After a week of mostly lopsided playoff games, the NFL’s Divisional round has even bigger spreads on average, with the No. 1 seeds (Ravens and 49ers) joining the party after their bye week.
But can we take anything away from the strong playoff debuts of C.J. Stroud (Texans) and Jordan Love (Packers) to expect some higher-scoring games this week? The Buccaneers also looked quite good in completing Philadelphia’s collapse, ensuring a new NFC champion.
We reviewed the OddsTrader computer picks and found 3 of our favorite bets that you can find at top-rated sportsbooks for the Divisional round.
Picks Summary
- Texans +9.5 (-110)
- Packers-49ers Over 50 Points (-110)
- Buccaneers-Lions Over 48.5 Points (-110)
*All odds from Caesars Sportsbook (check our Caesars Sportsbook Review)
Baker Mayfield or Jared Goff? Let’s Go with Both
Say what you will about them, but Jared Goff and Baker Mayfield are both No.1 overall picks who have helped the Browns (2020) and Lions (2023) end some of the longest droughts in NFL history without a playoff win. They both also just won a playoff game with a 2nd team in their careers after they were discarded by the teams that drafted them with the top pick.
Mayfield helped Tampa Bay knock out the Eagles with a big performance. After getting the early lead on Matthew Stafford and his former team from Los Angeles, Goff held on for the 24-23 win in the only real close game on wild card weekend.
The Lions are a 6-point home favorite with a total of 48.5 points. We are looking at the total.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Detroit Lions
Sunday, January 21, 2024 – 03:00 PM ET at Ford Field
Forget Last Time
These teams met in Week 6 in Tampa, and it was a 20-6 win by the Lions. But don’t expect that type of score to happen again as the Lions lost David Montgomery to an early injury, Jahmyr Gibbs was inactive, so the Lions had a season-low 40 rushing yards. It wasn’t their normal offense by any means.
Still, Goff stepped up and threw for 353 yards that day. Amon-Ra St. Brown was as dominant as ever with 12 catches for 124 yards and a touchdown. He just went over 100 yards in his playoff debut too last week. He can attack any defense. Tight end Sam LaPorta should also feel healthier after gutting it out with a knee injury last week. He still caught a touchdown.
Jalen Hurts actually did not do poorly throwing the ball against the Bucs in the 32-9 wild card loss. He just didn’t finish drives, and he took a bad safety that blew up the game. But the Eagles were so one-dimensional and had no running game. The Lions will fix that this week with Montgomery and Gibbs together, and they know how to use them together more effectively than they did earlier this season.
The running game wasn’t explosive against the Rams, but it was adequate enough, and Goff played well in leading the Lions to 3 straight touchdown drives. It was shocking the offense only scored 1 field goal after halftime, but you can count on Dan Campbell to be on them this week to finish stronger and not leave it to a 1-point stand late in the game.
Baker Looks Healthy
A big concern for Tampa was the health of Baker Mayfield going into the playoffs after ribs and ankle injuries were slowing him down. He only led the team to 9 points in Carolina to win the division title.
But Mayfield looked nimble and healthy against the Eagles. The awful tackling efforts from the Eagles led to some long plays for his receivers, and not even his best ones as neither Mike Evans nor Chris Godwin topped 50 yards despite Baker throwing for over 300 yards.
That should change in Detroit. They’ll be indoors, the secondary for the Lions is struggling, and Mayfield should have plenty of big-play opportunities like we saw last week with Puka Nacua dominating this defense. He had roughly half of Matthew Stafford’s 360 passing yards.
The Bucs have gotten into some road shootouts this year with Houston (C.J. Stroud) and Green Bay (Jordan Love) with Baker more than holding his own. There’s no reason he can’t do it again against Goff in a classic shootout with the NFC Championship Game on the line.
The Pick
We think last week’s hot offensive start in Detroit is a sign of things to come this week with Tampa. But expect the scoring to be more balanced out over the halves, and this time the teams will hit the over. Detroit will not go another half without a touchdown like last week.
