Welcome to the Divisional Round edition of The Worksheet, a fantasy football overview, by Rich Hribar.
For those that are new to this article, just because the fantasy regular season has ended doesn’t mean that fantasy football stops. The fantasy playoffs offer a host of new opportunities for playoff leagues, props betting, and daily fantasy games.
Some Divisional Round recent history since the NFL’s last expansion to 32 teams in 2002. Home teams have posted a strong 53-23 record over that span with an even better 15-5 record straight up over the previous five seasons (Tampa Bay was the only road winner in 2020). Of course, that ties into favorites, with the favored team posting a 52-24 record.
While road teams have had a tough run reaching this point of the season, lower seeds have expectedly struggled a bit more. Teams that were a No. 5 seeds or lower have posted an 11-27 record over that span, going 2-14 heads up over the previous five seasons, but those two winners have come in the previous two seasons with the 2020 Buccaneers (No. 5 seed) and 2019 Titans (No. 6) pulling off another upset in the second round.
If looking at the top seeds, No. 1 and No. 2 seeds have posted identical 27-11 records, but top seeds have been worse against the spread (15-23 ATS) than No. 2 seeds (20-18) over that span.
Against the spread, underdogs have had a strong run over this stretch going 42-34 against the line getting the points. The last time we did not have at least two underdogs cover in the Divisional Round was 2017 while the last time all four favorites covered the point spread in this round was 2006.
All lines are taken from VegasInsider
Divisional Round Matchups
CIN at TEN: Saturday, Jan 22 – 4:30pm ET
SF at GB: Saturday, Jan 22 – 8:15pm ET
LAR at TB: Sunday, Jan 23 – 3:00pm ET
BUF at KC: Sunday, Jan 23 – 6:30pm ET