Wild Card Weekend!

Intro by Sam

*Inhales* Can you smell that? No, it’s not the stink from our picks during the regular season. It’s Wild. Card. Weekend. The playoffs are here and One Last Line isn’t going anywhere. We’ll be here every weekend of the playoffs with your locks of the week (as always fade us). 

Things will look a little different for the post-season. The running total for the regular season is done. Principles, gone. We’re going to break down every game, provide our power-rankings, and give you our Superbowl matchup and a champion pick every week. Just like your favorite bourbon, it’s One Last Line distilled and aged to perfection.

Power Rankings

Sam	Yank
Chiefs Packers Bills Saints Steelers Buccaneers Ravens Seahawks Titans Rams Colts Browns Washington Football Team Bears	Chiefs Packers Saints Bills Steelers Ravens Titans Colts Buccaneers Rams Seahawks Browns Football Team Bears
Super Bowl Matchup: Kansas City Chiefs vs Green Bay Packers	Super Bowl Matchup: Kansas City Chiefs vs LA Rams
Winner: Green Bay Packers	Winner: Kansas City Chiefs

Wild Card Picks

The Indianapolis Colts @ The Buffalo Bills-6.5

Yank: The playoffs are here and I am honestly incredibly fired up. Every team that’s left laying it all on the line for a shot at the championship. We should be able to avoid the let down spots that absolutely cost us money during the regular season. More importantly, we are going to lean harder than ever into strong takes we have given the body of evidence we have seen from these teams. The first theme you will see from me is momentum, which should be surprising, because in game momentum is not something I believe in. But I am not talking about momentum between plays or drives, I am talking about strong, steady play that has consistently emerged over time between games that shows a synergy between players and play caller and emphasizes the ability of the coaching staff to get the most out of their players. As a die hard Giants fan I have seen the effect that coming into the playoffs hot can have. The Buffalo Bills are scorching hot on the strength of their exceptional OC Brian Daboll and ascending QB Josh Allen. The Bills are the number one team by weighted DVOA,¹ which emphasizes the most recent performances more strongly, and indicates that based on their current level of play the Bills are the best team in the league. 

Which brings me back to my takes. Truth be told I don’t believe in this Bills team as a Super Bowl contender. You might remember me consistently losing money betting against them down the stretch. It even seems like the Colts who have been leaning on Jonathon Taylor and their strong defense should be able to exploit the Bills biggest weaknesses defending the run and attempting to run the ball themselves.  But…I’m not buying it. My second theme for this weekend is “don’t trust old QBs in the playoffs in the cold”. Philip Rivers is still quarterbacking the Colts. He still has a pool noodle for an arm. It’s going to be 30 degrees in Buffalo. This feels like a game where I lay it all on the line on the Colts and they jump out to a 14-0 lead, but Josh Allen whittles away slowly for 3 hours until before you know it, the game is over, it’s 31-24, I feel like I got everything right, and my money is still in the sportsbooks pocket. And that is the best case scenario for the Colts.

Sam: I have to agree with Yank here. The Bills have momentum. They seem to be playing with joy and ease. Turns out getting your young quarterback an awesome wide receiver really helps them play better. The Colts on the other hand have had to fight tooth and nail for every victory. They struggled mightily in the second half against the Steelers, once the Steelers realized they could throw deep on the Colts (Yikes! see: Bills’ passing game). The Tremendously Terrible Texans l-i-t-e-r-a-l-l-y fumbled two goal line, game winning/tying opportunities in the waning seconds of both of their games. Otherwise, they’ve beaten the Raiders and Jaguars in the last couple weeks. Can the Colts run the ball way better now, than they could at the beginning of the season? Maybe. But as I just mentioned, they played the Texans – a sieve – the Raiders – a cheese cloth – and the Jags – a colander. I could see this game playing out the way Yank described or the Bills just run up the score early. If you’re thinking about adjusting a line, this game is definitely screaming your name.

Yank’s Picks: $5.33 on Bills-6.5(-107)

Sam’s Picks: $6.50 on the Bills-6.5(-115)

The Los Angeles Rams @ The Seattle Seahawks-3

Sam: Back at it again with the Rams and Seahawks you ask? Well, frankly, yes. The only way this could be more in our wheelhouse is if it were the NFC championship game but we’ll settle for a Wild Card matchup. My confidence in the Seahawks has dropped during each iteration of this matchup. At the beginning of the season, the Seahawks could score on demand, but couldn’t stop anyone. Now, they can generate stops at will, but can’t seem to find the endzone. Teams are taking away Metcalf down the field and for some unknown reason, the Seahawks and Russell Wilson are having a really hard time making adjustments to their offense. They have enough playmakers on offense that you’d think they’d be able to figure something out. Nevertheless, I put my faith in Russ, the Seahawks defense, and my convictions about the Rams’ offense. The people are raving about Wolford’s performance against the Cardinals as if he was the second coming of Kurt Warner. The Rams scored 18 – EIGHTEEN – points against the Cards and 7 of those came from the defense!!!!! Raving about 22-38, 231 yards, and 1 interception against a bad defense is fundamentally ~wild~. I even heard talk show hosts say they actually wouldn’t mind seeing Wolford play even if Goff is healthy and ready to go!! What world am I living in?

