Introduction
It's that most wonderful time of the year... no, not Christmas - we just had that. And it gave us some amazing football, which means that we're now ready to enter the playoffs.
In this guide, we'll help you find the best odds on the 2019-20 NFL playoffs, with a preview of each game, and brackets and schedules to boot. Whether you want to bet on your favorite team or are looking to find out how the playoffs work, this is the page for you!
Of course, we'll be offering free picks on every round of the NFL playoffs, and expert bets as well as ones from our members.
Think the Patriots are going to defend their title from last year? Want to find the best odds on the Ravens, the all-around current favs, to win the Super Bowl? Keep reading, and we'll tell you everything you need to know.
Where Should I Play?
The online sports betting industry is still relatively new in the US, with legal hurdles having prevented betting up until only very recently.
However, if you're lucky enough to reside in a state which allows online gambling, we have been able to strike great deals with some of the world's leading bookmakers - all of whom offer market-leading bonuses and welcome packages exclusive to ThePlayer.com
It goes without saying that every bookmaker there is maintains odds on the NFL. However, some do it better than others. We have partnered with six major brands, all legal, to bring you the best odds on the NFL playodds. Having accounts at multiple betting sites is usually a good idea, since it enables you to benefit from the best odds regardless of who's offering them. But your reasoning for each account may vary.
- If you're looking for a major global powerhouse, Unibet and Bet365 are both well-established international bookies with excellent reputation and well-renowned customer care. They both offer absurd amounts of odds on every perceivable sport - and especially on the largest ones, like American football.
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- Tech mavericks should take a look at SugarHouse, with odds from Kambi, since they focus on speed and competent betting apps for when speed and ease of use is of the essence.
- For those who value trustworthiness and longevity, William Hill is one of the world's oldest and largest sportsbooks - a classic English brick-and-mortar bookie that has managed to use modern technology to improve its offerings and customer availability.
- And finally, anyone who prefers quality over quantity should definitely have a look at Caesars - the Atlantic City casino's online betting site. They may not offer a lot of odds, but boy do they offer competitive ones.
When do the NFL playoffs start?
The 2019-20 NFL playoffs begin on January 4, with wildcard playoffs on the 4th and 5th. Divisional playoffs are held on January 11 and 12, and the NFC and AFC championships are both contested one week later, on January 19.
As is traditional, the Pro Bowl all-star game is then played on January 26 - and on February 2, we finally get to the Super Bowl 54.
Who are the favorites to win the Super Bowl?
The Baltimore Ravens are the favorites to win the Super Bowl, at +230 odds, followed by the San Fransisco 49ers at +400 and the Kansas City Chiefs at +450.
When and where is the Super Bowl?
Super Bowl LIV, the 54th edition, will be played on February 2nd, 2020, at 6:30 p.m. ET. It will be held at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida, which has a football capacity of 64,767 spectators.
Where can I watch the Super Bowl?
Fox Sports is broadcasting the Super Bowl in 2020, in Ultra HD. Joe Buck is the play-by-play announcer, with Troy Aikman providing color commentary, and Mike Pereira being the rules expert.
The Super Bowl will also be streamed on the Fox Sports app, or on DAZN in Canada.
NFL Playoff Schedule
The NFL is divided into two conferences - the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). Each is further divided into four divisions consisting of four teams each.
After the regular season ends, the winner of each division is guaranteed a spot in the playoffs. They winners are seeded 1-4 based on their overall records. The two best teams in each conference that didn't win a divsion are then seeded 5-6.
Seeds 1-2 in each conference get a bye into the divisional playoffs, while the other teams play each other in so-called wild card playoffs: the third seed faces the sixth, and the fourth seed plays the fifth. In the divisional playoffs, the first seed plays the lower seeded wild card playoff winner, and the second seed plays the higher seeded. Hence, it's hard to make a proper bracket, since it may move around after the wild card round.
Once the divisional playoffs have been held, there are two teams left from each conference. These play each other, and the winner of each Conference Championship is rewarded with a spot in the Super Bowl.
With the exception of the Super Bowl, which is held on a predecided location each year, the best seed always enjoys the home advantage in every round.
