Rams vs. Panthers Odds & Betting Predictions - January 10, 2026

Boyd / FanDuel

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The Rams are the biggest road playoff favorite in our system — and they should be. Los Angeles is the best team in football, and the Rams have mostly lapped the competition. Stay SI Sportsperson of the Year Awards 2025 | Full Show (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander) I have the Rams first in my power ratings with a bullet. I'd make them more than a field goal favorite on a neutral field against every team in the league but Seattle; they'd be more than a touchdown favorites on a neutral against half the playoff field. The Rams led the league in Offensive DVOA both running and passing, and they did that against a top schedule, playing 13 of their 17 games against teams with at least eight wins. They also had the lowest offensive variance in the league — a remarkable combo, meaning they were outstanding and lapped the rest of the league week after week, game after game, regardless of the competition. LA had eight wins this season by 14 or more points. And unlike most teams this good, they've actually been more unlucky, with all four losses requiring goofy late bounces. Many teams pile up gaudy records with close wins; flip every one-score game this season and the Rams are still 13-4, best in the NFC. On top of all that, the Rams might actually be a bit underrated given their relative poor play of late, because the team is getting key names back for the playoffs. You know about the league's best red zone threat Davante Adams, but the defense fall way off without DB Quentin Lake, and LT Alaric Jackson is their most important blocker. The Rams are all that and a bag of peanuts — consider that they're nearly the Super Bowl favorites even as a 5-seed, with an extra game and likely zero home games compared to 1-seed Seattle. That's how good the Rams are. And then there's the Panthers. Carolina is the worst team in the postseason field by any measure. With a -69 point differential, they're one of the worst playoff teams ever. They finished 24th in DVOA, near bottom quarter of the league, and have no particular discernible strength. Flip their one-score results and they'd have gone 4-13, worst in the league. The Panthers laid a complete egg against the Bucs in a de facto playoff opportunity last week but got here through the back door. Carolina went 2-5 against playoff teams this season, with an average score of 28-to-14, scoring 16 or fewer points in all but one game. The Panthers averaged just 10.2 PPG in those five losses, losing by 11, 16, 17, 29, and 31 points. Of course, one of those two wins was against the Rams — so let's talk about it. That game should make us more confident for LA, not less. The Rams absolutely throttled Carolina for 98% of that game. They finished with 7.4 yards a play and a massive 61-to-39% Success Rate advantage, including 76% for the Rams on running plays, the best by any team all season. LA only even made it to third down five times! LA lost because Matthew Stafford threw a tipped interception in the end zone, the a pick-6 on his next pass, and because Bryce Young completed two outlier long TD passes on fourth down, a swing of 11.5 EPA on those two plays alone. But the Rams were better in that game. Far better. Most games with those underlying numbers end in a Rams victory by three touchdowns. This one might. This just isn't the matchup for Carolina. The Panthers rank 27th in EPA per play defending motion plays. The Rams rank top four in both volume and EPA per play in motion, a Sean McVay staple. Carolina ranks 31st in EPA on third down defensively and 32nd in pressure, so Stafford should pick them apart. The Panthers are bottom 10 against WR1s by DVOA — oh hey, Puka Nacua — and 30th against tight ends, with the Rams loading up on 13 personnel. LA should be especially successful running, like it was the first matchup. Carolina is particularly terrible against inside runs, and the Rams have exploded running inside over the back half of the season, leaping from 22nd to 8th in EPA per play. Meanwhile, Carolina is the worst team in the playoff field at finding explosives, and the Panthers also rank 25th in red zone efficiency on offense, up against the No. 3 defense in that part of the field. So the Panthers probably won't move the ball routinely, shouldn't break off many big long plays, and likely won't punch it in on the rare times they do get close to scoring, and they also have virtually no shot of stopping the Rams unless they stop themselves. Ruh roh. Of course, playoff games are never this easy. It's still an outdoor rainy game for a dome team, and it's still a road playoff game. Any number of underdog trends will remind you to bet on home playoff dogs, especially teams at .500 or below this opening round. Those are small-sample trends, though, and they ignore some trends pointing strongly in the opposite direction. Wild Card round hosts that missed last year's playoffs are just 14-30 ATS (32%), and quarterbacks making their playoff debut against experience postseason QBs are 20-39-1 ATS (34%). Carolina wasn't supposed to be here, Bryce Young has never been here before, and history strongly suggests this could be a tough transition. As for the Rams, who earned this softer matchup with a win last week, road teams on a one-game win streak are 16-4-1 ATS (80%) this round in our system. And about that rematch? Teams that lost to a non-division opponent in their 12th game or later are 7-2 ATS in the playoff rematch over the last decade, covering by over a touchdown. This is only the fourth instance in the past 25 years of such a playoff rematch where the losing team is favored by over a TD in the rematch — the previous four losers won the rematch by an average of 15 PPG. Part of the reason teams often underperform as big favorites against these .500-type squads is because they mentally overlook them, already thinking about the next matchup. The Rams already know not to overlook the Panthers — they just lost to them, and they'd likely be sitting at home enjoying a bye right now if they had won that game. Suffice to say Carolina will have LA's attention. I bet Rams -10 Sunday night on the Hot Read, and I'm happy to take them -10.5. I'm playing alt lines too, because this could get ugly. Carolina has struggled to score against playoff opponents all season, and eight of the Rams' 12 wins have been by 14+ points, with three of them by at least 24. I don't trust the Panthers to score, and the Rams should be able to name their number on Saturday in one of the biggest playoff mismatches I can remember. Play Rams -12.5 at +118 (bet365) and put a portion of your bet on Rams -23.5 at +420 (FanDuel) in case this gets ugly.

