Playoffs Wild Card Round

[recovering77]

I could wait until at least the national championship game, but let's get it started right now. Bad week 18 puts me exactly .500 for the season. But at least I wasn't under.


Plays:

Cleveland -2.5 (L1, W4) at Houston (W2). I'll take the experience, the better defense, and the better run game in this one. CJ Stroud is a special player, but all he has is Nico Collins. Had Indy just ran the ball the whole game, Houston would be watching from home this week. Cleveland has been able to effectively run the ball the entire season with Jerome Ford, and Flacco has the playoff experience that Stroud doesn't.

Tampa Bay +2.5 (W1) vs. Philly (L6). What a complete meltdown by Philly to end the year. Can't expect them to all of a sudden right the ship just because it's the playoffs. I'll take Baker Evans, and Godwin to cover against the sinking Eagles with one of the leagues worst pass defenses. I would have taken anyone against Philly.


Leans:

Pittsburgh +9.5 (W3) at Buffalo (W1). I'm probably too late to hop on to the Mason Rudolph train. He's already covered 3 games in a row. Typically not a good idea to back a team that scraped and clawed their way through the backdoor into the playoffs winning 3 straight must win games. However, Buffalo has not been good covering large spreads this season. Buffalo has won 5 games in a row, but they've all been close. Josh Allen has just been too mistake prone this season. He's still an elite player, so I wouldn't be surprised if Buffalo made a deep run this season.


Green Bay (U1) / Dallas (O1) OVER 49.5. This may be a square pick, but Dallas can be beaten on defense. And Green Bay is inept at generating pressure on quarterbacks. Shouldn't force Dak into too many mistakes. Jordan Love is arguably the hottest QB in the league right now offensively. He has 20 TD passes in his last 9 games, plus 2 on the ground. His 32 TD passes is good for second in the league. This should be a fun one.


No Plays:

Miami (U1) / Kansas City (U3) OVER 44.5. Tyreek facing his old team. I expect him to come out on a mission and have a couple of TDs in this one. Neither team is the offensive powerhouse they were in previous years, that's why this isn't set much higher. But I expect this to be a good one offensively.

For now, I'll move this to a no play because the weather has become a factor with sub zero temps. Bad weather games are usually a crapshoot.




Will add more towards the end of the week.




2023 Playoffs
0-0 plays, 0-0 leans, 0-0 System Plays

2023 Regular Season
39-39-2 Plays, 26-25 Leans

2022 Playoffs
8-4 plays, 1-2 leans, 1-0 Half System Plays

2022 Regular Season
43-46 Plays, 24-28 Leans, 4-4 System Plays, 2-0 Half System Plays

2021 Regular Season
36-29 Plays, 25-31 leans

2021 Playoffs
3-3 Plays, 0-2 leans (I'm not counting the SB props and alternate lines and stuff).

2020 Regular Season
18-16-1 Plays, 18-18-1 Leans

2020 Playoffs
6-2 Plays, 0-1 Leans

2019 Regular Season
15-8 plays, 7-6 leans, 2-1 Heavy MLs

[recovering77]

Not a great start to the playoffs, but playoffs have never been my specialty. I'll take a swing at all the rest of the games.


Still rolling with Pittsburgh +10 as mentioned in the first post. I'll leave it as a lean for now. May change it tomorrow.

I was going to make the over on Dallas a no play, but I'll keep it as a lean for now.

I was in the process of finishing the write ups for the two games, when suddenly my thought process reversed and I'm going to take the opposite sides of both that I had already written up.

Play:
Green Bay +7 (W2) at Dallas (W1). Switching my play to Dallas on this one. Green Bay has won 6 of 8, and come in with a lot of momentum behind Jordan Love's resurgence. Dallas blew out Washington end the season, but had lost 3 in a row ATS coming into that one, and still came out sloppy again to start the game. I keep going back to two of those Primetime games that Green Bay played recently. Their only 2 losses in the last 8, these guys had absolutely no defense, no pressure. Baker Mayfield picked that defense apart. The legend of Tommy Cutlets was born against Green Bay. If this is another zero pressure on Dak Prescott game, he's going to eat you alive.

7 seems like a high line for Dallas to be giving considering their lack of recent playoff success. It's about right though. They have to set it around that number, because I suspect that Dallas will be in the majority of 6 point teasers for this game teased down to 1 since Dallas has won something like 13 games in a row at home.

I'll take the Boys to roll in this one. Too many calls for GB ML for my taste. HERE WE GOOOO!

Play:
Detroit -3 (W4) vs. LA Rams (W1). I had Detroit originally in this one as well. Dan Campbell played all the starters last game, so they won't be rusty from resting. But I'm looking at this -3 line for Detroit as a division champion with a couple of more wins, and thinking this line should be higher. At minimum, Detroit should be giving the hook here, but the line really should be in the 4.5 to 5.5 range considering the way the defense has stepped up this past month or so. Dan Cambell isn't getting much consideration for coach of the year. Sean McVay is still considered a better coach, and he'll probably show you why today.

Play:
Already have Tampa Bay +3 on Monday. I thought about changing it because my pairing for Cleveland -2.5 and Tampa +2.5 isn't going to work out. But I'm going to keep it for now. The loser of the Super Bowl typically doesn't do well the next season, and a first round exit would be appropriate here. May change this to a lean on Monday, but it's a play for now.

[recovering77]

I don't think I've had a week where I've changed my mind and flip flopped on so many picks before. But my mind is just changing based on new information and reading more into things.


Anyways, as of right now, Pittsburgh is no longer a play. Buffalo has been looking good, but It's a an 11-6 team giving 10 pts to a 10-7 team. Why would a team with only one more win be giving 10 pts against a team like Pittsburgh that has been playing solidly for the past month? One could argue that this is slightly similar to the Dallas / Green Bay game. And i don't see a couple of huge dogs winning outright.

So after postponing, and clearing the snow out, the field is suppose to be okay. But there could be up to 40 mph winds tonight. I'm looking at the total, and it really hasn't moved much, and it may be going higher. It's well known the enemy of overs is the wind. You're not saying anything profound when you make that statement. I mentioned before that bad weather is a crapshoot as far as games going over or under. Well the -7 degree game in Kansas City went under, and by a lot on Sunday. As weather feels like a 50/50 proposition, it gives me a PLAY to the OVER 38.5 as of this moment. No play on the side for now.

Scratch that. I think I'd feel better about a going with Buffalo, so I'm going Buffalo Team Total Over 23.5 -122.


Philly / TB.

I had originally listed Tampa Bay as a pick. I'm going back and forth about that. But I completely forgot that this game is a rematch of that Monday night game where Philly kicked their butts 25-3 until a late TD and 2 pt. I see Philly's horrible pass defense, Tampa's playmakers, and Philly's still explosive offense, and a total of 43.5 seems really low to me. I would have thought this would at least be in the 45 - 45.5 range, but more like 47.5 - 48.

But I believe I just read that AJ Brown is out. If that's the case, I will pass on the under.

No play on the side for now. Play on UNDER 43.5 at this moment.

AJ Brown is confirmed out. So I will be making this play later on.

[recovering77]

Scratch that! One last time.

Overthinking, but I think I'm just gonna go with the injured player system and see if I get both right.


TJ Watt OUT. Play Pittsburgh +10.

Also, Buffalo hasn't covered double digit spread all year. And Josh Allen has been the most turnover prone of his career this season.


AJ Brown OUT. Play Philly -3.

This is a rematch game off a Philly blowout. Revenge games have not been good in recent years, and Houston avenged their blowout loss to the Browns on Saturday.


That's final. Good luck to all.