Wild card playoffs
January 4, 4:35 p.m. ET
Buffalo Bills @ Houston Texans
January 4, 8:15 p.m. ET
Tennessee Titans @ New England Patriots
January 5, 1:05 p.m. ET
Minnesota Vikings @ New Orleans Saints
January 5, 4:40 p.m. ET
Seattle Seahawks @ Philadelphia Eagles
Divisional playoffs
January 11, 4:35 p.m. ET
Lower seed @ San Fransisco 49ers
January 11, 8:15 p.m. ET
Lower seed @ Baltimore Ravens
January 12, 3:05 p.m. ET
Higher seed @ Kansas City Chiefs
January 12, 6:40 p.m. ET
Higher seed @ Green Bay Packers
Conference Championships
January 19, 3:05 p.m. ET
AFC Championship
January 19, 6:40 p.m. ET
NFC Championship
Super Bowl
February 2, 6:30 p.m. ET
At the Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, Florida
Best Odds on the NFL Playoffs
You can always find the latest odds on all NFL matches on our American football odds page. We update all odds automatically around the clock, frequently as quickly as a few seconds after the bookmakers post them!
The largest and most interesting market is the outrights on the Super Bowl - i.e. the odds on the Super Bowl 54 winners. The current favorites are the Baltimore Ravens at +230, meaning that if you bet $100 and the Ravens win, you get $330 back for a $230 profit. Of course, these odds are subject to change as the playoffs progress. You can find the best odds on each team in our info box next to this text.
The best player of the best team is usually a large favorite to win the MVP title as the most valuable player. At the moment, this is Lamar Jackson of the Ravens. Still only 22 years old, the Floridian quarterback has been a tremendous force in his second NFL season, and he grew up just half an hour from Miami Gardens, where the Super Bowl is being held. If you feel like backing Jackson to win the MVP award, he's currently at +260 odds.
Most of the candidates for the MVP award are quarterbacks, as usual. We doubt Tom Brady is going to collect his fourth overall MVP title, but if you think otherwise, he's at +1800 currently. And if you don't like betting on the QBs, wide receivers like Tyreek Hill of the Kansas City Chiefs are available at +2800 - a huge return even on a small bet.
We'll be covering odds on each individual match-up in greater detail below.
Super Bowl outrights
Wild Card Playoffs: Buffalo Bills @ Houston Texans
The Buffalo Bills can be easily forgiven for losing to the Ravens and to the Patriots - twice - during the regular season: after all, most teams did. And though they did lose their final game to the Jets, they were already locked into 5th seed and had little to play for. Meanwhile, the Houston Texans also knew their seed prior to week 17, and could afford the loss to the Titans. Both teams ended up 10-6 - great news for the Bills, who went 6-10 last year, but not quite as good as the Texans' 11-5 in that same season.
The key factor in this game will be whether the Bills' defense can keep up. They haven't won a playoff game since 1995, but they're facing a team whose offensive capabilities - or lack thereof - fit their own style well. If the Bills can cover DeAndre Hopkins, much has been won, as the Texans will need to rely on shorter passing routes with their opponents having excelled at keeping clean at long range all season.
Deshaun Watson will be put under a lot of pressure from the Bills defense, who have held every opposing quarterback to intense scrutiny all year long - but if he can withstand that pressure, players like Hopkins and Will Fuller, expected to just barely recover from injury, are good enough to find the holes in the net. Whether Watson gets the chance to spot them is to a large extent up to his teammates, and to how well they can protect him and afford him a few extra seconds.
Going the other way, the Bills can generously be said to offer a wide array of offensive choices - the problem is that not one choice stands out as particularly reliable. They can score in many ways, and they certainly don't display that often enough. In fact, they didn't even get to 20 points in 9/16 games during regular, and surely would have been mediocre at best if not for their defense.
Lucky, then, that the Texans haven't exactly been great at defending. Mostly, they've been atrocious at keeping opponents out of their own back, allowing much too much to happen near the red zone. They'll be delighted to get J.J. Watts back, then, as he can take out any player on the Bills offense by himself. And, of course, if they can force Josh Allen into making uncomfortable decisions, it won't really matter that he can make the craziest throws look easy - the Bills require time and patience, neither of which is particularly abundant in NFL playoff games.
We expect this to be one of the tightest games of the playoff - both in terms of gameplay and in terms of scoring. But the Texans are favorites, and while the Bills can beat them at any given day, they're very unlikely to do so consistently.
Bills @ Texans info
Wild Card Playoffs: Tennessee Titans @ New England Patriots
The New England Patriots are in the wild card playoffs, and they can be none too happy about it. Having started the season 8-0, things were looking extremely well, only for the Patriots to finish off 4-4 and losing the divisional playoffs spot to the Chiefs. The Kansas City team also went 12-4, but had defeated the Patriots 23-16 in Foxborough, which gave them second seed.
