Indianapolis vs Kansas City -5 O/U 57

Josh McDaniels? Who the hell is he? You have to give it up to Frank Reich for the amazing job that he has done there winning their first playoff game on the road with ease. The Colts are arguably the hottest team in the NFL next to the Eagles. Now the Colts have to face arguably the best team in the NFL in the KC Chiefs. Now one thing that the Colts have going for them is their defense has really stepped it up since being healthy. Since November 11th they have held teams to an average of 15.6 points per game. On the other hand we all know that KC has the best offense in the league at 426 yards per game. Their big problem is really their defense allowing a second most 406 yards per game. A match-up key to this game that could favor the Chiefs is that the Colts allow the most yards against tight ends at 77 per game so not good facing a guy like Travis Kelcey. Find a Kelcey Prop maybe for this game. On the other hand. Kansas City gives up the second most touchdowns to tight ends at 10 this year so think a little about Ebron as well. I have the Colts losing to the Chiefs 26 – 22 but that doesn’t really factor in how hot the Colts have been over the last few weeks. I also don’t love how KC finished the season or Andy Reid’s playoff records. It is so easy for me to see the Colts scoring a garbage TD here to cover this spread if they do not win it outright. I can’t go chiefs but my play here is the colts but being in a cold weather stadium I much prefer the under.

Under 57 lean Colts +5.5

Dallas vs LA Rams -7 O/U 49.5

Congratulations to Jason Garrett for prolonging his Job for at least 1 more year. Now I do not think that it is a good thing for Cowboy fans but it is what it is. One thing that you have to appreciate is how much Amari Cooper and tight end Blake Jarwin has meant to Zeke opening up the running game. Another thing that we have to look at is that the Rams actually rank second worst this year against tight ends allowing 67 yards per game. Now we know that the Rams statistics wise has the second best offense at 422 yards per game but their defense is not good against the run allowing a 10th worst 122 yards per game which feeds into the Cowboys strength. We know the coaching advantage has to go to the Rams here but at the same time the Boys have had a harder schedule than the Rams and maybe even had a harder division. The Rams are scary good when they are getting to the Quarterback and throwing the ball to Gurly, but can Leighton Vander Esch and that fierce defense contain him enough to cover. I think so. I have the Rams winning 25-21 hear and I am not afraid to sprinkle that shit.

Cowboys +7 and lean under 49.5

LA Chargers vs New England Patriots -4 O/U 47

Ah the Patriots. We have the best QB in the league with Tom Brady and he is also the oldest quarterback in the league at 41 years old. New England is 6-2 ATS at home and the Chargers are 8-1 on the road which we covered last week. The problem with New England is that they are a bit decimated and a shell of themselves over the last few years. There is no Legarret Blount to pound the ball on short yardage and no Danny Amendola to bail them out on sneaky plays either. Josh Gordon is done for the year for testing positive again and I also think that Gronk is beat up beat up and it shows this year. New England D has been pretty good again doing just enough to win a lot of games but they cannot sack the QB well ranking second to last in sacks per game at 1.9. Chargers are much better at sacks since Bosa has been back ranking at 3.7 sacks per game over the last 3 and a 10th best 2.7 for the year. I think the Chargers have gotten better since the mid season and the Patriots have became worse. A key for me here is that I think the Patriots have had the easiest schedule in the League this year while the Chargers are middle of the pack. If the Chargers are smart here they blitz brady a lot and play man press coverage against New Englands small WRs. I have the Patriots winning 23.5 to 21 from a numbers perspective but they are a lot closer on a neutral field. Like Chargers +4 and lean under 47.

Chargers +4 and lean under 47

Philadelphia vs New Orleans -8 O/U 50.5

Fly Eagles fly. Well Maybe God does like the Eagles being that they were the biggest underdog last week winning against my Bears because they did not deserve it. Their morning paper even said Clank you for the win. I know that I am bitter about this game but the better team really lost. The Eagles first Touchdown drive was comprised of pure penalties with a touchy pass interference call against Prince Amukamara, an unnecessary roughness penalty on Adrian Amos and a too many men on the field penalty. The Eagles scored when there were only 10 Bears on the field. Their last TD was made from Foles side arming a throw perfectly to Golden Tate against Adrian Amos which i do give them credit for but at the same time, Amos needs to jump that pass rather than follow Tate down the sideline. Mitch played a good game at the end but started off not audibling out of plays to quick slants and flats when he saw the Blitz and I thought he could have checked down a bit more rather than throwing the ball in the dirt. The Bears out-gained the Eagles by over 50 yards and fizzled out in the red zone. Dumb mistakes costed this Bears team and the ultimate dumbest of all mistakes was keeping a Kicker who missed 11 kicks this year. Parkey kicked the ball way to low and left making a standard 6 foot guy easily block it at the line of scrimage. I actually think that the tip may have helped the ball almost go in the uprights but the bears were to stubborn to see their greatest weakness who also costed them the game vs Miami and therefore home field advantage. Ok, enough of me bitching. The Saints are the real deal this year and it is like I said before the season started. Drew Breese needs that last Superbowl to cement him as equals with Peyton Manning, Big Ben and closer to Tom Brady. The big difference you will see with Breese over Mitch Trubisky is that he is not green and knows how to expose the Eagles weaknesses in their secondary and will do so right from the start. It is hard to come up with true algorithmic numbers for the Saints since they have been destroying teams and running the clock out at the end but mine with the garbage time adjustment show New Orleans winning 28-20. I think the Eagles are a bit beat up from last week so I like the Saints first half -4 and lean -8

