Author: Davis Mattek
Join AccuScore now using the code SALE50 for $50 off an annual All-Sports premium membership. For all others this is $349, but as you are reading this article, it is only $299... Join Today
Card Weekend and to my estimation, a serious contender in the NFC was sent packing due to a blocked field goal. The four quarterbacks in the AFC are
Patrick Mahomes,
Andrew Luck,
Tom Brady and
Philip Rivers. With the Rams, Saints and those four quarterbacks, this is a stacked field! This is how the odds shake out after the last weekend of action.
Super Bowl Odds After Wild Card Weekend
Saints +250
Chiefs +400
Rams +400
Patriots +550
Chargers +900
Colts +1200
Eagles +1400
Cowboys +1800
Is There Value Outside The Top Four?
It seems as if there actually is. The Top Four seeds (Saints, Chiefs, Rams, Patriots) are deemed more than twice as likely to win the Super Bowl as their opponents in the upcoming games. Years of watching football tells us that most NFL games are rarely outside 60/40 propositions and one injury to a lineman or a quarterback for K.C., New England, New Orleans or Los Angeles could shift the paradigm dramatically. Finally, the Eagles are actually bigger underdogs to New Orleans than Dallas is to Los Angeles, yet the Cowboys have worse odds for winning the Super Bowl than Philadelphia does. I cannot believe I am writing this in 2018, but if there was a team I would bet on in the NFC at the moment at their current odds, it would be the Dallas Cowboys.
The Chiefs are five-point favorites at home over the Indianapolis Colts this weekend. Despite being 0-4 against the Colts in the playoffs in the past, this game should be a breeze. The Chiefs have the best offense in football and the Colts have a middling-to-good defense while bringing in an above-average offense. Assuming the game goes chalk, and I am certainly assuming it will, the Chiefs will either welcome the Los Angeles Chargers or New England Patriots into Arrowhead. The Chiefs lost to both of those teams in miraculous circumstances in the regular season; the Patriots posted their highest score of the year and the Chargers had one of the most unlikely comebacks in NFL regular season history. The Chiefs should be favored by at least three points, if not more, against each team at home at Arrowhead and therefore buying them at +130 to win the conference is getting a discount on next week’s championship game.
NFC Championship Odds
As mentioned above, the Los Angeles Rams and New Orleans Saints lines are just too efficient for there to be a clear bet right now. If you personally feel like one team is definitively better than the other, than this is probably your last time to get either team at any sort of a discount in the betting markets. The Rams finished second in Football Outsiders team DVOA and the Saints finished fourth. Yards Per Play is one of my favorite offensive metrics because so much information is baked into it; the Rams actually gained .4 more yards per play than the Saints, which does seem interesting in a potential NFC Championship game. At these current odds, there is not an efficient NFC Championship bet unless you can find a sportsbook that offers the NFC over the AFC in the Super Bowl at close to even money.
