NFL: Luck to outshine Brady as Colts, 49ers and Chargers progress
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The NFL season is now well and truly at the business end of the campaign and with a place in the Conference Championship games up for grabs Ladbrokes News has put together a tasty-looking treble.
San Francisco – led by Colin Kaepernick – will exact revenge on Carolina to reach the NFC final, while Indianapolis and San Diego will contest the AFC showpiece by getting past New England and Denver respectively in a road trip accumulator paying out at over 25/1.
With three Super Bowl and two Super Bowl MVP titles to his name it takes a brave man to oppose a Tom Brady team in the postseason.
However, in Andrew Luck the Colts have who many believe will be the NFL’s next dominant force at quarterback and the visitor’s star man will prove that theory in front of a packed Gillette Stadium.
The Colts have hit form at exactly the right time, winning five of their last six, and will extend this run to end Brady’s hopes of lifting the Lombardi trophy for a fourth time.
The Colts may have won just two of their last 12 meetings with the Pats but with little to separate the two teams this year expect the younger of the two quarterbacks to emerge victorious here.
Carolina have won four of the last five meetings with San Francisco and limited Colin Kaepernick to a paltry 91 yards in a 10-9 victory that saw the visitor’s quarterback sacked six times back in November.
However, Kaepernick will be out for revenge at the Bank of America Stadium and with a postseason record that now reads 3-1, will be confident of getting one over his counterpart and playoff debutant Cam Newton.
The Californian’s are 5-0 from their last five games but more importantly have been very impressive on their travels this term, going 7-1 from eight on the road.
This is a tight game to call and will probably be won by a narrow margin, but momentum is with the Candlestick Park outfit so back an away win at 20/23.
The biggest underdogs on this list will take confidence from an unlikely source in the shape of Broncos star quarterback Peyton Manning.
A champion and MVP at Super Bowl XLI there aren’t many honours that Manning hasn’t claimed but the Chargers have been something of a thorn in the Broncos man’s career and will look to prove so again at Mile High.
Manning has now lost on his last three postseason starts and is 4-6 in 10 meetings with San Diego.
The Broncos set a Super Bowl era high scoring average of 37.9 this season and were held to less than 30 just three times over the course of the campaign.
However, two of those low scores came against the Chargers, who can upset the applecart with a fifth win in six road trips against Denver.
All odds and markets accurate as of publication’s time and date
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