The Divisional Round is often regarded as the best weekend of football in the NFL calendar, and it’s hard to argue otherwise with the slate of games we have.
Texans at Ravens: Offensive Rookie of the Year vs. MVP
Packers at 49ers: Mr. Long-Term Succession Plan vs. Mr. Irrelevant
Buccaneers at Lions: Two No. 1 picks-turned-successful reclamation projections
Chiefs at Bills: The two best QBs in the world
And with the Divisional Round, we get one of my favorite trends each year: Fade the No. 1 seeds.
🤔 Bet Against Ravens & 49ers?
Really? Fade the Ravens and 49ers — the best teams in the league?
And it’s not as if they’re barely the best. In the Massey-Peabody Power Ratings, a massive tier drop separates them from the No. 3 team.
Ravens: +11.07
49ers: +10.51
Bills: +6.66
So why would anyone want to fade the Ravens and 49ers?
Going back to 2003, underdogs are 26-13-1 ATS (28.4% ROI, per Action Network) in the Divisional Round against No. 1 seeds.
That’s a great record, and the trend makes sense to me.
⬇️ Why No. 1 Seeds Underperform
The No. 1 seeds are usually the best teams in the league. Given that, it wouldn’t be a surprise for their numbers to be a little inflated — especially in the playoffs, when the market sees an influx of casual bettors, who tend to gravitate to ATS favorites.
On top of that, the No. 1 seeds are at home and coming off a bye. It’s easy for the market to inflate the spread for a home favorite with rest — and often the No. 1 seeds have multiple weeks of rest because their playoff position is locked in by the season’s final week.
And that means there’s the enhanced possibility for rust against an upstart low-seeded underdog that is likely close to top form and coming off a playoff victory.
You put all that together, and it’s not a surprise that on average No. 1 seeds have underperformed the spread in the Divisional Round by -2.29 points.
I’m not saying that you should bet against the Ravens and 49ers because of this trend — but you should definitely be aware of it.
Jason Scavone from Unabated looks at the factors that come into play in handicapping the Divisional Round …
The Cowboys came into Super Wild Card Weekend as the No. 2 seed with a 12-5 record, home field, and a world-beater offense.
And the Packers absolutely starched them. (You can check the flood of Cowboys hater memes on your timeline if you want to verify that. In fact, we’re going to go do that again just for fun. Dallas losing in the playoffs may be the only thing that brings the Internet together.)
Are the Packers peaking? Are they a significantly better team than their 9-8 record? Are they a legit upset candidate against the 49ers, way better than that +9.5 spread would suggest?
Probably not.
It’s easy to buy into narratives this time of year and to start thinking that teams just need to get hot at the right time. Sometimes, hot teams can make a run (the 9-7 2008 Cardinals say hello), but it’s exceedingly hard to stack four wins as just an above-average team in the NFL.
When you’re approaching the Divisional Round, the rule around playoff narratives is as simple as the one you told yourself at Spring Break in Cancun: Don’t fall in love.
➗ How to Bet the Divisional Round
For starters, there’s a ton of value in the bye week. C.J. Stroud has looked great. Houston easily handled Cleveland. But Baltimore is rested, and rest at the end of a grinding football season is pure gold.
Unabated Sports co-founder Rufus Peabody said on his Bet the Process podcast that getting the bye week is worth about +1.5 points to the spread.
At least Houston got to play at home last week. Before you start dreaming on +350 with a Packers upset, remember that Green Bay is playing back-to-back road games. Home field varies from team to team, but +1.5 points for home-field advantage is a reasonable estimation.
It’s better to start from a place of objectivity by using power ratings (like the Massey-Peabody Power Ratings) to form the basis of your handicap. Then you can maybe shade things slightly if you think there are significant subjective elements that factor into the game.
One other note on personnel usage as the playoffs get deeper: Coaches will dig deeper into their playbooks. Amon-Ra St. Brown got more usage than usual last week against the Rams, and he torched the Bucs for 124 yards in Week 7.
Knowing that coaches tend to get trickier deeper in the playoffs, it’s worth giving a little extra attention to Jameson Williams or Josh Reynolds and see if you think it’s likely they’ll see more targets against the Bucs.
Target share is half the battle. If you feel good about your projections, you can then use a prop simulator to see what the fair price should be on a play.
Once you’ve processed all of that, you can kick back on the couch and enjoy the last weekend of football that stretches over two days until the fall, knowing you’ll have the exact same view that the Cowboys do.
Stars G Jake Ottinger is back and he’s stopped 51 of his past 53 shots. Dallas has also won four of their past five games and outscored their opponents 19-7 over that stretch.
It’s going to be hard for the Flyers to score in this game, overall. They have the league’s worst power play and face the third-best penalty kill. With the Stars having a 12-4 road record, this looks like a great spot to back Dallas on the ML (play to -145).
I bet the under at 46.5 and still like it at 45.5. It’s an outdoor under in Buffalo. What could go wrong???
The Chiefs have been the league’s most extreme under team all year because of their underwhelming offense and overperforming defense (-0.085 EPA, No. 4).
Under: 13-5
ROI: 38.1%
Margin: +7.0
Chiefs games haven’t just gone under this year. On average, they’ve gone under by a full TD.
And they’ve been even more of an under team in outdoor games.
Under: 11-4
ROI: 40.1%
Margin: +7.7
When the Chiefs hosted the Bills in Week 14, the total was 49, and the final score (37) didn’t even come close, and that makes sense given these two offenses.
The Chiefs have been stuck in neutral for much of the season, and since Week 11, when the Bills dismissed OC Ken Dorsey and promoted QBs coach Joe Brady to playcaller, they have been a less pass-happy team.
Weeks 1-10: 58.3% early-down pass rate | 5% pass frequency over expected
Since Week 11: 53.6% early-down pass rate | -3% pass frequency over expected
A shootout is possible, but a 24-21 outcome seems likelier.
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