An Unprecedented Wild Card Weekend Setup
Wild Card Weekend kicks off today with something the NFL playoffs have never seen: four road favorites. The Rams, Packers, Bills, and Texans are all favored to win on the road. For the first time in league history, a No. 2 seed is an underdog to a No. 7 seed.
Teams fight all season for home field advantage in the postseason. Over the past three years, home teams have dominated playoff games at a 28-8 clip. Yet this weekend, oddsmakers are saying that advantage doesn’t matter for most of the slate.
For contrarian bettors who follow the fade the public approach, this creates one of the most interesting Wild Card setups in memory.
The Four Road Favorites
Here’s how the lines stand heading into Saturday’s action:
Rams -10.5 at Panthers: The largest road favorite spread in Wild Card history. Carolina has the fourth-worst point differential (-69) of any playoff team ever.
Packers -1.5 at Bears: Green Bay enters on a four-game losing streak. Chicago beat them at Soldier Field three weeks ago. Yet the Packers are favored.
Bills -1.5 at Jaguars (Sunday): Buffalo is the first No. 6 seed to be favored over a No. 3 seed in the past decade.
Texans -3 at Steelers (Monday): Houston has never won a road playoff game in franchise history. Pittsburgh has lost six straight playoff games but owns a 23-game home Monday Night Football winning streak.
What History Says About Home Underdogs
The trends overwhelmingly favor the home teams getting points. Wild Card underdogs have gone 27-15 against the spread since 2017. That’s a 64% cover rate over eight postseasons.
The numbers get more striking when looking at larger spreads. Home underdogs of four points or more are 9-0 ATS over the last 50 years in playoff games. Not a small sample quirk. Nine consecutive covers across five decades.
On the flip side, road favorites of four points or more have struggled historically. Teams laying big numbers away from home are just 1-8 ATS over the last 54 postseasons. The only cover was New Orleans in 2011, and they lost outright to Seattle on the famous “Beast Quake” run.
Why the Market Might Be Wrong
Public perception drives playoff lines more than regular season games. Casual bettors flood sportsbooks in January, often backing the team with the better regular season record or the bigger name at quarterback. Oddsmakers know this and adjust accordingly.
The result? Inflated lines on popular favorites. Value on the unpopular home underdogs.
Consider the specifics. Carolina already beat the Rams 31-28 in Charlotte earlier this season. Chicago already beat the Packers at Soldier Field in December. Jacksonville has won eight straight games with Trevor Lawrence playing at an elite level. Pittsburgh has Aaron Rodgers, a 23-game Monday night home winning streak, and a coaching staff that historically excels as home underdogs.
None of these teams are pushovers despite what the lines suggest.
The Bears-Packers Anomaly
The Bears as home underdogs to the Packers stands out. Chicago is the No. 2 seed in the NFC. Green Bay is the No. 7 seed on a four-game losing streak. The Bears won their last meeting at Soldier Field, erasing a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit before winning in overtime.
Yet Green Bay is favored. The market is pricing in the Packers’ playoff experience and the Bears’ relative inexperience under pressure. Maybe that’s correct. But a No. 2 seed being an underdog to a No. 7 seed is genuinely unprecedented.
The public money will lean toward the names everyone knows: Stafford, the Packers playoff pedigree, Josh Allen, the Texans’ nine-game winning streak. Contrarian value sits on the other side.
What This Weekend Tests
This Wild Card slate tests whether the historical patterns hold. Four road favorites. Four home underdogs with the trends behind them. The market is saying regular season performance and roster talent matter more than home field advantage in January.
History disagrees. Strongly.
The playoffs compress talent gaps. Crowds matter more in elimination games. And laying points on the road in January has been a losing proposition for decades. Whether that continues this weekend remains to be seen. A 9-0 ATS streak spanning 50 years is the kind of historical pattern that’s hard to dismiss, even when the matchups seem lopsided on paper.