Jacksonville Jaguars at Kansas City Chiefs
After enjoying their first-round bye, the AFC top-seeded Chiefs come into Saturday’s divisional playoff round as 8.5-point favorites against the Jaguars and as the 3-1 Super Bowl favorites at DraftKings.
Patrick Mahomes, the +350 MVP favorite, of course, leads the NFL’s No. 1 offense at 413.6 yards per game and 29.2 points per game.
These teams met in Week 10 with the Chiefs jumping out to a 20-0 lead before the Jaguars finally got on the scoreboard just before halftime. However, the Chiefs’ advantage never fell below 10 points as they won 27-17 and covered as 9.5-point home favorites.
That dropped the Jaguars to 3-7, but after regrouping with their bye week, they went 6-1 and 5-2 against the spread the rest of the regular season to win the AFC South.
Then, in one of the worst playoff debuts you’ll see from a starting QB, Trevor Lawrence threw three interceptions in the first quarter as the Jags fell behind 27-0 to the Chargers but somehow rallied to win 31-30 on a field goal as time expired.
Some books opened this line closer to the spread in the earlier meeting, but it looks like it has settled in at 8.5 as of Tuesday afternoon. Based on that first game and the Jaguars falling behind again on the national stage against the Chargers, the First-Half bet on the Chiefs -5 will be popular as well as teasers taking the Chiefs below a field goal.
Even though only 44 points were scored in the first meeting, and the teams’ combined season averages come to around 47.5, this is the highest total of the weekend at 53 points, so the value could be on the Under if you believe the defenses can get the occasional stop. Jacksonville allowed 20.6 points per game in the regular season with Kansas City allowing 21.7. With Overs going 5-1 in the wild-card games, all of the totals appear a little overinflated.