Lean Saints -8 and Saints First half -4

Teaser – New Orleans to -2 with Indianapolis to +11

LA Chargers vs Baltimore Ravens – 2.5 O/U 41.5

You really have to give John Harbaugh some credit here for how he finished this season. Not only does he now have the best defense in yards per game, he also now has a top 10 offense. The way this team runs the ball has been extremely solid with dual threat Lamar Jackson at the helm. This Ravens team already beat the Chargers once and the question is can they do it again? Numbers-wise Baltimore really has the upper hand here. On the other side of the coin LA has been a great away team this year at an amazing 7-1 ATS beating teams like the Chiefs and Steelers on the road. Anthony Lynn should be smart enough to play contain and make Lamar Jackson beat them with his arm. Jackson is way to dangerous of a runner to just straight up blitz him. In saying that I still do not trust Lynn to do the right thing and on the other side I do not trust Lamar Jackson to not turn over the ball to pick a side here. My numbers have this game Baltimore 24 to LA 20.5 and because of this I think even though both defenses are very good, there is some value in the over. Here is a sneaky thing about the Baltimore Ravens. They actually average the most plays per game at 70.9 which is over 3 plays higher than New England who is second most at 67.1.

Over 41.5 points

Indianapolis vs Houston -1.5 O/U 49

A lot could be said how Houston has finished the season at 11-5 and the same could be said on how great Andrew Luck has looked with the colts coming in second in passing yards. Both teams benefited from having the easiest schedules this year in football. The Colts hit a bad patch of games during the mid season due to many injuries but if you look at the report now they are quite healthy while the Texas just lost Demarious Thomas, LB Brian Peters and CB Kavon Webster with 3 other important guys questionable for this game. If everyone was healthy, I have the Colts about a 1 point favorite on a neutral field meaning the Texans should be favored by 2 at home but now with the injuries you have to make this game more of a pickem and I also think that the colts have a coaching and momentum advantage here. I do not think too much of coach O’brien for the Texans and I think if they win, it would have to be all from DeShawn Watson and the D. I have this game 23-23. Being that defense Travels and the Texans still have JJ Watt and Clowney, I tend to really like the under in this game.

Texans vs Colts Under 49

Seattle vs Dallas -1 O/U 43

These teams are literally the same teams stat wise. Both are almost exact on offense at around 350 yards per game and both on Defense allowing about the same. You wonder how these teams made the playoffs matching in yards per play like this. Seattle has had a great finish to the season making the playoffs and all while Dallas was kinda up and down. Both teams run the ball very well as we have seen. I think that these teams are very dependent on their home fields and can be a much different team away. We just recently saw Seattle dominate KC at home yet they lost to San Francisco Away and we saw Dallas dominate New Orleans at home while getting shut out in Indi. I have this game from a numbers perspective Dallas winning 23 to 22 but that factors in the whole body of work. Dallas is a much better team at home at 5-2-1 ATS while Seattle is a modest 3-3-1 ATS away. I also really like what Cowboys tight end Blake Jarwin showed last week who had 3 Tds and being a new weapon for Dak. The Seahawks are a little more banged up than the Cowboys on the injury report. The coaching advantage definitely goes to Pete Carrol here but this is also a revenge spot for big D so I have to reluctantly go with Dallas -1.

Dallas -1

Philadelphia vs Chicago -5.5 O/U 41

This number has been bouncing around 5 or 6 because most power ratings have the Bears about 2 points better than the Eagles. What can you say about the Nick Foles led Eagles? This is a very scary team beating the Rams and Texans on the road before shutting out the Redskins last week to make the playoffs. Both coach Nagy and Peterson know each other well from being in Kansas City under Andy Reid. As a matter of fact they are buddies and there is probably no other coach that knows each other better. Now this actually should favor both teams. Both have great D coordinators with Jim Schwartz and Vic Fangio. The Bears are definitely healthier here on D especially in the defensive backs but the Eagles are no slouches against the run ranking 8th and trending up. The Eagles definitely have been here before so they might end up being more confident on offense here with Nick Foles at the helm than first time Bears playoff QB Mitch Trubisky and he could be more prone to mistakes. The kicker here is that crazy good pass rush Chicago has. Foles has some rib injuries and that hurts so he might be wanting to get rid of the ball pretty quickly. From a pure numbers perspective my Algorithm has this game the Bears winning 24 to 19.5 so this spread is right on from that perspective. Mitch has to have a decent game here and since the Eagles are decimated in the secondary he should be able to make a few things happen. The fact that the Eagles have been here before with Foles worries me a bit and makes me lean to take the points..

Lean Philadelphia +5.5