{"id":662688,"date":"2026-01-08T02:38:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T02:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/662688\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T02:38:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T02:38:12","slug":"multiple-road-teams-favored-in-wild-card-round-of-nfl-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/662688\/","title":{"rendered":"Multiple road teams favored in wild-card round of NFL playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

LAS VEGAS (AP) \u2014 This could be an unprecedented weekend for road favorites in the NFL playoffs<\/a>, which open Saturday with the wild-card round.<\/p>\n

Four road teams were favored at BetMGM Sportsbook as of Wednesday afternoon. Two of those games had 1-point spreads \u2014 Green Bay at Chicago and Buffalo at Jacksonville \u2014 so it\u2019s possible the number of road favorites will be down to two when the games begin. The Packers-Bears line has bounced back and forth, but the Bills have been steady favorites over the Jaguars.<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles Rams are favored by 10 1\/2 points at Carolina, and Houston is a field-goal favorite at Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019ll speak to how wide open this playoff is projected to be,\u201d BetMGM sports trader Christian Cipollini said. \u201cSome of them make sense. You have the Panthers who got in with a losing record, and the Steelers have looked questionable at times.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were only three road favorites all of last postseason, according to Sportradar, and that was the highest number dating to the 2016 season, the first year the statistic was tracked. Two of those games were in the wild-card round, but in both, the home underdog prevailed \u2014 Houston over the Los Angeles Chargers and the Rams over Minnesota.<\/p>\n

Even in the games this year in which the home team is favored, the lines aren\u2019t that big.<\/p>\n

Defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia<\/a> is a 4 1\/2-point favorite over San Francisco, and New England is favored by 3 1\/2 over the Chargers.<\/p>\n

\u201cVery, very odd that (at least) half the games in the wild-card round would have road favorites,\u201d CBS SportsLine handicapper Bruce Marshall said. \u201cI do not think that\u2019s happened before, off the top of my head. With the exception of the Niners and maybe Pittsburgh, I can make a case for all those other underdogs, and in the Niners and Pittsburgh games, I\u2019m not sure I like the favorites all that much.\u201d<\/p>\n

NFC West is favored to produce the champ<\/p>\n

The two favorites to win the Super Bowl are from the NFC West. Seattle is listed at +375 at BetMGM and the Rams are at +425. The Seahawks are at +330 at DraftKings Sportsbook and the Rams are at +425.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s quite rare,\u201d said Johnny Avello, DraftKings director of race and sportsbook operations. \u201cUsually, it will kind of be spread out a little bit. They have the two teams with the highest power ratings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Avello said those are the two most complete teams entering the postseason.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing about the Rams and Seattle is that they just look so good on both sides of the ball,\u201d Avello said. \u201cOther teams maybe look good on offense, defense is OK. But these two teams have looked solid as of late.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mile-high hopes for the Broncos in the AFC<\/p>\n

Denver is a +225 favorite at BetMGM to emerge as the AFC representative in the Super Bowl and listed at +650 to win it. The numbers are nearly identical at DraftKings.<\/p>\n

But there is skepticism about whether the Broncos will go all the way. They lived dangerously this season, winning 11 games by one-score margins.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they\u2019re really comfortable playing close games like that,\u201d Marshall said. \u201cIt\u2019s not that Denver couldn\u2019t get to the Super Bowl and win it, but they\u2019re not overwhelming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Big opportunity for Bills\u2019 Allen<\/p>\n

Some of Josh Allen\u2019s biggest obstacles are out of the way. Fellow standout AFC quarterbacks Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson are sitting at home, while Allen hopes to finally lead the Bills to a championship.<\/p>\n

Though the Bills don\u2019t have the easiest path, there\u2019s a reason they\u2019re favored to win at red-hot Jacksonville on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bills-Jaguars one is crazy because the Jaguars have looked so good as of late,\u201d Cipollini said. \u201cYou can make a solid argument over the last month they\u2019ve looked like the best team in the AFC, but on the other side is the Bills with a guy named Josh Allen. That changes everything when you get to the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

A streak will end in Pittsburgh<\/p>\n

The Steelers have been unbeatable on Monday nights, and that\u2019s the timeslot for their matchup with the Texans. They have won 23 consecutive games in that prime-time window, a streak that dates back to 1991.<\/p>\n

But Pittsburgh also hasn\u2019t won a playoff game since the 2016 season, a stretch of six straight losses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose type of trends that are kind of historical are always interesting, good little nuggets, but don\u2019t come into effect so much (with the betting lines),\u201d Cipollini said. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of factors that went into the Steelers and the Monday night history and playoff losses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Avello agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, for us it doesn\u2019t (matter),\u201d Avello said. \u201cFor the bettors, it probably does.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NFL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nfl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS (AP) \u2014 This could be an unprecedented weekend for road favorites in the NFL playoffs, which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[58641,214,53,1443,692,62919,567,564,7,41,15096,1682,212,1577,58639,872,895,82906,262,58,7502,11087,22221,2699,1917,6,498,84,941,22222,6370,499,5763,252,82927,9,51,5557,37057,855,568,991],"class_list":["post-662688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl-playoffs","tag-bruce-marshall","tag-buffalo","tag-buffalo-bills","tag-california","tag-chicago","tag-christian-cipollini","tag-co-state-wire","tag-colorado","tag-football","tag-green-bay","tag-il-state-wire","tag-illinois","tag-jacksonville","tag-joe-burrow","tag-johnny-avello","tag-josh-allen","tag-lamar-jackson","tag-local-news-for-apple","tag-los-angeles-chargers","tag-los-angeles-rams","tag-massachusetts","tag-national-basketball-association","tag-nc-state-wire","tag-nevada","tag-new-york","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-football","tag-nfl-playoffs","tag-north-carolina","tag-nv-state-wire","tag-pa-state-wire","tag-patrick-mahomes","tag-pennsylvania","tag-san-francisco-49ers","tag-seattle-redhawks","tag-sports","tag-texas","tag-tx-state-wire","tag-wa-state-wire","tag-washington","tag-wi-state-wire","tag-wisconsin"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}