Latest Betting Articles

The 49ers had to tough it out at home on Sunday evening, but Brock Purdy’s Cinderella run continued with a 19-12 victory over the Cowboys. Saturday night, the Eagles had a much easier time on their home field against the Giants, generally dominating New York in a 31-7 win.

There’s a certain degree of optimism warranted on the part of the Niners with respect to the matchup between their offense and the Eagles’ fearsome defense, one that gets after the quarterback with even more success than San Francisco’s. Philly can be run on to a degree, allowing 121.4 rushing yards per game since the start of the regular season, including 125.4 in the last three. That sets up well for a San Francisco offense that’s run the ball 54.3% of the time in the last three contests and has both Christian McCaffrey and Elijah Mitchell at its disposal.

The Eagles will have to worry about protecting Jalen Hurts about as much as the Niners will Brock Purdy, but Hurts does naturally have the mobility and experience edge on his rookie counterpart. On paper, the matchup also dovetails favorably to a degree for Philadelphia in that Nick Sirianni certainly isn’t averse to going pass-heavy when the situation calls for it, and San Fran has been a bit more vulnerable to the pass than the run.  

The Niners, who covered in their only game as a road underdog this season, have been installed as 2.5-point road underdogs at most books. The Eagles are notably 7-3 against the number as a home favorite since the start of the regular season.

The Bengals and Joe Cool did it again in a hostile postseason setting Sunday afternoon, going into Buffalo and pulling off an upset in convincing fashion, 27-10. The Chiefs prevailed a day earlier at Arrowhead Stadium, beating a feisty Jaguars team, 27-20.

In Joe Burrow and Joe Mixon, the Bengals have the weapons to exploit the occasional weaknesses of the Chiefs defense against both the run and pass. In the Week 13 matchup between the teams, Burrow threw for 286 yards and two touchdowns while taking only one sack, while Samaje Perine, filling in for an injured Mixon, racked up 106 rushing yards on 21 carries while adding six catches for 49 yards.

KC has given up a modest 204.6 passing yards per home game since the start of the regular season, but Burrow has already proven capable of conquering the matchup, while the fact the Chiefs have yielded 123.6 rushing yards per home contest and Mixon’s own impressive wild-card performance against the Bills (123 total yards, one TD) implies Cincinnati should have a good chance of achieving balance offensively.

Kansas City came out of the game with a huge worry, though, as Patrick Mahomes suffered a high ankle sprain. Mahomes’ condition will naturally be the main piece of news to watch this week, with the star signal-caller saying he fully plans on playing versus Cincinnati. However, with doubt about how effective Mahomes will be and with the Bengals having pulled out a 27-24 OT win in last season’s title game in Arrowhead while also knocking off KC by the same score in Cincy in Week 13, the Chiefs opened as narrow 1-to-1.5-point home favorites.