NFL 2024 Playoffs – Minnesota Vikings @ Los Angeles Rams Tips and Betting Preview

The wildcard round concludes in the NFL 2024 Playoffs on Monday night when the last game is played as the Los Angeles Rams play host to the Minnesota Vikings in a match which has been rescheduled for Arizona due to the fires in LA.

The Rams got in here as the winners of the NFC West but they will need their very best against a Minnesota Vikings side who could have been the number one seeds in the conference had they won last week.

Los Angeles Rams

The Los Angeles Rams have had a battle on their hands to make it into these playoffs. When they have been healthy they have looked good but when they have missed key players they have looked a bit of an ordinary side. Thankfully for them they have most of their key men available and fit here, helped by the fact that they had the division won prior to last week so they were able to rest their starters. The Rams will also be playing with emotion with what is going on back home too which could make them even more dangerous.

Prior to last week, which we can excuse because key players were either given the night off or on a reduced workload, the Rams had won five on the spin so they were going into the playoffs in a good frame of mind and will be confident of putting up a good performance. Unfortunately for them they have lost natural home advantage but somethings are bigger than that. This is a potent offense and one which can keep their defence off the field which is no bad thing.

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Minnesota Vikings

This has been a wonderful season for the Minnesota Vikings, so much so that they went into last week knowing that a win would have given them this week off. They came up short against the Detroit Lions in a match where they probably feel they let it get away from them from a favourable position and now they have to rebound from the disappointment of losing out on the NFC North title and the number one seed to ensure that they win here and set up a trip to Philadelphia next week.

That loss last week ended a run of nine straight victories and concluded a 14-3 regular season. Two of those three defeats were against the Detroit Lions but they won’t need reminding that the other one was against the Los Angeles Rams, although that was on the road on a short week. Minnesota will need their offense to be much better than it was last week but the concern is that their defence was on the field for a while, although the extra day to prepare here will do them no harm.

Betting

There are always unlikely heroes in the playoffs and while Minnesota Vikings might be focusing on Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua they might allow Tyler Higbee to roam free. He certainly wouldn’t be the first tight end to have a night out against the Minnesota Vikings in recent times. The last three number one tight ends that they have faced have gone for more than 50 yards against the Vikings and while Sam Laporta had a number of catches last week, the two before it got to that number on a minimum of grabs.

Higbee hasn’t exactly done much this season but he was involved a lot more against the Seattle Seahawks last week, albeit with the starters rested. He still went for 46 yards from five passes yet has a line half of that number here. The game state is for the Rams to be behind so throwing the ball will be frequent and with that in mind Higbee could easily find himself targeted a few times. You would imagine a couple of catches can get him to 24 yards but it isn’t out of the question that he gets there with one catch with a few blockers. That line is just too small for me to ignore.

Tips

Back T.Higbee – Over 23.5 receiving yards for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Bet365