By Richard Gardner, Bodog Sportsbook Manager
For the first time since the 2004 season, we will see the No. 1 seeds in each conference playing on the NFL’s championship weekend. Both of those seeds, the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts, won and covered the spread easily in the divisional round last weekend.
Unfortunately, we won’t see the No. 1 and No. 2 conferences seeds in the title games.
The NFC No. 2 Minnesota Vikings held serve on Sunday against the Cowboys with another divisional round blowout, but the weekend’s final game saw the lone upset with the Jets beating AFC No. 2 San Diego.
Perhaps last weekend’s results will put to rest the “rust vs. rest” theory and how much momentum matters heading into the postseason.
The Saints entered as the first team to earn a conference’s top seed despite losing their final three games of the regular season, and their starters hadn’t played in three weeks. That certainly didn’t show against Arizona.
The Colts dropped their final two regular-season games after giving up on a shot at a perfect year and were fairly dominant in beating Baltimore.
The Cowboys were the NFC’s hottest team and had just routed the Eagles the week before, but they barely belonged on the same field as the rested Vikings, who had lost three of their five final regular-season games.
And no team was hotter in the NFL than the San Diego Chargers, who entered on an 11-game win streak. But the Jets’ defense held QB Philip Rivers and the potent San Diego offense in check all game.
The Jets also got a little help from Vikings All-Pro kicker Nate Kaeding, who had made 20 straight field goals to finish the season and 69 in a row from 40 yards or closer.
Yet, Kaeding chose the biggest game of the season to miss three for the first time in his career, including one from 40 yards late in the game that would have pulled the Chargers within one score.
How did Bodog’s online sportsbook fare on divisional weekend? On the NFC side, we were hoping for the Saints on the moneyline but Arizona on the spread (+7) and the under.
We won the action on the moneyline, which was fairly heavy, but lost the Cards on the side and on the total. But we did turn a small profit on the game overall.
We had pretty even action on the Cowboys-Vikings and emerged in the black, although a bigger win would have been Dallas covering at +3. The under was a good result for us on that game.
In the AFC last weekend, the book won on the Colts moneyline and on the under but lost on Baltimore not covering at +7; that was a good winner for the players.
We also were hoping for the Chargers to both win and cover the +9 as well as fall under the total of 43. Thus the players fared very well in this one on both the Jets moneyline and taking New York and the points – this was the biggest decision of the entire weekend.
For the championship games, we already have seen heavy action on the Colts move the line from an open of Indy -7 to -8. So as things stand, the house will be Jets fans. That said, New York also took heavy late money last week, so we’ll see.
Most of the early money in the NFC is coming in on the Vikings +4 in New Orleans.
History shows you probably don’t want to bet both favorites this week. In the past 34 seasons, only eight Super Bowls have featured the top seed from each conference. The last time was when Dallas beat Buffalo in Super Bowl XXVIII following the 1993 regular season.
But since the 2002 season, when the NFL realigned to eight four-team divisions, the top seeds have reached the conference championship game nine times and are 6-3.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if the Jets pulled the upset of Indy this week? New York is largely in the playoffs only because the Colts benched their starters about halfway through that Week 16 game against New York. The Jets rallied once Peyton Manning left the field and eventually snuck into the playoffs.
In Super Bowl betting, New York backers are two wins from cashing in nicely as bettors did back in the 2007-2008 playoffs with the wild-card Giants.
As recently as the first week of January, the Jets were at 45-1 to win it all. Now they are 13/2, and I expect the flow of money to slow considerably on them because of the much shorter odds. The Colts remain the 6/5 favorites.
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Title: 2010 NFL Playoff Odds: AFC & NFC Championships
Duration: 0:00
Submited by: Bodog.com
Category: Sports Roundup
Added on: January 22nd, 2010
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