{"id":799089,"date":"2026-03-07T20:20:34","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T20:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/799089\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T20:20:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T20:20:34","slug":"sports-betting-roundup-favorites-in-the-nfl-playoffs-struggle-against-the-spread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/799089\/","title":{"rendered":"Sports betting roundup: Favorites in the NFL playoffs struggle against the spread"},"content":{"rendered":"

Beginning with the College Football Playoff<\/a> semifinals and continuing with the NFL wild-card round<\/a> over the weekend, it was four days of thrilling action on the gridiron.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a look at how things played out from a sports betting perspective:<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Trends of the Week<\/p>\n

In the NFL, going into Monday night, favorites are 1-4 against the spread in the wild-card round<\/a>. The lone favorite to cover was the Patriots, who won 16-3<\/a> as 3.5-point favorites on Sunday night. The Patriots took in 65% of the bets and 61% of the money.<\/p>\n

In the second CFP semifinal, Indiana rolled to a 56-22 win over Oregon<\/a> on Friday night. The Hoosiers took in 72% of the bets and 49% of the money. They will now face Miami<\/a> in the national championship on Jan. 19.<\/p>\n

Upsets of the Week<\/p>\n

The biggest upset in the NFL on wild-card weekend was the 49ers beating the Eagles 23-19<\/a> on the road. The 49ers closed as 5.5-point underdogs and took in 62% of the bets and 72% of the money. They were +200 on the moneyline and took in 70% of the bets and 50% of the money.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Another upset on Sunday was the Bills\u2019 27-24 win over the Jaguars<\/a>. Buffalo closed as a 1.5-point underdog and took in 52% of the bets and 51% of the money. Going into the game, Josh Allen was 0-4 in road playoff games, failing to cover the spread in all four.<\/p>\n

Coming Up<\/p>\n

With only one wild-card game remaining, the Rams<\/a> and Seahawks are the current Super Bowl favorites at +300. The Bills are next at +550, followed by the Patriots at +650 and the Broncos at +700.<\/p>\n

The Texans follow at +1300, with the Bears at +1400, the 49ers at +1700 and the Steelers at +5000.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

This column was provided to The Associated Press by BetMGM online sportsbook.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP sports: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/sports<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beginning with the College Football Playoff semifinals and continuing with the NFL wild-card round over the weekend, it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":799090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[332,7,872,216,6,84,5433,426,2854],"class_list":["post-799089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl-playoffs","tag-college-football-playoff","tag-football","tag-josh-allen","tag-miami","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-playoffs","tag-sports-betting","tag-steelers","tag-the-patriots"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116189752577897294","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799089","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=799089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/799090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}