Playoffs, NFL Draft, and Guillotine League Action
In today's Betting Life Newsletter, presented by Guillotine Leagues:
Yesterday’s action placed a perfect bow on the NFL 2024 regular season. Another bet sweep in an exciting afternoon, easily exceeding my own expectations—considering casual fans couldn't name half the starting quarterbacks.
The playoff dust has all settled after the Lions’ fourth-quarter breakout over the Vikings to clinch the NFC’s top seed. Now it’s just a matter of focus. Half the league sets their sights on a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to raise the Lombardi Trophy, while the rest get right to work on a 🤞 successful rebuild. In the meantime, try your own build with one of our Guillotine LeagueTM playoff games. Either the Guilloteenie or the CHOPionship will satisfy your hunger for postseason action.
Titans Are On The Clock
Sometimes you gotta lose to win. The Titans understood the assignment. Good for them. We say it here all the time—players will always try to win, so it’s up to coaches to subtly sink the ship for a brighter future. Brian Callahan wisely pivoted to Mason Rudolph under center back in Week 15, and those four straight subsequent losses locked down the top spot in April’s NFL Draft. Cheers to you, skip.
On the other hand, we have the Giants, who decided to play spoiler against the Colts last week and potentially cost themselves a franchise quarterback. Big Blue almost dropped another few spots but pulled a loss from the jaws of victory against Philly’s backups. You’d think that specific front office would appreciate a chance to quickly correct course on one of the worst QB decisions in recent memory. It’s not often a player gets guaranteed $92M only to get booed out of the parking lot and cut in disgrace. Truly unconscionable stuff given what we know about the importance of finding the right answer at quarterback.
Remember, we got you covered year-round. Stay plugged in with us at Betting Life through the offseason as we cover every nook and cranny of the 2025 NFL Draft. Our own Thor Nystrom just published a mock draft.
You can check out our NFL Game Betting Model to identify the biggest edges on game totals, spreads, and moneylines!
What else is in today’s newsletter?
- NFL Playoffs: Updated Bracket And Takeaways
- No Cap: Bucking Bronc-O
The Best Sweat in Fantasy Football Just Got Sweatier.
Playoff Guillotine League contests are now LIVE.
The latest analysis and insights from around our world:
🪓 Guillotine League drafts are filling all the time. Take your pick.
👀 How do our experts attack a Guilloteenie draft? Guess who’s No. 1.
📈 Charch has Guillotine League rankings to help you pick your lineups.
🔮 We have two strategy sessions for you. Guilloteenie and CHOPionship.
🤔 These are just a few of the Guillotine League drafts coming up.
NFL Playoffs🏈🏆—Bracket And Takeaways
First takeaway? Our Tampa futures came out of the wash looking especially fresh and crispy. Let’s go. Sticking with the NFC, the results wound up predictably chalky. Every one of these games next weekend could go down to the wire. Philly’s currently carrying the heaviest spread against the Packers at only 5.5 points. We’ll get into the granular game breakdowns tomorrow and Thursday but for now let me say this—be weary of any overly strong takes on the NFC. I could make a compelling case for six of these seven teams to last until Super Bowl Sunday. I can’t remember a stronger seven-seed than these Packers. We’re in store for a memorable month of football.
The AFC is also making me nervous, but for different reasons altogether. On this side, two of three teams (BUF and BAL) sit north of a touchdown favorites, while LAC/HOU settled at only 3 points—and I don’t think it should be that close. Nothing more unnerving as a conservative handicapper than disagreeing on playoff lines, known for unrivaled sharpness.
Either way, both sportsbooks and spreadsheets agree on the in-conference stratification. A second-round clash between Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen feels inevitable, but without letting the cat fully out of the bag I think there’s a dark horse in this group that could shock the football world.
No Cap🏈🧢—Bucking Bronc-O
THE BET: Denver Team Total O17.5 (-125) DraftKings
Today’s prop harkens us back to my favorite building block when it comes to betting NFL underdogs, TT > ML / ATS. Give that link a quick check for some of my reasoning behind betting team totals as a fixed goal. In this specific case, it also allows us the benefit of going against the Bills without necessarily involving Josh Allen in the equation.
For starters, the current 8.5-point line is probably a smidge high. CLV seekers can feel free to call my bluff that this line closes out around seven points. Regardless, we have a perfect spot to avoid playing with fire. Buffalo averaged just shy of 31 points a game this season, pretty impressive stuff. Now while the Broncos’ D certainly earns respect as the league leader in defensive EPA/play, they’ve also surrendered +30 points on four different occasions—all of which occurred in the last nine weeks.
So if there’s a reasonable expectation Buffalo scores +28, which is the Bills’ current implied total at books, then the 8.5-point spread takes us to somewhere between 19 and 20—two full points above the Broncos’ total, available right now. I get Denver may not be an offensive juggernaut. However, 30 points/game across five weeks of play with a 49% success rate and +0.10 EPA/play should mean something.
Not to mention no one seems to notice the complete collapse of Buffalo’s pass defense over the last five weeks:
- 389.4 Yards Allowed Per Game: 30th
- -0.32 EPA/Dropback: Last
- 107.5 Opposer Passer Rating: 30th
- 25.6 Completions Allowed Per Game: Last
- 289.4 Passing Yards Allowed Per Game: Last
- 19 +20-Yard Completions: 31st
- 12 Passing TDs: 30th
Good luck finding a more bullish chart than Denver’s scoring offense …
Hope you enjoyed today’s Betting Life newsletter! Please feel free to contact me on X @JohnLaghezza with any questions, comments, or feedback. I love hearing back from you!
COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF SEMIFINALS ODDS
