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 54-26 record over that span, but we saw three road teams win on the road in the Divisional Round a year ago. The Chiefs were the only home team to win in this round a year ago.
Of course, that ties into favorites, with the favored team posting a 53-27 record (1-3 a year ago).
Last year we saw both No. 1 seeds lose in this round for the first time since 2010.
Digging into seeding, teams that were No. 5 seeds or lower have posted a 12-27 record over that span, going 3-14 heads up since 2014, but those three winners have come in each of the past three seasons with the 2020 Buccaneers (No. 5 seed), 2019 Titans (No. 6), and the 49ers last season (No. 6 seed) pulling off upsets in the second round.
Against the spread, underdogs have had a strong run over this stretch going 45-35 against the line and 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.
This article will be updated throughout the week to reflect major news or injury implications. I encourage you to use the game-by-game tables and data points here in conjunction with the player rankings that will be available on Thursday in the playoffs and enjoy the games.
This article will be updated throughout the week to reflect major news or injury implications. I encourage you to use the game-by-game tables and data points here in conjunction with the player rankings available every week this season each Wednesday and enjoy the games.
Click the matchups below for the individual game previews.
Divisional Round Matchups
JAX at KC: Saturday, Jan 21 – 4:30pm ET
NYG at PHI: Saturday, Jan 21 – 8:15pm ET
CIN at BUF: Sunday, Jan 22 – 3pm ET
DAL at SF: Sunday, Jan 22 – 6:30pm ET
