Dave Gloeckner 
Welcome to the best weekend in football! It’s the NFL’s Wildcard Weekend where they stretch six games of action over three days to keep our viewing interest on high. And this year, we have so many exciting matchups with 4 of the games landing with a spread of five points or less. The storylines are deep, as you probably already know, with several star players playing their former teams. It’s going to be must watch football for sure!
I finished off the regular season with a 5-0 record in Week 18. And that caps off a 9-1 stretch over the past two weeks. Final record on the season is 49-29, as shown below. Not to toot any horns or blow any whistles, but where else are you going to find a 63% win rate on individual NFL game bets? As you see on the DFS side, and now on the betting side, we put in the work so we can win together. If you bet $100 on each of the games I posted this year, you would be $1710 (+17.1 units). And that’s coming off a 19-11 College Football Bowl Season too! Combined, that would be up $2400 (24 units).
Ok, enough with the WinDaily promotions. Let’s keep the momentum rolling. Each year the playoffs bring a new challenge. Can we get to a perfect playoff prognostication? While that’s the ultimate goal, the real work is winning more than we lose. So let’s set the goal at 8 wins (in 13 games) and see where we land. With that said, my game bets for Saturday’s two games, along with additional props, are below. Let’s go WinDaily Fam!
2023 SEASON RECORD: 49-29 (last week 5-0)
NFL BETS – WILDCARD SATURDAY
CLEVELAND BROWNS -2 at HOUSTON TEXANS
This is a typical betting situation where I would absolutely hammer the Texans. Home dog in the playoffs that is being undervalued by the public. But the issue I have with the Texans is twofold. First, it’s a combination of a rookie QB and rookie HC playing in their first playoff game. Brock Purdy won 2 playoff games as a rookie QB last year. But he was the first rookie QB to win a playoff game since Russell Wilson back in 2012 (Seahawks beat the Redskins 24-14 but that was the RGIII injury game). In all, rookie QB’s are 10-14 in the playoffs.
But speaking of the other side, Joe Flacco is one of the rookies to win a playoff game. In fact he won two before bowing out in the Conference Championship game back in 2008. But the second reason I’m concerned about the Texans is the battle in the trenches. The Browns have the best rated pass rush in football according to ProFootball Focus. The Texans are 19th in pass blocking. Looking even further, the Texans weakness on D is their pass defense which is 23rd according to DVOA. And while the Browns show up as the 27th ranked pass O, they are actually in the top 10 since Flacco took over.
And then there’s this feeling that we’re just on a collision course to see a Browns vs Ravens matchup in the Divisional Round. The stories are too good to be true, with Flacco returning to his first team and the Browns returning to the place where former owner Art Modell up and moved them to. This is one of the toughest games to pick, but I’m taking the Jersey Joe magic to pull off a late victory in Houston.
GAME PROPS:
DEVIN SINGLETARY under 68.5 yards rushing (-110) – The Texans RB has gone over this number just twice in his last 7 games. Cleveland has the 4th best rushing defense according to DVOA. Singletary does get most of the carries but Houston will need to succeed in the passing game today to keep up with the Browns.
JOE FLACCO over 250 passing yards + 2 passing TD’s (+140) – Flacco has thrown over 300 yards in four of his five starts. I’m nervous that Houston will play a deep zone and not allow the big throws. His base prop is 275 yards which is attractive but I’ll take it one notch down and bank on him to go over a soft number at 250 yards instead combined with 2 passing TD’s.
MIAMI DOLPHINS +4.5 at KANSAS CITY CHIEFS
The story in this game is the weather. If all things hold true, this will be the coldest playoff game ever. Temperature at game time is supposed to be under 0 degrees F. And that would mark only the 4th game on record with a negative temp.
And while you’ll read the stories of a warm team going to this frozen environment, it’s not like the Chiefs are used to it either. For me, this bet is about what we’ve seen all year with Kansas City. They don’t run away from anyone, and they’ve stumbled their way into the playoffs losing games to the Broncos, Raiders, Packers and Bills. And in each of those losses, each team went over 118 yards rushing. And Miami owns the 3rd best rush offense in the league according to DVOA. I have confidence HC Mike McDaniels knows that and will find a way to mix in creative runs with all three of his RB’s; Raheem Mostert, DeVon Achane, and Jeff Wilson.
On defense, the Dolphins will need to find creative ways to create pressure as they’re without two of their best pass rushers in Bradley Chubb and Jaelan Phillips. But they hired Vic Fangio for a reason. And he’s seen a lot of KC in the past few years based on his roles in Denver and Philly.
Add to that the weather should keep this game tight. And when we predict a low scoring affair, that’s even more reason to take the points.
GAME PROPS:
TRAVIS KELCE over 5.5 receptions (-120) – Kelce has not performed up to his standards this season. But he always performs when it’s playoff time. In 18 career playoff games he has 133 catches and 16 TD’s. That’s an average of 7.4 catches per game. And he’s had at least 6 catches in 13 of this 18 career playoff games. Add to that, the Dolphins are ranked 26th against TE’s this year (Dawson Knox caught a TD and Dalton Kincaid had 7 receptions for 84 yards last week against MIA). Even with the predicted cold weather, this is a solid prop to bet tonight.
DE’VON ACHANE RUSHING ATTEMPTS over 10 (+120): If the Dolphins are to go down swinging, then they need to get their most dynamic RB the ball more than 10 times.
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