Prospector Sam's Wild Card Weekend NFL Best Bets

Prospector Sam is back on deck in 2022 to provide the Dimers community with free picks for the NFL Wild Card Weekend slate.

Well, they don’t call it Wild Card weekend for nothing. And, just as we were reminded last year with the Bears, it’s WILD that we allowed a 7th playoff team in just to watch them get their brains blown out (yes, that was absolutely awful word play. I regret nothing). Good luck to the Steelers, they’ll need it.

The reality actually isn’t all that bleak, to be honest. If the Raiders hadn’t decided to go out and win the SNF football game in OT we would’ve been treated to Justin Herbert in the playoffs, which would have been a welcome addition to the party, and the Eagles aren’t all that bad of a team. Unfortunately, life isn’t always fair and I guess we just have to live with that. And, at times like this, it’s important to remember the positives, which there are many: (1) playoff football is here, (2) we get to gamble our face off all weekend and (3) we all got to watch Indianapolis pull off one of the most spectacularly embarrassing performances of our lifetime last weekend (apologies to Colts fan, but god was that funny).

No time like the present - here are my best bets for the weekend.

Prospector Sam's NFL picks are proudly brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook, where you can cash in big time if you pick the winner of this game (or any other Wild Card Weekend matchup)!

Free NFL Picks For Week 17, 2021

Patriots vs. Bills: Sat January 15, 8:00PM EST

Are we really doing this again? Really? Sure, I understand that there isn’t a good time to play a January game in Buffalo, but sticking it at night just feels like asking for trouble and the projected HIGH for Saturday as I write this is 9 degrees. I’m no meteorologist, but it certainly won’t be warmer come 8 o’clock and that temperature drop will cause winds to pick up (I think that’s correct, but is it actually true? I honestly don’t know, I wanted to pass it off as a fact but that felt disingenuous). So, in line with those factors, we’re going right back to the under. Even if the game were in Miami the Pats likely would want to slow things down and keep the ball out of Allen’s hands, which would lead us to a lower score. Add in the conditions and the difficulty of scheming offensively against a team that’s already played you twice, and I think this game could turn out to be very cagey. At their best, the Bills win by putting up big numbers and throwing the ball 40 times, but the Pats are going to give Allen looks that force him to play the run more based on matchup and I think this ends up being one of the more boring battles of the weekend. 44 isn’t a huge number, especially looking across the slate of totals for the other Wild Card games, but I think the under is the right play here.

⛏️  PICK: Total points UNDER 44

MORE: Patriots vs. Bills simulator

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49ers vs. Cowboys: Sun January 16, 4:30PM EST

Nobody wants to hear it or say it unless they’re an obnoxious Cowboys fan (aka all of them), but this team is actually pretty good. The offense speaks for itself, and the defense is solid enough so long as they get a turnover or two. Sure, Diggs may be the biggest liability in coverage in the entire league, but that’s a problem for another day because it takes a good QB to make Dallas pay for that problem and Jimmy G isn’t that guy. For those of you feeling good about him after last week’s comeback, I’ll agree it was impressive and he deserves some credit. But the Rams imploded as much as anything else and the body of work by Garroppolo over the course of his career tells us that high level play isn’t likely to keep up. The 49ers are a solid team whose season got derailed by injuries, and they just don’t have enough healthy bodies on defense to survive Dak and company unless Samuel and Kittle have All Pro days and they get a couple of good breaks. I don’t see it happening though, and I’ll give up the 3 points.

⛏️ PICK: Cowboys -3

MORE: 49ers vs. Cowboys simulator

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Steelers vs. Chiefs: Sunday January 16, 8:15PM EST

Thank god we got that 7th playoff team, huh? Like a lame horse that gets shot on a racetrack in front of a crowd and sent off to the glue factory, Big Ben gets to trot out on Sunday night for one more ride before the Chiefs most likely cave in his skull. Why do I say that? Well, because this Steeler’s team is absolutely awful and the Chiefs beat them by 26 about a month ago. But hey, that’s what gambling is for; to make the bad games worth watching. While that intro may lead you to believe the Chiefs on the spread is the way to go, I’m actually going to pivot to the over. Why? Well, it’s still a playoff game and as we learned last week in Jacksonville weird things can happen, but I have complete faith that both of these teams will put up points. The Chiefs have transformed back into the team of two years ago in the last couple of months, which makes for great wins and a lot of fireworks. They put up points in bunches, and don’t really care if they give up TDs on the other end because it’s just another chance for Mahomes to make the opposing defense look silly (see: Drew Lock running like Lamar Jackson last week). I think the Chiefs put up a big number, probably close to the 36 they scored last time these two faced off, and the Steelers get some points as they let Ben air it out in his last pro football game.

⛏️ PICK: Total points OVER 46.5

MORE: Steelers vs. Chiefs simulator

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Cardinals vs. Rams: Mon January 17, 8:15PM EST

This Cardinals team is very bad. I feel like it’s going a bit under the radar, but they’re 4-6 in their last 10 games with losses to Carolina, Detroit, and Seattle in that stretch, which is what you’d expect to see from a team watching from home this weekend. Sure, the win over the Cowboys brought a bit of optimism that they can keep things together, but this defense is a disaster waiting to happen on any play and the loss of Hopkins is a huge blow to their entire offense. At first, I was reluctant to give up the field goal hook on a playoff matchup between divisional opponents who know each other well, but the more I thought about it I just couldn’t see the Cardinals holding their ground. The Rams biggest weakness, as we saw last weekend, is that Stafford can flip from amazing to awful in the span of 15 minutes, but against a Cardinals defense that isn’t particularly strong he should be less liable to make mistakes and they just have too much talent across the board for Arizona to handle. Congrats to the Cardinals for overperforming this year and giving that desolate state some hope, but the run ends here.

⛏️ PICK: Rams -4

MORE: Cardinals vs. Rams simulator