Last week I wrote about my disdain for the ESPN First Take commercials and the general format of the show. After surviving another week of daily Stephen A. Smith and Max Kellerman promos, I take it all back. I can’t get through a ballgame without seeing the ads multiple times. By now, they have seeped into my subconscious mind, and parts of my brain that I have no control over light up when they come on. I will still never watch the show, but those commercials have now become a part of my life, and it would feel empty without them. By the way, the show has moved from ESPN2 to ESPN in case you missed the news.

The wildcard round is in the books. Last week the home teams won every game and covered every spread. The smallest margin of victory was Houston’s 13 point win over Oakland. Let’s hope this round has more competitive games. I know they can’t all be as compelling as Clemson’s College Football Playoff win on Monday night, but it would be nice to see a fourth quarter lead change sometime this weekend.

The Patriots are still favored to win it all, with Super Bowl odds of 7-5. Next up are the Cowboys at 9-2. The other contenders are lumped together with odds between 7-1 and 10-1, except the Texans, whose odds are 60-1. That number is huge for a team that is just three wins away from taking the Super Bowl down, but it may not be big enough. I have a hard time seeing Houston making it out of New England, where they lost 27-0 when the Pats didn’t have Tom Brady, let alone managing to win 2 more games after that. I think they would need an unprecedented series of opponent injuries and turnovers to become champs, and the odds of that happening look to me to be far greater than 60-1.

Full disclosure: On a Vegas trip last month I put Super Bowl bets down on the Chiefs and Falcons, my objectivity has been compromised.

Seahawks at Falcons

The first game of the weekend has Atlanta currently favored by 5 points, up from the 3.5 point opening. The Falcons lost by 2 in Seattle in week 6. Conventional wisdom says that home field advantage is worth 3 points over playing on a neutral field, so in theory, Atlanta’s 2 point loss on the road would be a 1 point win on a neutral field and a 4 point win at home. The fact that the line is pretty close to that number tells me that Vegas sees this matchup as comparable to when the teams played in the regular season.

Atlanta has scored more points than any other team in the league, while Seattle has allowed fewer points than all but 2 teams in the league. The Seahawks looked solid last week in their home win over Detroit, but now they will have to play on the road against a much stronger offense. Seattle did win at New England in the regular season, but they also lost at Los Angeles, New Orleans, Tampa Bay and Green Bay. In three of their road loses, the Seahawks failed to score a touchdown. If that team shows up, it could get ugly, if the team that beat the Patriots shows up, I won’t feel good about my Falcons Super Bowl bet.

Matt Ryan is the favorite to win the MVP, Julio Jones has over 1,400 receiving yards despite missing 2 games, Devonta Freeman has over 1,500 combined rushing and receiving yards and Tevin Coleman has over 900 rushing and receiving yards. The Falcons offense played well in tough road environments, scoring 23 points at Denver and 24 points at Seattle, now they host the Seahawks who are sub .500 on the road this season. I’m not counting out Seattle, but I am cautiously optimistic about my Atlanta bet staying alive for at least another week.

Texans at Patriots

No one expects this game to be competitive, so the intrigue becomes how big can the spread get, and if the Patriots will cover? It opened at 15.5 points and has gone up a bit since then. It is the highest playoff point spread in the NFL since the 90’s. I hate laying numbers that big against teams with winning records, but I’ll go with the Pats on this one. New England’s defense has allowed the fewest points of any team this season, and Houston’s offense has scored fewer points than all but a handful of bottom feeders. It seems plausible that the Patriots will score in the 30’s while the Texans will struggle to reach double digits.

New England tends to run up the score more than most good teams, and I’m confident they will do that this weekend. Belichick is too smart to take any chances in an elimination game. He knows that the best way to win when you are up 14 is to go up by 21, and then go up by 28. He won’t sabotage his chances with short runs for three and outs or prevent defenses. Betting to cover big spreads is dangerous because the team you are betting on usually doesn’t care whether they win by 14 or 28, only you do. But Belichick has earned bettor’s money and respect more than most other coaches because his teams are always trying to put up points, regardless of the score. This week, I’ll line up with the rest of the sheep and put my money on New England to cover.

Steelers at Chiefs

This game has the smallest point spread of the week, so bettors expect it to be the most competitive. The Steelers opened up as a slight favorite but enough money has come in on Kansas City to make the Chiefs 2 point favorites as I am writing this. A 3-4 point swing in the line is fairly significant. To me it says that oddsmakers see Pittsburgh as the better team, but gamblers do not agree.

Pittsburgh beat up on Kansas City 43-14 at home in week 4, so getting points on the road seems like a good bet, but two big factors are working against the Steelers this time. First, Ben Roethlisberger’s home and away splits are fairly well known by now. His play and the numbers he puts up at home are far superior to those when he plays on the road. While that is common for most quarterbacks, it is more pronounced with Big Ben. After seeing Ben suffer an injury late in last week’s game, gamblers and fantasy players are staying away.

The second reason to believe that the Chiefs can turn the tables on Pittsburgh is Andy Reid’s stellar record when he has an extra week to prepare. I don’t trust Andy Reid with challenges, timeouts, clock management or end of game decision making, but I know he can coach his team to a win when he has two weeks to prepare. It is easy to criticize the Walrus when his team is down 14 in the fourth quarter and instead of going with a hurry up offense they slowly move the ball down the field on an 8 minute drive that ends with a field goal attempt on fourth and one from the 5 yard line. But Reid has got to be one of the best at all the unseen things a coach does during the week that help the team prepare for success. If only he would delegate some of the ingame decision making to someone who doesn’t have to worry about all the other things that must occupy Reid’s mind.

The Chiefs are rested and playing at home, the Steelers are a little banged up and have to travel to a hostile environment. The fact that I have money on Kansas City to win the Super Bowl is likely why I’m trying to make an argument for them avenging their 29 point loss. But at least most objective observers agree with me that this game should be more competitive than their previous contest.

Packers at Cowboys

In Dak Prescott and Ezekiel Elliott’s first playoff game, the Cowboys are 4.5 point favorites over the Packers. Dallas beat the Packers 30-16 in Green Bay in week 6, but the Packers are optimistic they have turned a corner in the second half of the season, and they are ready to push their win streak to 8.

Many of Dallas’s key starters will not have played in a real game for 3 weeks at kickoff, since the Cowboys locked up home field and a bye before the last week of the regular season. This will likely lead to a debate on rest versus rust, a debate that is generally misplaced. Even if a rested player starts out rusty, it’s better than if they were injured and unable to play. In a game that has timeouts reserved for the inevitable moments when a player is hurt so badly he needs help off the field, making sure your best players stay healthy for the games that matter should take precedence.

I think Dallas will be tough to beat at home. I suspect that, like all season, their offensive line will create big holes for the running game and lots of time for the passing game. As long as their defense can prevent Aaron Rodgers from throwing Hail Mary touchdown passes as time runs out, Dallas will win. Apparently that is much easier said than done, but I’ll still take the Cowboys to cover.

I’m about out of words for this week. It’s interesting that the four games in the divisional round are all rematches. If history repeats, we will have conference championship games of Pittsburgh at New England and Seattle at Dallas. I’m betting that at least one team can avenge their loss when it matters the most.