So what went wrong? Well, the main reason is one of offensive stability - ironically, after not playing a wild card game in a decade. It's not that they're bad by any means - they were seventh best in scoring in the regular season - but that's still the worst result in ages by their standards. Of course, they have every puzzle piece they need... but the puzzle requires some additional assembly this year.
QB Tom Brady is, of course, one of the best players in the game's history, and he's spent much of his ridiculously long career finding WR Julian Edelman. With the latter having had obvious injury troubles recently, the whole team's form has been affected. And even with Edelman intact, he's increasingly looking like the only ever-reliable option in a line of recipients Brady clearly doesn't fully trust. Expect the Patriots to try running a lot, whether Edelman is fit for fight or not.
As for the Tennessee Titans, talking about "a" season barely seems fair when they started off the season going 2-4 with mostly abysmal offensive performances, only to start racking up solid performances once they decided to start Ryan Tannehill. Under him, and his NFL-leading passer rating, the Titans have averaged over 30 points per game, and no other team has managed more yards per play - much thanks to Derrick Henry being an absolute rushing powerhouse after those first six games.
Tannehill's season is based largely on his passing accuracy, which is in turn boosted by the Titans defense having done a great job allowing him time to aim. Combine that with Henry, and with a healthy dosis of team spirit, and you get a remarkably efficient team that has a very realistic chance of making the AFC Championship for the first time since 2002... assuming they can defeat Patriots and Ravens both.
At the end of the day, the Patriots are favorites to win, at a -5 spread. We can't help but wonder, though, what the lines would have been if the roles were reversed and the Titans got the home advantage.
Titans @ Patriots Info
Wild Card Playoffs: Minnesota Vikings @ New Orleans Saints
A late field goal with 53 seconds to spare, in an insane game which saw the lead shift back and forth over and over again, was eventually everything that separated the New Orleans Saints from the 49ers. They both finished 13-3 in regular, and so did the Packers with a marginally better conference record, and so the Saints suddenly find themselves in wild card land.
If they are going to emerge victorious, they are going to rely a lot on Michael Thomas, the currently best-paid wide receiver in the game. So far, he's repaid the confidence - and the $100 million contract - with a record-breaking season in which he has caught almost any impossible ball he's been thrown. His 125 receptions were enough to lead the league last year, yet in 2019, he followed that up by an astonishing 149 receptions, breaking the NFL record with a week to spare.
Unlike some other teams with a single amazing WR, though, the Saints have several that just kept performing all season long - even the less played ones like Tre'Quan Smith. All in all, QB Teddy Bridgewater will have loads of time and little reason to panic when confronted.
What's more, the Saints have been quite good at defense as well this year, with the lowest short-run conversation rate of any team, and an excellent tackling record.
How, then, do you even beat them? Well, three teams succeeded this season, so it's certainly possible. Truth to be told, the Minnesota Vikings will be putting all faith in Dalvin Cook returning from injury. If he's fit, he can be used as a battering ram gliding through opposing defenses.
If the Saints are vulnerable to anything, it's mainly the extremes of the field - the innermost and the outer perimeter. The Vikings have several players, including Cook, who can look to exploit weak links in the chain defense - but most people won't be expecting a tight game. Saints are huge odds favorites, and the Vikings are over +320 to win. The best odds on Vikings @ Saints are likely not to be found on moneyline, that's for sure.
Vikings @ Saints Info
Wild Card Playoffs: Seattle Seahawks @ Philadelphia Eagles
For two teams with so much experience in the playoffs recently, it's really a wonder that the Seattle Seahawks and the Philadelphia Eagles have never faced each other after the regular season before.
It's also the closest wild card game by some margin, if the highest odds on each NFL match are to be believed - mostly due to the Eagles having the home advantage despite the Seahawks finishing 11-5 over the Eagles' 9-7 record. But since the west coast team finished second in their own division, well - here we are.
This is definitely a game that could feature huge swings. Neither team has been especially great at defense this year, and they both have a history of playing unnecessarily tight games all throughout the season. In fact, the Eagles in particular seem to have a knack for playing about as well as their opponents, regardless of whether their opponents are actually good or bad.
That said, if the Eagles are going to be offering blank spaces in defense, Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson is going to have a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon on the east coast. He's third in touchdown passes this year, and he's never lost to Philadelphia before. We can't make too many puns about the avian battle between hawks and eagles, though - the latter have been mostly extraordinary in screening to let their perimeter players through, and we expect Wilson to do most of the aerial work.
