The NFL’s Divisional Round continues Sunday night with a familiar matchup in Chiefs-Bills, but not before a game few expected this season in Buccaneers-Lions. Both have shootout potential, but we are looking keenly at what Patrick Mahomes will do in his 1st playoff start on the road.
As always you should check out the player props section on OddsTrader, and we included the top sportsbooks to make these player props for Sunday’s Divisional Round action.
Picks Summary
- Amon-Ra St. Brown Anytime Touchdown Scorer (-105) at Caesars Sportsbook
- Jared Goff Passing Attempts Over 34.5 (-120) at Bet365
- Trey Palmer Receiving Yards Over 17.5 (-104) at Caesars Sportsbook
- Patrick Mahomes Passing Yards Over 253.5 (-110) at Bet365
- Stefon Diggs Receiving Yards Under 62.5 (-110) at Bet365
Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Detroit Lions
Sunday, January 21, 2024 – 03:00 PM ET at Ford Field
Amon-Ra St. Brown – Anytime Touchdown Scorer
Amon-Ra St. Brown has the unusual distinction of earning an All-Pro honor for his 2023 season and getting snubbed for the Pro Bowl at the same time. The All-Pro means more after St. Brown finished the season with 119 catches, 1,515 yards, and a career-high 10 touchdowns.
St. Brown’s playoff debut was expectedly great too against the Rams. He had 7 catches on 9 targets for 110 yards, including the final 1st down that sealed the playoff win for Detroit, ending a 31-season drought. His next test is a Tampa defense he destroyed in Week 6 when he caught 12-of-15 targets for 124 yards and a touchdown. That game was in Tampa too, and St. Brown is usually even better at home.
In fact, St. Brown has caught at least 6 balls for at least 75 yards in all 8 home games this year. The only longer streaks by a player at home are a couple of 9-game streaks by Marvin Harrison (2001-02 Colts) and Travis Kelce (2020-21 Chiefs). Great company.
The Pick
The game was a little weird last week in that neither the Lions nor the Rams scored a touchdown after halftime. St. Brown has the volume and opportunities in this offense, he is a 10-touchdown scorer this year, and he can score on screen passes.
St. Brown’s lack of a touchdown ended a 4-game streak with a score, so let’s count on him to start a new streak this week and find the end zone for his team as Tampa looks to contain the run again.
NFL Pick: Amon-Ra St. Brown Anytime Touchdown Scorer (-105) at Caesars Sportsbook (check our Caesars Sportsbook Review)
Jared Goff – Total Passing Attempts
Last week was certainly personal for Jared Goff as he wanted to hold his own in a playoff game against the Rams and Matthew Stafford given the trade that went down in 2021 that sent him to Detroit. Winning a game for a city that’s been starved for a playoff win was also nice motivation.
Goff played well too, completing 22-of-27 passes for 277 yards and a touchdown. It was only the 2nd time this season that Goff did not throw more than 27 passes in a game, but that could change this week given the opponent is Tampa.
Led by Vita Vea and a blitz-happy approach from coach Todd Bowles, the Buccaneers could be a hard team to run against and hang in there for deep throws.
Goff has faced Bowles and the Bucs 3 times since 2019. He attempted 68, 51, and 44 passes in those games, throwing for over 350 yards each time. In Week 6 with Detroit, Goff was 30-of-44 for a season-high 353 yards.
The Pick
Goff has thrown over 34.5 passes in 9-of-18 games this year, so it is a coin flip. But with expectations of Tampa containing the run, sending the blitz to force shorter throws, and scoring enough points to make Goff continue throwing through the 4th quarter, we like his over in attempts this week.
NFL Pick: Jared Goff Passing Attempts Over 34.5 (-120) at Bet365 (check our Bet365 Review)
Trey Palmer – Total Receiving Yards
Everyone knows about Mike Evans and Chris Godwin in Tampa after they both had another 1,000-yard receiving season this year. But 6th-round rookie wideout Trey Palmer has been making his mark lately.
He caught a big touchdown in Minnesota in Week 1, he had a career-high 84 yards in Week 17 against the Saints, and he had a 56-yard touchdown in the playoffs against Philadelphia last week.
Palmer can be a good complementary receiver to Evans and Godwin. With the way Detroit’s secondary has been playing, the Buccaneers should use more wide receivers in this game and throw to keep up after both teams failed to rush for 50 yards with their running backs in the Week 6 meeting.