Score Prediction: Lions 27 – Buccaneers 24
NFL Pick: Over 48.5 (-110) at Caesars Sportsbook
Is Stroud Ready for This Already?
Most people thought the Cleveland Browns had a Super Bowl-caliber defense after it handed Brock Purdy and Lamar Jackson what were arguably their worst games of the 2023 season earlier this year.
But Houston rookie C.J. Stroud had no problems with that defense, throwing for 274 yards and 3 touchdowns in his playoff debut in a 45-14 win. Since returning from a concussion in Week 17, Stroud has completed at least 75% of his passes in every game and is 3-0 for Houston.
The Ravens are a 9.5-point home favorite with a total of 45 points. Can the Texans keep it close or even pull off the upset here behind their rookie?
Houston Texans vs. Baltimore Ravens
Saturday, January 20, 2024 – 04:30 PM ET at M&T Bank Stadium
Houston Can Flip the Script
These teams met way back in Week 1 when Stroud was just making his debut and the expectations were still awfully low for the Texans. The Ravens won 25-9, but Stroud can take some pride in knowing he attempted 44 passes without throwing an interception, and the Ravens only had 1 long touchdown drive in that game.
Since then, the Texans have improved their ground game behind Devin Singletary as the lead back, the offensive line play has gotten better with Laremy Tunsil leading the way, and Stroud has a better chemistry with his receivers, including standout Nico Collins, who still had 80 yards that day against a top-ranked Baltimore defense.
Stroud’s lack of turnovers could be huge in a game like this as he’s only thrown 5 interceptions this year, and 3 of those were against Arizona. The Ravens feast on mistakes and short fields, but the Texans had a league-low 14 giveaways and they had none against Cleveland last week.
Stroud’s only losses this year by double digits were against the Ravens (25-9), Colts (31-20), and Jets (30-6). Those are games from the first 2 weeks of the season, he’s already come back to beat the Colts in Indy in a rematch, and he was knocked out of that Jets game with a concussion. Overall, the Texans don’t lose by double digits that often this year.
As with the Browns who played a similar schedule, the Ravens have not faced a ton of great quarterbacks this year. Stroud has the rare ability to throw accurately, deep, and off balance to his receivers while still keeping turnovers low. If he can get Houston to at least 20 points in this game, he’ll have a good shot of covering this spread as the defense for Houston has also improved from Week 1 under coach DeMeco Ryans.
Should We Trust Baltimore This Time?
The Ravens have not won a playoff game by double digits since the 2014 season, and they are only 2-5 in playoff games since winning the Super Bowl over a decade ago under John Harbaugh. Lamar Jackson is 1-3 in playoff starts and has never led the team to more than 20 points, so we need to slow down a bit on trusting this team to come out flying on all cylinders after resting many key starters in Week 18 and enjoying their bye week.
The track record for this Baltimore team in the playoffs is just not there. In fact, by throwing 3 touchdown passes last week, Stroud has just as many touchdown passes in the playoffs as Jackson, who has started 3 more games.
One of the best times to trip up a bad playoff team is in that first game in the divisional round when they’ve had their bye week and could be rusty. The Texans have solid pass rushers, including rookie Will Anderson, and they weren’t destroyed by Baltimore’s ground attack in Week 1.
Baltimore has blown out several contenders this year, but it is reasonable to think that Houston can be one of the teams that keeps within single digits given their scoring ability behind Stroud.
The Pick
We have seen the Ravens already lose this year to Gardner Minshew (Colts), Kenny Pickett (Steelers), and Deshaun Watson (Browns). Matthew Stafford took them to overtime in Baltimore with one of the best passing performances anyone’s had against the Ravens this year.
We’ll trust Stroud and the lack of turnovers from Houston to keep this one close and give Baltimore a little scare in the divisional round.
Score Prediction: Ravens 27 – Texans 21
NFL Pick: Texans +9.5 (-110) at Caesars Sportsbook
Does Love Have Another Explosive Game in Him?
The shocker of the wild card round was Green Bay’s 48-32 win in Dallas, becoming the first No. 7 seed to knock off a No. 2 seed. Not only did they beat Dallas, but they were up 27-0 and 48-16 different points against a team that had won 16 straight home games.
