Nick Giffen

Blake Corum Longest Rush under 13.5 yards (-125 at Bet365, -130 at BetMGM), or under 12.5 (-115 at DK/BetRivers) This line might seem low for Corum, who has a median longest rush of 15 yards since his boost in playing time and rushing volume in Week 7. However, since RG Kevin Dotson went down early in Week 16 against Seattle, Corum has had just one rushing attempt out of 29 go for longer than 9 yards, and that came on a run to the left end, where Carolina has actually been strongest of all rushing directions. That comes despite 19 of those attempts coming against rush defenses ranked similarly to Carolina, in the mid 20s in defensive rush DVOA. The loss of Dotson hurts Corum, who attempts the plurality of his rushes to the right side. In particular, this hurts Corum on runs up right middle, right guard, and even to right tackle where backup guard Justin Dedich has struggled in run blocking, posting a best run block grade of just 62.7 in three games filling in for Dotson, compared to Dotson's 89.3 season-long grade. Corum also tends to have runs come from inside the 12 yard line at a higher rate, with 13.1% of his rushing attempts coming from too close to even clear this prop, which is a couple percentage points above the league average. There's also the fact that Los Angeles could just focus more on their main man, Kyren Williams, in such a meaningful game, which could lead to fewer attempts overall. Certainly Corum could clear this on another run to the left or on the right end, but overall his chances should be reduced and I like him to stay under 13.5 here, and would also play under 12.5.

Luck Rankings D grade

Brandon McManus under 7.5 Kicking Pts (-117 at DK) One of the big fasctors I've mentioned in Green Bay vs. Chicago in my Wild Card Weekend Luck Rankings piece was the fact that Green Bay has been quite unlucky scoring TDs in the red zone, while Chicago's defense has been a bit fortunate. If things regress back toward these offensive and defensive capabilities as they theoretically should, I'd expect Green Bay to punch in a few more TDs at the expense of field goals. And minimizing field goals is the best path to staying under a kicker's kicking points. Green Bay is now fully healthy at the WR position, and defensively the Bears are missing C.J. Gardner-Johnson, which is one of the key pieces of their second-half defensive improvement. It's also going to be cold, and with sustained winds above 15 m.p.h. and gusts touching 30 m.p.h. per NOAA, at a near perfect crosswind, which will limit field goals from distance as well. All told, if Green Bay is scoring TDs from in close, and passing up on longer field goals, or McManus struggles with them from the conditions, there's a strong path to staying under this kicking total.

Luck Under

James Cook under 19.5 Rush Att (-120 at Bet365, 18.5 everywhere else (-127 at DK best)) Two major factors should impact Cook's rushing attempt prop in their Wild Card Round game against Jacksonville. First, Jacksonville possess the ball at a top-five rate, meaning there's less time overall for Buffalo to run plays. Buffalo has had a relatively fortunate schedule in the time-of-possession department, facing just four teams with a top-12 TOP. In those four games, Cook stayed under 18.5 three times. And in six total games against top-half time of possession teams, he stayed under 18.5 in four of six. Additionally, game script may not favor him here. Buffalo is favored by about a point, but this is essentially a coin-flip game by the betting odds, and by our schedule-adjusted Expected Scores I actually have Jacksonville favored. When Buffalo has had a second-half average win probability of 65% or less, Cook has stayed under 18.5 in six of eight games. In the other eight, Buffalo's average second-half win probability was always north of 80%. In those eight he cleared 18.5 in six of those games. Jacksonville is also a top-five run defense by DVOA, so Buffalo ideally would like to throw on them more as well to have better chances at moving the ball. With all three starting CBs questionable for Jacksonville, it could be even more imperative to throw on them. I'm projecting Cook for 17.9 carries with a 57% chance of staying under 18.5 if I'm using the current betting lines. But if I make this a pure coin flip, or even favor Jacksonville slightly, I'd have this at around 17.5 or even lower.

Just betting on the better team