At the end of Sunday night we will know the identity of the four sides who will progress to the Conference Championship games in the NFL playoffs. In order to determine that line up we need the winners from the last two Divisional games.
The first of Sunday’s double header could be one of the matches of the postseason as the Seattle Seahawks head to the Carolina Panthers in what has all the hallmarks of producing some fantastic defensive football.
Seattle’s defence is becoming legendary in this era but Carolina rival them with a solid defence of their own and with arguably the two most elusive quarterbacks in the game taking on those defences there is plenty of fascination surrounding this match.
These aren’t just good defences they are elite defences that are well coached with good game plans so I’m expecting the point scoring to be quite hard in this one. Both sides are going to find it tough to run the ball and there isn’t going to be many easy passes on offer either so I’m very much on the side of the unders for points here.
The line is 45.5 which looks a little on the high side to me in what really should be a defensive tussle. We’ve seen some really low scoring matches in these playoffs so far and Seattle’s first postseason game last week nearly went without a touchdown. There is the potential for this one to go the whole way without one and that is worth chancing at a silly price.
The last match in this round of the postseason sees the Denver Broncos looking to seal their spot against the New England Patriots next week when they welcome the Pittsburgh Steelers to Mile High land.
Injuries have been the focus of this match in the lead up to it. Antonio Brown is definitely out for the Steelers after the awful hit he took last week while Ben Roethlisberger hasn’t been confirmed as a starter for the Steelers yet either. Both will be huge losses.
On the flip side to that the Broncos have announced that Peyton Manning will get the start here after he played a few snaps in the last game of the regular season. That is a lift but there are doubts surrounding the quarterback star so maybe Pittsburgh won’t mind that.
Until we know for sure whether Big Ben is going to play this isn’t the easiest match to bet on but in fairness with the absence of Antonio Brown I don’t think it matters too much who is under center for the Steelers they are going to struggle in the face of this top notch Broncos defence.
Be it Roethlisberger or Landry Jones the Broncos are going to bring the pressure without the need to worry about covering Brown and if the Steelers can’t establish a run game, and they will struggle to do that, then this is going to be a long night for them. I don’t fancy them to put up 17pts against the Broncos here regardless of who plays quarterback.
Back Carolina vs Seattle – Under 45.5pts for a 5/10 stake at 1.75 with Bet365
Back Carolina vs Seattle – No Touchdown for a 0.5/10 stake at 101.00 with Stan James
Back Pittsburgh Under 17pts for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Betway
