NFL Divisional Round: The Best Picks For Rams Vs. Buccaneers and Bills Vs. Chiefs
Place your bets on MaximBet’s picks and predictions for Sunday’s NFL Divisional Round games.
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I’m writing this on a Friday morning still perplexed at how I’ve yet to get a notification on my phone that the Dallas Cowboys have fired Mike McCarthy. They are the most popular and valuable NFL franchise.
Our industry, as a whole, does better when they’re pretty good and I believe sincerely that Jerry Jones cares about his team’s fortunes, even if you can’t see it on his mannequin-like plasticized face.
But it still hasn’t happened. McCarthy makes the dumbest play call in NFL playoffs history (I’m not fact checking that) and continues to be employed while other teams are actively wooing both of his assistants.
I don’t love the Cowboys, but I don’t hate them. I hate the San Francisco 49ers. But because I love the NFL, it’s better when these teams are good. I’ll go ahead and grudgingly say the same for the New England Patriots now, though it hurts me to even type it.
These teams, along with the Green Bay Packers, Pittsburgh Steelers, New York Giants and Denver Broncos are kind of the good NFL starter set. The league is better if they’re all contenders.
Mike McCarthy shouldn’t be the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. He shouldn’t be a head coach at all. With his skillset and football acumen, he’s obviously meant to be the night manager at an IHOP in Iowa. There’s still time to make that dream real.
We can’t continue to look back to last week or wish Jerry Jones wasn’t driven mad by too many botox injections. Instead, we need to take a gander at the NFL odds, lines and totals over at MaximBet with an eye toward the future.
And making some money on remainder of the NFL Playoffs.
NFL Divisional Round Sunday
Los Angeles Rams at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (-3)
Last week, we had two teams display near perfect performances in blowout victories over division rivals and neither of them are favored Sunday.
This line has dropped half a point since the odds opened at MaximBet, which means bettors are getting excited at the prospect of a Rams upset. There’s good reason to think it. Los Angeles is 2-0 against the Brady Bucs over the last two seasons and one of those games was with Jared Goff at quarterback.
Earlier this season, the Rams dominated Tampa Bay, winning 34-24 in a game that really wasn’t that close. The Buccaneers added a TD in garbage time.
Von Miller made a career out of ending Tom Brady-playoff runs while he was in Denver. Tampa’s receiving corps is depleted and they could be down two starting offensive linemen. I see it just like you. The Rams are my team. The stage is set for the upset we all, as a civilization, want.
And that’s exactly why it won’t happen. Tom Brady has been ruining my fucking life for two decades and there’s no reason for him to stop now.
Take the Bucs at -3 or the Bucs moneyline at -145.
Buffalo Bills at Kansas City Chiefs (-1.5)
While the Rams put forth maybe their best performance of the year against the Arizona Cardinals, the Bills were legitimately perfect. They scored touchdowns on every possession but their final one, in which they took a knee to end the game. You literally can not do better than that.
If that was a game of Madden 21, Bill Belichick would have hit the rest button and planted his controller into the drywall at halftime.
The Chiefs, not used to playing in this “Wild Card Round” thing with the rest of the plebes, needed a quarter to get warmed up before tossing the Pittsburgh Steelers into the woodchipper.
This line has ticked down too, with more people putting money on the Bills. This is easily the best weekend of football on the planet and the final eight teams here, should all be here.
They are the legit NFL Elite Eight and any one of them could beat the other. It’s the beauty of the sport. No upset this week could shock me. All that would surprise me is if any of the games were blowouts.
That being said, I picked the Bucs to face the Chiefs in The Most Boring Super Bowl Pick in NFL History to open the season and I’m sticking with it.
Take the Chiefs at -1.5 or the Chiefs moneyline at -125.
Adam Greene is @TheFirstMan on Twitter.
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