The Pick
The Lions allowed 6 receivers to have at least 20 yards in both Week 18 against the Vikings and the wild card round against the Rams, including 4 different wide receivers for the Rams. There have been a lot of yards to have against this defense lately.
Palmer has gone over 17.5 yards in 9-of-18 games this year, so another coin flip. But he has hit 42 yards in 3-of-4 games coming into this one, so Palmer has been getting more attention from Baker Mayfield in the last month. We’ll trust him to do enough in this game to hit his over.
NFL Pick: Trey Palmer Receiving Yards Over 17.5 (-104) at Caesars Sportsbook
Kansas City Chiefs vs. Buffalo Bills
Sunday, January 21, 2024 – 06:30 PM ET at Highmark Stadium
Patrick Mahomes – Total Passing Yards
This is rare territory all around for Patrick Mahomes. This is his 1st playoff game on the road, and he is an underdog for only the 11th time in his NFL career.
But Mahomes is 7-3 SU and 8-1-1 ATS as an underdog, records you can’t scoff at. Mahomes has led the Chiefs to at least 20 points in every game as an underdog, and only twice has he been held under 27 points.
One of those was a 24-20 loss to the Bills in 2022, but Mahomes still had a late lead and threw for 338 yards in that game.
Mahomes has passed for over 253.5 yards in 8-of-10 games where he was an underdog. Half the time he has exceeded 325 yards even.
A First Time for Everything?
In Week 14, Mahomes had 271 passing yards in a 20-17 loss, so he has gone over this total against Buffalo even in a lower-scoring game like that one, which this one could look similar to again.
But Mahomes thought he had an extra 49 yards coming his way in that game before an offsides penalty on Kadarius Toney wiped out a spectacular touchdown from a lateral by Travis Kelce to Toney. That made Mahomes more visibly angry than any other play in his career.
Let’s see if he channels that into this game where he’ll want to make a statement that playing on the road is no big deal. For his career, Mahomes has better stats on the road than he does at home.
The Pick
Kansas City’s concern is not the venue, assuming the lake-effect snow doesn’t hit this game. The concern are the league-leading dropped passes, the penalties that kill drives, and the obligatory fumble they cough up almost every week. Clean up those mistakes, protect the ball, and Mahomes is going to move it in this game as Buffalo has a lot of injuries in the secondary and linebacker core.
Mistakes or not, we love Mahomes to go over 253.5 yards in his road playoff debut.
NFL Pick: Patrick Mahomes Passing Yards Over 253.5 (-110) at Bet365
Stefon Diggs – Total Receiving Yards
Stefon Diggs turned 30 during this season, but let’s not crucify him for that as plenty of receivers stay productive in their early 30s. But his drop in production has been drastic and hard to explain this year.
- Through Week 9, Diggs was averaging 7.8 catches and 92.7 yards per game.
- Since Week 10, Diggs is averaging 4.6 catches and 43.6 yards per game.
That is a huge drop for a receiver who seems to be healthy and is playing a lot of snaps every week. The Bills changed offensive coordinators in Week 11, firing Ken Dorsey and replacing him with Joe Brady. But why wouldn’t you get your best receiver involved more than this? It’s not like the other receivers are making up for that production as Gabe Davis has had multiple games without a catch in this span.
It makes Buffalo much harder to predict these days. Diggs had 7 catches against the Steelers but for only 52 yards. Davis was out for that game, didn’t practice Thursday, and it is unclear if he’ll be back for this one. Davis famously had that 201-yard game with 4 touchdowns against the Chiefs in the playoffs 2 years ago. That hid the fact that Diggs only had 3 catches for 7 yards in that game.
Davis played against the Chiefs in Week 14. He had no catches that day. Worse, Diggs had a season-low 24 yards despite receiving 11 targets.
The Pick
Maybe this is a trap, but it is just too hard to trust Diggs right now at this number. He has been held under 62.5 yards in 5-of-6 games and in 7-of-9 games going into Sunday.
Last week, the Chiefs allowed a 53-yard touchdown to Tyreek Hill and still held him to 62 yards for the game. The corners (L’Jarius Sneed and Trent McDuffie) are very good and only 3 receivers you could call a No. 1 have surpassed 62.5 yards on these Chiefs in 2023.
We’ll take the under for Diggs for your NFL picks to close the divisional round.
NFL Pick: Stefon Diggs Receiving Yards Under 62.5 (-110) at Bet365
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