NFL Wild Card Saturday: Best Picks For Patriots Vs. Bills and Raiders Vs. Bengals
MaximBet reveals the latest picks and predictions for Wild Card Saturday.
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All it’s taken is getting through the longest NFL season in human history in what felt like the longest year in human history, but we made it.
Thanks to surprisingly eventful, and some pretty shocking, results in Week 18, we might have the most competitive playoff field that I can remember, where every team has a legitimate chance to make the Super Bowl, except the Philadelphia Eagles.
Because they world’s not that crazy just yet. And, for reference, Philly has the second-longest Super Bowl LVI odds at MaximBet at 66-1 (Pittsburgh has the worst odds at 80-1).
But, hey, take that as a challenge Eagles, please. Do everything you can to prove me wrong. Yes, no one believes in you as you travel to Tampa Bay to take on the defending Super Bowl Champion Buccaneers. Harness that disrespect into hate. Let that hate make you powerful. Now, fulfill your destiny.
In the meantime, we’ve got some Wild Card Saturday games to pick from the NFL odds at MaximBet.
Instead of piling up our weekend with three games per day like any of us would want, the NFL has decided to drag out this year’s Wild Card schedule all the way to Monday so everyone has to call into work Tuesday and claim they’re sick but don’t have COVID.
Saturday AFC Wild Card Games
Las Vegas Raiders at Cincinnati Bengals (-6)
The irony of the Raiders knocking off the Los Angeles Chargers in a game that could have sent them both to the postseason should not be lost before we get into this one.
With both teams hitting field goals in the overtime period of their elimination game Sunday night, the Raiders were going to take a knee at the two-minute warning and run out the clock to ensure each would make the playoffs. Chargers head coach Brandon Staley, not recognizing that was on the table, took a timeout to try to get the ball back and punch Vegas out of the postseason.
The Raiders took offense to that and decided to go ahead and send L.A. home to their hermetically sealed man caves to watch the playoffs on their big screens.
Staley, in trying to eliminate the Raiders instead of Kumbaya-ing together into the postseason, got his own men sent home instead, as Vegas long snapper Trent Sieg revealed to Los Angeles running back Austin Ekeler after the game. This would be a good time to unleash a sarcastic “Let’s go Brandon,” but saying that out loud means you want to put babies into your sister.
The Chargers, ironically, would have been a much tougher match up for the Bengals, having already waxed their heads 41-22 a little over a month ago.
Cincy has been on fire and has the horses to win, but I don’t trust them with the larger spread considering they’re still the Bengals and haven’t won a playoff game since 1991.
Take the Raiders +6 or, alternatively, the Bengals moneyline at -260.
New England Patriots at Buffalo Bills (-4)
While people might rightly be wary of any Bill Belichick-coached team in the playoffs, the Patriots have lost three of their last four, one a double-digit defeat by these same Bills three weeks ago.
Sunday, they were dismantled by the Miami Dolphins while they had a chance to claim the AFC East title. The Dolphins dominated the game, finished 9-8 and shockingly still fired their head coach, Brian Flores.
Flores, who has led an undermanned Dolphins squad to consecutive winning seasons and barely missed the playoffs in both is now one of the top candidates for open head coaching positions in the NFL. When you fire a guy and he immediately goes on the top of everyone else’s hire list, you’ve probably fucked up pretty bad.
Anyway, the Bills should get this one done at home and end our Bucs vs. Pats Super Bowl nightmare scenario for good.
Take the Bills at -4.
Adam Greene is @TheFirstMan on Twitter.
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