BY HARRY BONDI
There’s a reason we are the best NFL Playoff handicappers in the country, going 51-19 (73%) the last seven seasons. It’s because our approach is unlike any other service. We study hours of game film. We read every team’s hometown newspaper and we work the phones, speaking with a countless number of football beat writers, broadcasters and Las Vegas veterans.
We also look at a ton of stats, trends and numbers. While we would never make a selection on a game based solely on numbers, here are a few that caught our eye as we began our NFL Playoff handicapping sessions this week.
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DID SOMEONE SAY HOME FIELD “ADVANTAGE?”
For the last month you’ve heard the talking heads on TV talk ad nauseam about how certain teams 
were fighting for the top seed in the playoffs and the all-important “home field advantage throughout the playoffs.” But when it comes to betting the NFL Playoffs, the home edge isn’t quite as Boomer and the boys on ESPN might think. Since 2002, road teams are 74-62-2 (54%) ATS in the NFL Playoffs, including last year in the wild card round when all four road teams won outright.
In fact, during the last 14 seasons, home teams have gone just 24-30-1 (44%) against the number in the Wild Card round.
STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE MATTERS FOR WILDCARD TEAMS
Since 2002 — the year the NFL went to its current playoff format with 32 teams and eight divisions — the wildcard playoff team with the stronger strength of schedule have gone 40-16 (71%) both against the spread and straight up.
This year, the wild card teams with the better strength of schedule are the NY Giants, Detroit, Oakland and Pittsburgh.
BLOWOUTS ARE COMMONPLACE
Twenty of the last 44 NFL Wild card Playoff Games and nearly half of all Wild card games (62 of 124) since 1978 have been decided by 14 points or more.
Same goes for the divisional playoff round where teams have covered the spread by double digits in 19 of the last 40 games.
FORGET THE SPREAD, PICK THE WINNER
Over the last four playoff seasons, the spread has only came into play 12 times in 55 games. This is not uncommon. In fact, since 1978, the straight-up winner has covered the spread in all NFL Playoff games 84.3% of the time and since 1980 the straight-up winner in opening round covers the pointspread a whopping 89% of the time (113-13-15), including the last nine years when the straight-up winner in the Wild Card Round has gone 31-3-2 ATS.
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DON’T BANK ON THE TOP SEED PREVAILING
Beware if you are backing the New England Patriots to win this year’s Super Bowl.
While the No. 1 seed from each conference has advanced to the Super Bowl in each of the past three seasons, the overall No. 1 seed has has won just two of the last 13 Super Bowls (New England in 2003 and New Orleans in 2009), and in the 10 seasons prior to that streak, the No. 1 seeds won the Super Bowl seven times.
Also, at least one of the teams that received a first-round bye has lost in the divisional round in 10 of the last 11 years (last year was the lone exception). And finally, 10 wild card teams have advanced to the Super Bowl, and six have gone all the way to win it. Since the 32-team realignment in 2002, three wild cards have won the Super Bowl.