmakers really don’t care about where teams are seeded in the bracket. Team power ratings run the show in the sports betting space. Just ask Washington and Tennessee.

Here are the consensus betting lines for NFL Wild Card weekend:

Colts at Bills (-7, 52)
Buffalo posted the most eye-opening score of Week 17 with a 56-26 walloping of the Miami Dolphins in Orchard Park, N.Y. Quarterback Josh Allen continues to impress as he leads a white-hot offense into battle at home Saturday against wily veteran Philip Rivers and Indianapolis. The Bills were the best cover team in the league during the regular season (11-5 ATS) and they covered six of eight games at home. The Colts were only an underdog once, a game they lost 32-23 at Cleveland as 1.5-point pups.

Rams at Seahawks (-4.5, 43)
It doesn’t sound like Jared Goff will be back at quarterback for Los Angeles on Saturday. The point spread tells us everything we need to know. Oddsmakers are clearly under the impression that John Wolford will start again under center. If Goff were to play, this number would be shy of a field goal. Head coach Sean McVay danced around the topic with reporters, but a dislocated thumb ain’t no joke. Seattle finished with a respectable 6-2 ATS mark at Lumen Field on the campaign. This is the lowest point total on the entire board at 43.

Buccaneers (-8, 46.5) at Football Team
This spread actually opened Tampa Bay -7 and was immediately bet up. The NFC East division was a trainwreck this season, evident by Washington winning with a 7-9 record. Bucs star wideout Mike Evans hyperextended his left knee Sunday, but head coach Bruce Arians after the game suggested the injury wasn’t overly serious. Evans’ status is up in the air for Saturday. Under 46.5 points could be worth a look here. Washington’s defensive line is very good and the Football Team stayed Under the total in 11 of their 16 games.

Ravens (-3.5, 54) at Titans
Baltimore enters Wild Card weekend as one of the hottest teams in the entire league. Lamar Jackson and Co. rattled off five straight wins by an average of 19.4 points per game. The Ravens also have covered in six straight games. Now they get the team that ended their season in the 2019 playoffs. It’s worth noting that Tennessee is the best Over team in the NFL at 12-3-1. That total is sitting in the mid-50s for a reason.

Bears at Saints (-9.5, 47.5)
The Matt Nagy experiment took another hit as Chicago opted to kick three really short field goals in a game it lost by 19 points. Some would say that kicking is for losers, especially against Aaron Rodgers. Oh, well. New Orleans just rolled over the lowly Carolina Panthers to finish its regular season, but the Saints weren’t exactly world-beaters at home in 2020. They were only 4-4 ATS without fans going nuts inside the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. Is this point spread too high?

Browns at Steelers (-4, 47)
These AFC North rivals will meet for the third time this season. Cleveland and Pittsburgh split their regular-season meetings and this is one of those games that could go either way. I wouldn’t bet it with your money. The Browns are the second-worst cover team in the league (6-10 ATS), but the Steelers lost four of their last five games and have apparently abandoned the running game. Good luck betting this one. It’s a coin flip.

Lastly, here are updated Super Bowl title odds from DraftKings:

Chiefs +225 ($100 wins $225 and pays out $325)
Packers +450
Bills +700
Saints +750
Buccaneers +1000
Ravens +1100
Seahawks +1300
Steelers +2200
Titans +2800
Rams +3300
Colts +4000
Browns +5000
Bears +10000
Football Team +10000

Stay tuned for picks later in the week.