Jordan Love was fantastic in his playoff debut, and this has been a continuation of his dominant play in the 2nd half of the season. Does he have another big game in him on the road? The 49ers are a tougher challenge than Dallas.
The 49ers have also been a tough test for Matt LaFleur and his defense, which once allowed Raheem Mostert to rush for 4 touchdowns in the 2019 NFC Championship Game. Kyle Shanahan has gotten the best of LaFleur in the playoffs twice now, but we are thinking the over (50 points) is the more attractive option here than the 10-point spread that favors the 49ers.
Green Bay Packers vs. San Francisco 49ers
Saturday, January 20, 2024 – 08:15 PM ET at Levi’s Stadium
Is This Jordan Love’s Time?
You don’t want to put too much pressure on Jordan Love as a No. 7 seed in his 1st year as a starter, but this could be one of his best times to go on an improbable Super Bowl run while his contract is tiny and his receivers are young and not making much money either.
The lack of established receivers is in a weird way helping this offense as these guys can all play when healthy, but defenses never know which one will go off for Love, who can find them all with a variety of Aaron Rodgers-esque throws.
Jayden Reed had the team-leading stats in the regular season, but he didn’t have a single catch in Dallas last week. It was Romeo Doubs who exploded with 151 yards in the playoff game. Dontayvion Wicks and tight end Luke Musgrave also caught big touchdowns from Love. Imagine what can happen if Christian Watson ever stays healthy and contributes more.
The Packers are dialing it up and Love is hitting everyone that’s open. Earlier this season, Love was getting nothing out of the deep balls, and he was turning it over too much. But he only has 1 interception since Week 11, his deep ball has improved, and he’s gotten much better at taking the easier plays to move the chains.
The Packers have also shown a great ability to score on the road as all 5 of their games with over 28 points have come on the road this year, including last week’s season-high 48 points in Dallas.
49ers: Don’t Forget About the Arsenal
It feels like a long time since we’ve seen the 49ers at full strength, but Week 17 was the last time they played Brock Purdy, Christian McCaffrey, Deebo Samuel, Brandon Aiyuk, and George Kittle together in a game. McCaffrey left that one with a calf injury, but he should be good to go after resting it for weeks.
The 49ers have scored at least 27 points in 12-of-17 games this year. You might as well say 12-of-16 (75%) for the starters since they rested in Week 18 in the loss to the Rams. Then it was that 3-game losing streak where they couldn’t break 17 points, a streak that saw injuries to McCaffrey, Samuel, and left tackle Trent Williams. Even Purdy suffered a concussion in Minnesota but did not miss any time for it.
Otherwise, the 49ers haven’t been shut down since the 33-19 loss to the Ravens. But even in that game, Sam Darnold had the offense right at the doorstep for another touchdown to make it 33-26 before the 49ers had their 5th interception of the night. That single game accounted for 5-of-18 turnovers for the 49ers this year.
Despite those 2 bad picks that Dak Prescott threw last week, the Green Bay defense is not great at creating turnovers. It only has 18 this year, which ranks below average. Purdy already got his taste of playoff football last year and played well until he injured his elbow against the Eagles in the NFC title game.
Purdy threw 3 touchdowns in his playoff debut against Seattle last year. He gets a Green Bay defense that has allowed some huge numbers to quarterbacks this year, including Carolina rookie Bryce Young, who was otherwise dreadful in 2023.
The 49ers and Purdy should be fine offensively in this one. The defense is where they could get exposed.
The Pick
But the 49ers getting exposed by the Packers and Love is just another good reason to think the over hits in this one. Like last week when we said the 49ers should get to 30 and the Packers should get over 21, we will say the same thing here.
Just don’t expect 48-32 again.
Score Prediction: 49ers 30 – Packers 23
NFL Pick: Over 50 (-110) at Caesars Sportsbook
*The line and/or odds referenced in this article might have changed since the content was published. For the latest information on line movements, visit OddsTrader’s free betting odds tool.