Both teams come saddled with injuries, and the Seahawks in particular may have a hard time adapting. Actually, scratch that - they can adapt, but we doubt they will. And that's a double-edged sword: if their strategy works, it works really well - but when it doesn't, that's a weakness opening up to sacking, and the Eagles will pulverize them.
The Seahawks have won their past five meetings - every single one during the past decade - and they're favorites to win at about -125 ML. The best odds are subject to change if injury-related news come up at short notice - so keep checking our Seahawks @ Eagles odds page.
Seahawks @ Eagles Info
Conference & Beyond
We've covered the wild card games above, but there are still four more teams yet to enter the playoffs. Of course, these are the highest seeds, and they include three of the four favorites to win the 2020 Super Bowl. (Bookmakers are favoring the Saints over the Packers.)
If anything, the AFC is looking much stronger than the NFC in general this year - but at least six teams out of the remaining twelve are legitimate title challengers, as much as we'd love an underdog to win at high odds.
Baltimore Ravens
There's no denying that the Ravens were the best team of the regular season. After two early setbacks, they just steamrolled everybody for twelve straight wins - most of them in double digits.
We mentioned Lamar Jackson being the sportsbook favorite to win the MVP title this year, and it would certainly be well-deserved. He throws well enough, his eye for the game is great, and he blew Michael Vick's quarterback rushing records out of the water this season. And he's just 22! He's also popular with the ladies, apparently, judging by the large number of searches made for "Lamar Jackson girlfriend" on Google.
Yet as amazing as Jackson's been, he just one of many great players in the 2020 Baltimore Ravens. Mark Ingram II scored 15 touchdowns in as many games, and Mark Andrews at tight end had ten receiving touchdowns - second only to Kenny Golladay of the otherwise abysmal Tigers. The defense is solid and they have players who are at the top of the pack at almost every position.
Besides all that, every player in the Ravens knows exactly what to do in their system. There's little wonder the Baltimore Ravens are the favorites to win the Super Bowl this time - their third overall title if they do, and the first since 2012.
San Fransisco 49ers
Is Jimmy Garoppolo good enough? That's the key question for the 49ers this season. They're certainly capable in the other important positions - individually and as a group - and if he can keep to the high standards of the latter half of his season, they have every chance at getting their sixth Super Bowl - their first since 1994.
Let's be fair: Garoppolo was simply stunning in the victory over the Seahawks in the final game, and his team has been one of the tighest defensively in the entire league. You may want to consider live betting during their matches, and act according to whether or not they take a clear, early lead. If they do, they can shut just about anyone down while abusing the hell out of every opportunity they get.
After all, 49ers players haven't been stats leaders in much of anything this season, yet they are collectively near the top everywhere, and players such as George Kittle and Raheem Mostert in his best-ever season embody that.
Kansas City Chiefs
The Chiefs had one of the most promising lineups of the pre-season, with Patrick Mahomes on quarterback, Tyreek Hill as wide receiver, Travis Kelce on tight end, and Chris Jones and his massive 310 lbs smacking anybody to the ground.
But they're so much more than a couple of stars: Damien Williams unexpectedly leads the league in the long rush, Harrison Butker has been arguably the best kicker in the NFL, and if you kick against Kansas, well, there's Mecole Hardman. Hardman and Juan Thornhill have both had outstanding rookie seasons, but the latter sadly torn his left ACL in the very last game of the regular season.
Put simply: the Kansas City Chiefs are at +200 to win the AFC Championship, and they have every chance of doing so. You can expect them to perform really well in almost any game, being this season's Jack of all trades.
Green Bay Packers
The Packers are usually top of the bunch, but their playmaking hasn't been nearly as good as their results suggest, and they've been lucky to benefit from a very generous strength of schedule. Although they did beat the Chiefs, they struggled to score consistently against most other teams, including those who did really poorly overall - we don't count the double wins over the Vikings twice, given how intense and unpredictable that rivalry can get.
Still, they're the Green Bay Packers, and they have Aaron Rodgers who is nothing but consistent. His namesake Aaron Jones is having an unexpected but thoroughly pleasant breakthrough season at running back, finishing with 1084 rushing yards, including 16 touchdowns. He's been instrumental in several Packers victories, and
It's not that the Packers are bad. Not at all. They're just not the best this year - the press keeps using words like "underwhelming" and "not performing as expected". We're not ruling them out, but we do think their win-loss stats make them a bit overrated.