Playoff betting: Divisional recap, conference championship openers
Josh Allen's very good, but it seems like bad things happen to him more often than any other star quarterback.
While carrying the Bills on his back, Allen twice made the perfect throw, but Stefon Diggs and Trent Sherfield couldn't catch the ball. He made the correct read, envisioning Khalil Shakir coming open in the end zone, only to have Dion Dawkins get bull-rushed into him by Chris Jones - just enough to take five yards off the ball. Then, Tyler Bass swiped a field goal wide right.
Maybe if the ball had gone through the uprights, or the Bills had scored an early touchdown, the Chiefs would've still done what they need to do to win. But Kansas City didn't do that in the regular-season meeting, nor did the team in last season's duel, lacking the explosiveness of the departed Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelce in his prime.
The game was so good that your bet on the Chiefs (+3) didn't matter, and you just wanted two more minutes or overtime. Of course, it helps if you spent the rest of the playoffs winning almost everything in sight, and if you're willing to take your chances with overtime to end a weekend where the Ravens' boosted accounts blew out the Texans, the Packers used long shot touchdown scorers to give the 49ers all they could handle, and the Lions outlasted the scrappy-but-overmatched Buccaneers.
After a playoff weekend that was exponentially better than the one before it, we're left with two title games that have point spreads of over three but are still intriguing.
Chiefs @ Ravens (-3.5, 44.5)If we're being specific, the AFC Championship is more like Ravens -3.25 - you're paying extra juice for both Ravens -3 or Chiefs +3.5, depending on which side you're more interested in backing. We'll see if one side or the other prevails, resulting in a flat -110/-110 price on either number. The total is already on the move. After an open of 45.5, money has come in to capture a key number in totals, dropping the over/under down to 44.5.
Lions @ 49ers (-6.5, 50.5)It's the same story in pricing for the NFC Championship. If you want the Lions, you'll be compelled to pay a little extra for +7. If you think the 49ers will play much better than they did on Saturday, you'll pay a little extra to give Detroit just 6.5 points. Deebo Samuel is assigned a 50-50 chance of playing next week, and his status is enough to move the quarter-point one way or another and have the line settle at -6.5 or -7 with a flat -110 on either side. So far, the opening total has been sturdy at 50.5.
Playoff team power ratingsThe ratings below are out of 100 and suggest the likelihood, as a percentage, of that team beating an average team on a neutral field. They are estimates based on recent closing point spreads.
| TEAM | RATING (/100) |
|---|---|
| 49ers | 84 |
| Ravens | 77 |
| Chiefs | 70 |
| Lions | 60 |
The Chiefs, Lions, and Ravens all won and covered. But would you change their estimated market rating if you were an oddsmaker? Probably not.
We've discussed that 80/100 is a ceiling in our framework for estimating the market's opinion on NFL teams. You can break that barrier, but only if you're a historically great team. San Francisco's been in that neighborhood since going into Philadelphia in Week 13 with rest and motivation. Since that blowout, the 49ers are 2-3 against the closing line in games in which their starters played, an indication that referring to them as historically great might be an exaggeration.
Matt Russell is the lead betting analyst for theScore. If there's a bad beat to be had, Matt will find it. Find him on social media @mrussauthentic.
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