Best bets: NFL Wild Card Weekend picks and predictions

Jess Root | Staff Writer

The regular season is over and the NFL playoffs begin with the Wild Card round. There are 2 games Saturday, 3 Sunday and 1 Monday.

While for 18 weeks of the NFL season, this column has been a weekly prediction for the best underdogs picks. For the postseason, we shift to simply the best playoff picks of the weekend

Below, we analyze BetMGM Sportsbook NFL odds and lines, and tab the best NFL Wild Card playoffs bets to cash in on among SportbookWire's NFL expert picks and predictions.

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NFL Wild Card Weekend best bets

Odds provided by BetMGM Sportsbook; access Paste BN Sports Scores and Sports Betting Odds hub for a full list. Lines last updated Saturday at 1:34 p.m. ET. All games ET unless noted.

BROWNS -2.5 (110) at Texans – Saturday, 4:30 p.m. (NBC)

The Cleveland Browns (11-6) feature the league's No. 1 defense, allowing just 270.2 yards per game, and won 4 straight games before sitting many of their starters in Week 18 because they were locked into the AFC's No. 5 seed. QB Joe Flacco has thrown multiple TD passes in every game he started for Cleveland, tossing 13 in 5 games.

The Texans allow fewer points (20.8 per game) than the Browns (21.3), but QB C.J. Stroud, is just a rookie, though he has big-game experience in college at Ohio State. Flacco is battle-tested in the postseason and had one of the best postseason runs ever for a QB, even though it was a decade ago.

Flacco's play and Cleveland's defense will be too much for the inexperienced Texans.

RAMS (+140) at Lions – Sunday, 8 p.m. (NBC)

The Rams and Lions both had top-10 offenses in both yards and scoring. Both had below-average defensive numbers.

The Rams finished the regular season winning 4 straight and 7 of their last 8 games. They were, though, 2-6 straight up (SU) as underdogs this season, while the Lions were 11-3 SU as favorites.

History is on the Rams' side, though. They are playoff-tested. QB Matthew Stafford won a championship with the Rams. The Lions, even with QB Jared Goff, who made it to the Super Bowl with the Rams, have not won a playoff game since the 90's.

The telling stat will be whether Rams RB Kyren Williams, who rushed for 1,144 yards in only 12 games and reached 100 rushing yards in 5 of the Rams' last 7 games, can continue to produce against the Lions' No. 2-ranked run defense that allowed only 88.8 rushing yards per game and only 3.7 yards per attempt.

But comparing Stafford and his weapons with Goff and his, especially with Rams coach Sean McVay knowing all Goff's weaknesses intimately, give the visiting Rams the edge for a nice upset.

STEELERS +10 at Bills – Monday, 4:30 p.m. (CBS)

The Steelers closed out the regular season with 3 straight wins and the offense picked up once QB Mason Rudolph took over the starting job. After a 5-game stretch of averaging 13.4 points per game, the Steelers scored over 30 with Rudolph in the lineup 2 straight weeks.

The Bills won 5 straight games to close out the regular season, but only one was by double digits. The other 4 were decided by 1 score.

The Steelers were 10-7 against the spread (ATS) in the regular season, while the Bills were 7-9-1 ATS.

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For more sports betting picks and tips, check out SportsbookWire.com and BetFTW.

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