At the end of the day, this might be a slugfest… Defense. Defense. Defense. I still expect a weird, off-kilter Russ to perform way better than any QB/offense that the Rams can muster and for the defenses to basically cancel each other out (even if the Rams defense is more talented).

Yank: Defense, defense, defense is exactly right and leads me right back to the conversation about momentum. We have extolled the virtues of the Rams defense and the modern approach of their coordinator Brandon Staley in this space multiple times before and it is backed up by the advanced metrics. The Rams have the number one defense by weighted DVOA² aka their most recent performances indicate they have the league’s best defense coming into the playoffs. I’m generally on the side of good offense beats good defense in the modern NFL (see my Bills over Colts pick above), but I think this Rams defense powered by two of the best players on the planet is unique, and has a chance to hit a level that powers them to a deep playoff run in the underwhelming NFC. Also speaking of underwhelming here is another place my Giants fandom will be brought to bear: I think this Seattle team STINKS. The NY Football Giants went into Seattle with Colt McCoy at QB and beat this team mere weeks ago. The Rams defense is light years better than the Giants defense. John Wolford (if he plays) or Jared Goff are better than Colt McCoy. Neither one of these teams has shown a propensity to consistently score more than 20 points. Give me the team with the better coach, the better defensive playmakers, and the chip on their shoulder as the underdog. 

Yank’s Picks: $4.00 on the Rams+3.5(-115) and $2.00 on the Rams ML(+145)

Sam’s Picks: $5.50 on the Seahawks-3(-110)

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers-8.5 @ The Washington Football Team

Yank: I have spent the vast majority of my time thinking about this game struggling to comprehend how Washington will score points. Alex Smith stinks even before he was hobbled by another leg injury. Taylor Heinicke is part of that journeyman QB parade from 3 years ago when we were all befuddled by the owners pretending some random guy we had never heard of was better at football than Kaepernick. I literally just had to go back and edit Heinicke because it autocorrected to Heineken. These are dire straights for the WFT. Here’s the other thing, I am also an idiot who does nothing but lose money gambling. People everywhere are ecstatic to lay 8-9 points on the road in the cold with a 43 year old QB? Do you know literally anyone who is betting on the WFT against Tom Brady? Every mediocre gambler you know will have the Bucs in a tease, thinking they will easily escape by 3+ points at worst. That’s never a good thing. As the official gambling blog of the Washington Professional Football Team(™), we know this defense is way better than people think. More importantly their strength—wave after wave of young (see what I did there?), relentless, pass rushers—can accomplish the critical task against Brady; create pressure with 4 guys. Home underdogs are the best bets in all of football, and the only two home dogs of more than a TD ever in the playoffs won outright (Seattle in the beast-quake game and Tebow in his lone playoff start for the Broncos against the Steelers). Put me down on the side of the casinos that have been taking our money all year. As of this writing 62% of gambling tickets aka the public are on the Bucs. Someone is going to be the team that ruins everyone’s teases. I’ll be safe and take a couple points instead of riding with the moneyline to protect against a late game Brady miracle, but I think there is a decent chance the Football Team inexplicably wins this game outright. Let’s go Heineken. 

Sam: Once again, Yank and I are of a similar mind here with a little more caution on my part. When I initially look at this, I say well, like the Bills, the Bucs have momentum. They’ve scored a lot of points and seem like they’re getting into a groove this season. But when you look at the details, I start to worry. This season, the Bucs have one, I repeat, o-n-e win against playoff teams this year. They caught the Packers by surprise down in Tampa, but thats it. They’ve lost to the Rams, Chiefs, Saints (2x), and Bears. Additionally, the WFT has the recipe to give the Bucs offense some trouble. Brady don’t move like he use to (did he ever?) and Chase Young is hungry. If they can get after Tom, this game could really shape up like the Bucs-Giants (25-23), Rams-Bucs (27-24), and Bucs-Bears (19-20). In other words, the Bucs are in it, probably win, but don’t cover the full 8.5. I felt really confident about this take and Yank’s aforementioned analysis of the public, but then I thought about the Football team’s quarterback situation. Alex Smith is definitely the only feel good story from 2020, but he probably won’t feel so good against a top-5 defense by DVOA, and in the event that Heinicke gets more snaps than Smith – go re-read my section on Wolford. Can they get to 10 points? Yeesh. I don’t love it. There is definitely a real chance that this is a big time blow out and Yank and I way over thought this, so I’m covering my ass a bit with a Bucs-Saints 7 point tease. That brings the Bucs down to 1.5 which would hit in the event of a blow out or a WFT cover. 

Yank’s picks: $3.00 on the WFT+9(-108) and $2.80 on the WFT+2(+295)

Sam’s Picks $4.00 on the WFT+8.5(-105) and $5.00 on the Bucs-1.5/Saints-3 Tease(-140)

The Bank

	Yank	Sam
Risk:	$17.13	$21.00
Potential Earnings:	$22.66	$18.03

Authors: Sam Mattson and Michael Yanckello

References

1. “Final 2020 DVOA Ratings” by Aaron Schatz, January 4, 2021. https://www.footballoutsiders.com/dvoa-ratings/2021/final-2020-dvoa-ratings
2. “NFL picks against the spread: Predicting wild-card weekend” by Sheil Kapadia of The Athletic, January 7, 2021. https://theathletic.com/2307849/2021/01/08/nfl-wild-card-picks-against-spread/?source=user_shared_article.