The divisional round of the NFL playoffs begins on Saturday, January 17th, with two games on the schedule. Both top seeds will be in action on Saturday, with the full schedule below:
- Buffalo Bills vs. Denver Broncos, 4:30 p.m. ET
- San Francisco 49ers vs. Seattle Seahawks, 8 p.m. ET
For this article, we will be providing our favorite NFL divisional round props for both games on Saturday.
Best NFL Divisional Round Props
The NFL divisional round props below have odds from BetMGM and Caesars. Sign up on these sportsbook apps to activate a $1,500 first bet and $250 bet match.
Khalil Shakir over 5.5 Receptions (-118) BetMGM
Six receptions might seem like a lot for Khalil Shakir, who is not known for being among a top-tier wide receiver or anything like that, but there are a lot of reasons to believe in this over. Shakir has only gone over this number in eight of 17 games this season, but it is a game-script, matchup, and injury situation for him on Saturday. Let's tackle each one of those points:
- Game-Script: The Bills were the heaviest running team in the NFL, meaning they called the most run plays of any other team. That works when you are winning the majority of your games, and winning a lot of games via a blowout. For context, the Bills had a point differential of +116 in the regular season, which was the 5th-highest in the NFL. If you take out the games in which the Bills won by double-digits, Shakir recorded 6+ receptions in seven of 11 games. This makes sense, as the more the Bills need to pass the more the receptions Shakir is able to rack up.
- Matchup: While the Broncos have a very good defense overall, the one area in which they are a little bit leaky is in the slot. On the year, they gave up the 5th-highest target rate to the slot wide receiver. This is important, as Shakir lines up in the slot 69% of the time, and the most on the Bills by far.
- Injuries: Lastly, and unfortunately for the Bills, there are not a lot of healthy wide receivers left on the roster. Gabe Davis went down with a torn ACL last week, leaving three currently healthy wide receivers on the roster. Curtis Samuel is currently on IR and might be able to return on Saturday, but even with him that wide receiver room does not inspire a ton of optimism.
So, the guess here is that Shakir is used early and often in this game, and is able to get us to at least six receptions.
Christian McCaffrey over 51.5 Receiving Yards (-110) Caesars Sportsbook
This is another player prop that is heavily influenced over an injury situation, this time on the 49ers side. It is a real bummer that George Kittle went down with a torn achilles, but that leaves a ton of opportunity for Christian McCaffrey. This is a number that McCaffrey only went over in two of his last eight games of the season, and in one of his last six, which happens to line up perfectly with when Kittle returned from a hamstring injury that he suffered the first week of the season.
It is no coincidence that McCaffrey hit this number the first time in last weeks Wild Card game of the Eagles since November, as Kittle left last weeks game with that injury. On the season, McCaffrey has played six games without Kittle, and he has recorded over this receiving yards number in seven out of eight games. That includes the six games Kittle missed due to injury, and the two games that he left early as well.
As far as the matchup goes, targeting running backs out of the backfield is the only area in which the Seahawks are not an elite defense. They actually allowed the highest target share go to the running back in the entire NFL, at 20.6%. The next closest team is the Packers at 18.3%, and only three teams in general had a number 18% or higher.
This makes sense as the Seahawks have an elite secondary and basically give up nothing to wide receivers, so the targets have to go somewhere. In this case, we are expecting it to go to McCaffrey.