The Wild Card Round was all about the visitors, but the home teams struck back this weekend. All four advanced to the next round, and the Saints were the only home team that failed to cover, more on that later. As Rich Hribar noted in the betting preview, home teams have dominated straight up in the Divisional Round since 2000 -- now 53-23 -- but struggle a bit against the spread. That makes the 3-1 ATS showing for home teams this year a bit of an outlier.
Also unlike Wild Card Weekend, the Divisional Round has traditionally favored the over, especially over the last couple of seasons. There was no advantage to be had this year, however, with two games going over the total and two games going under. Interestingly, the two games with totals in the 40s both went over, easily in the case of the Chargers and Patriots, while the two games with totals in the 50s were the lowest-scoring games of the weekend.
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Curse Broken
As discussed in this spot last week, quarterbacks making their first playoff start have struggled over the last several seasons, and that has been especially true for rookies and sophomores. Teams with quarterbacks making their first playoff start were 4-15 straight up and 5-14 against the spread since 2013 heading into the weekend including losses by Deshaun Watson, Lamar Jackson, and Mitchell Trubisky in the Wild Card Round. Rookies and sophomore were 0-10 since Colin Kaepernick and Russell Wilson were on the winning side back in 2012.
The phenom known as Patrick Mahomes is unbothered by the situations which unsettle mere mortals, however, and looked great despite not throwing a touchdown in the Chiefs’ 18-point win over the Colts. Wilson’s team was knocked out in the Divisional Round in 2012, so Mahomes has already better his run, while Kaepernick’s lost on the goal line in the Super Bowl. The last first-year starter to win a Super Bowl was Tom Brady, who stands in Mahomes’ way this week. Brady did that as a sophomore way back in 2001.
Bad Beats
Coming off the horror of last week’s Seahawks-Cowboys ending, it is tough to call anything which happened this weekend a bad beat, but there were still a couple of tough losses. Oddly, the Cowboys were involved in the first of those on Saturday night.
Looking at a nine-point deficit following a touchdown just before the two-minute warning -- a touchdown which put the game over, for what it is worth -- the Cowboys decided to kick the extra point instead of going for two, a decision that many coaches would have made but is still the wrong call. A successful two-point try would have cut the deficit to seven, either pushing or winning Cowboys bets depending on when the line was taken.
They probably did not deserve to cover what was a close game throughout, but New Orleans backers likely consider themselves hard-luck losers. After closing as 8.5-point favorites, the Saints were up six late in the fourth quarter when Wil Lutz pushed a 52-yard field goal wide right. The attempt was certainly not a gimme, but Lutz is 6-of-8 from more than 50 yards over the last two seasons following a rough start to his career and would have been favored to make the kick. The miss kept the lead at six points, which is where it finished following an Eagles interception on the next drive.
