They are upon us; the NFL’s last-eight, Divisional Playoff matches – and nobody is facing a tougher weekend than the reigning Super Bowl Champions, the Philadelphia Eagles.
Playing away from home on Sunday. Eagles have a mountain to climb against perhaps Super Bowl 53’s No 1 favorite right now – the New Orleans Saints.
And the odds being quoted on the game by the New Jersey sports bookmakers on Friday only served to underline this ascertain.
William Hill’s money line odds, for example, were +130 for the Eagles and a whopping -380 for the Saints
The Saints-Eagles AFC semi-final is one of the two Divisional playoffs taking place on Sunday. The other being the NFC semi-final between the New England Patriots and the LA Chargers.
Looking back to Saturday’s Division Playoffs we see that the Indianapolis Colts play the Kansas City Chiefs in the other AFC semi-final while the Los Angeles Rams, currently the only team alongside the Saints with a 13-3 win-loss record, take on the Dallas Cowboys in the first NFC semi-final.
If the odds being quoted right now in New Jersey are going to be accurately reflected when this weekend’s dust has settled and the two AFC and NFC division winners have emerged to take each other on in their respective Division finals, the teams the four sports bookmakers expect to see are the NFC’s Saints and the Rams and the AFC’s Patriots and the Chiefs.
Are the Bookies right in their assumptions?
Some other football-wise observers may see things differently.
Pointing to the fact that each and every one of the hot, mid-season favorites, The Saints, the Rams, and Chiefs, have all suffered losses in the past month and that after dismal starts to the season when neither looked anything like a Super Bowl contender, the Eagles, The Cowboys, and the Colts have all been coming on in leaps and bounds.
The Colts are looking especially impressive. After starting their season with a dismal 1-5 win-loss record, they have gone on to win 10 of their last 11 games and last week with quarterback Andrew Luck in fine form they produced some great running football to trounce the never-easy-to-beat Texans.
That winning combination may not be allowed to be quite as potent this week, but the Chiefs will under-rate the cock-of-the-hoop Colts at their peril.
And ditto for Rams in their game against the Cowboys.
The formidable Dallas defense of late could quite easily close down the Rams danger men Todd Gurley and Jared Goff and if any outsider is going to cause an upset this weekend, it might just be the Cowboys.
In spite of their impressive late-season fight back, we can’t see the Eagles holding, let alone beating, the rampant Saints, but while we expect the Patriots to win and hold on to their impressive record in the Super Bowl in recent years (they were the winners in 2017 and runners up last year) there is a strong chance that it is going to take their very best to hold off Philip Rivers and his increasingly ambitious Chargers.
THIS WEEK’S FOUR DIVISIONAL PLAYOFF MATCHES
NOTE: Money line odds in standard brackets behind each team. Totals odds [under/over] in square brackets at end of each fixture line
Saturday, January 12th Divisional Playoffs
4:35pm (ET) IN Colts (+240) at KC Chiefs (-200) [U/O 57 -110]
8:15pm (ET) DA Cowboys (+100) at LA Rams (-120) [U/O 49.5 -110]
Sunday, January 13th Divisional Playoffs
1:05pm (ET) LA Chargers (+170) at NE Patriots (-190) [U/O 47.5 -110]
4:40pm (ET) PH Eagles (+130) at NO Saints (-380) [U/O 51 -110]
