NFL against the spread picks: Will favorites rule again?

NFL against the spread picks: Will favorites rule again? – Yahoo Sports (blog)

The playoffs have been unusual so far.

All four road teams won in the wild-card round, for the first time in this playoff format. Then all four home teams won in the divisional round for the first time since 2004. The favorites have won seven games straight up. And even the one favorite that lost, the Washington Redskins, were underdogs to the Green Bay Packers early in wild-card week. But underdogs have covered three times without winning in the first two rounds.

And there have been some crazy covers too, from the Cincinnati Bengals rallying to cover and not win, the Hail Mary by the Packers that killed your soul if you had the Arizona Cardinals at minus-7 or a weird push or win by the Pittsburgh Steelers if you had them at plus-7 or 7.5 last week.

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So it’s tough to know what will happen this week. Just keep picking favorites to win straight up because that’s the trend this season? Or is this the week we finally get a true straight-up upset? It’s hard to believe the whole playoff bracket will go pretty much according to plan, right?

Here are the picks for an entertaining pair of conference championship games:

Patriots (-3) over Broncos: I’ll give the argument for the Broncos, and it’s not unreasonable.

The Patriots can’t run the ball. They don’t even try. That’s fine against most defenses, but the Broncos are the best in the NFL against the pass. They also led the NFL with 52 sacks. If you allow that front seven to rush the quarterback with no real fear of the run, that could be a problem. It could lead to some turnovers as well. That’s how the Broncos can win: Keep the score close with a great defensive performance, win the turnover battle and pull out the victory at the end.

While none of that is inconceivable, I can’t buy it. I think the Patriots are simply a much better team. They have a very good, well-coached defense that can shut down Denver’s limited offense, and an offense that will figure out a way to put up points. The Patriots looked relatively healthy last week against the Chiefs, and a lot like the team that started this season 10-0. They’d be better off with some more offensive balance, but they have won big without much of a running game before.

The Peyton Manning story is fun, the Broncos defense is very good, but I’m not picking against the champs.

Cardinals (+3) over Panthers: I think this matchup is very even, though it worries me a bit to pick the Cardinals to cover because Carson Palmer hasn’t looked like himself in his last two games. But maybe Bruce Arians is right, and getting the first playoff win out of the way will allow them to start being themselves again.

The Panthers are a tremendous team, and hopefully the nonsense about Carolina’s schedule downgrading its 15-1 record passed during the first half last week. It would be hard to find too many halves of football better than the Panthers’ first half last week, when they took a 31-0 lead on the Seattle Seahawks.

This is not really a pick against the Panthers, who are legit. But I feel this is a coin flip game — if the NFL had a playoff series, this would go seven games. So I’ll take the points and the Cardinals and hope the coin lands on their side this Sunday night. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Panthers got their running game going and Carolina’s defensive front affected Arizona’s offense. It also wouldn’t surprise me if the Cardinals’ pressure defense created some big plays and their offense hit some of the vertical passes they like.

No matter who wins, it’ll be a surprise if this isn’t a great, memorable championship game.

Last week: 4-0
Season to date: 129-128-1

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab

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