{"id":413043,"date":"2026-01-17T13:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T13:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/413043\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T13:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T13:58:10","slug":"rams-are-third-biggest-road-favorites-in-the-divisional-round-since-the-afl-nfl-merger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/413043\/","title":{"rendered":"Rams are third-biggest road favorites in the divisional round since the AFL-NFL merger"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Los Angeles Rams are favored by 3.5 points at Chicago in the divisional round of the playoffs. That\u2019s extraordinarily rare.<\/p>\n<p>Since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger, there have been 224 divisional round games. Only twice has a road team been favored by more than the 3.5 points that the Rams are favored by.<\/p>\n<p>The biggest road favorites in the divisional round were the 1979 Eagles, who were favored by 4.5 points at Tampa Bay. (The home Buccaneers pulled off the upset, 24-17). The second-biggest road favorites in the divisional round were the 1971 Baltimore Colts, who were favored by 4 points at Cleveland. (The Colts covered the spread, beating the Browns 20-3.)<\/p>\n<p>And then there\u2019s this year\u2019s Rams, who are tied for the third-biggest spread for a road favorite with that 3.5-point line at Chicago on Sunday. A few other teams have been favored by exactly 3.5 points on the road in the divisional round, but only two have been favored by four or more.<\/p>\n<p>Overall only 17 of 224 road teams have been favored in the divisional round. With the better teams getting home-field advantage, and often coming off a first-round playoff bye, a road favorite in the divisional round is a rarity in the NFL.<\/p>\n<p>Bears coach Ben Johnson, who likes to fire up his team by <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsports.com\/nfl\/profootballtalk\/rumor-mill\/news\/ben-johnson-says-f-the-packers-bears-heard-the-noise-coming-out-of-green-bay\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">talking about \u201cnoise\u201d from their opponents<\/a>, may use this information to give his players a \u201cNobody believes in us\u201d speech, as his team is a rare home underdog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Rams are favored by 3.5 points at Chicago in the divisional round of the playoffs.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-413043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}