Tailing @nick_giffen

Blake Corum Longest Rush under 13.5 yards (-125 at Bet365, -130 at BetMGM), or under 12.5 (-115 at DK/BetRivers) This line might seem low for Corum, who has a median longest rush of 15 yards since his boost in playing time and rushing volume in Week 7. However, since RG Kevin Dotson went down early in Week 16 against Seattle, Corum has had just one rushing attempt out of 29 go for longer than 9 yards, and that came on a run to the left end, where Carolina has actually been strongest of all rushing directions. That comes despite 19 of those attempts coming against rush defenses ranked similarly to Carolina, in the mid 20s in defensive rush DVOA. The loss of Dotson hurts Corum, who attempts the plurality of his rushes to the right side. In particular, this hurts Corum on runs up right middle, right guard, and even to right tackle where backup guard Justin Dedich has struggled in run blocking, posting a best run block grade of just 62.7 in three games filling in for Dotson, compared to Dotson's 89.3 season-long grade. Corum also tends to have runs come from inside the 12 yard line at a higher rate, with 13.1% of his rushing attempts coming from too close to even clear this prop, which is a couple percentage points above the league average. There's also the fact that Los Angeles could just focus more on their main man, Kyren Williams, in such a meaningful game, which could lead to fewer attempts overall. Certainly Corum could clear this on another run to the left or on the right end, but overall his chances should be reduced and I like him to stay under 13.5 here, and would also play under 12.5.

Speights is always a tricky projection because he’s not an every-down linebacker. He tends to play on early downs at a high rate and plays on 3rd/4th downs at a much lower rate. As a result, I expect him to be on the field for right around 85% of the Panthers’ run plays and just 62% of their pass plays. After doing a deeper dive, I noticed his snap % was very predictive when you look at the Rams’ margin of victory. In their 3 losses over the final 10 games, we saw Speights play his 3 highest snap % games, averaging 84% of snaps in those 3. However, in their 5 wins of 10+ points, he averaged just a 56% snap rate. This makes sense in theory because as the Rams play with a bigger lead, their opponent will likely pivot to a more pass-heavy, up-tempo style of play, the types of plays Speights usually sits out as they have an extra DB on the field in place of him. However, if they are trailing, their opponent will likely be using a more run-heavy, heavier personnel approach. So I’m expecting his playing time to be on the lower end here with the Rams as 10-point road favorites. Sure, the Panthers could be very run heavy early in the game, especially with the potential for heavy rain and wind in the forecast. But if the Rams do build a 2-score lead, Carolina will be forced to throw more. I also found another factor that could lead to him being involved in fewer run tackles. He’s much more involved in outside runs. Looking at his run tackle % based on inside vs. outside runs, he shows a pretty strong correlation with outside runs. The Falcons run to the outside at by far the highest rate, and he racked up 6 tackles in run support in that game (a whopping 23% rate). In the 3 matchups against inside-run-heavy teams (NO/TB/CAR), he had just a 13% tackle rate. The reason he ended up with 7 tackles against the Panthers in Week 13 was due to the fact that the Panthers dominated time of possession, ran the ball 40 times, and it was a game the Rams lost, so his playing time was near a season high. It was basically the perfect storm and he still barely cleared this. Does this mean Speights won’t get 6+ tackles here? Of course not. But this is a matchup where I project his playing time to be a tad lower, Carolina’s inside-run tendencies (both Dowdle/Hubbard run inside at a top 7 rate) hurt him, and the return of Quentin Lake could ding him slightly as Speights’ run tackle rate has been about 2% lower with Lake on the field. In the end, I have him mixing in on ~3 run tackles and ~2 tackles on completions for a projection of 5.1 tackles (including the small chance he mixes in on a sack), with around a 60% chance to stay under 5.5. Getting plus odds is nice here. He has a wide range of outcomes, but the fact that so many subtle factors point to him being closer to his floor makes this my favorite tackle prop from this game.

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Postseason home dogs 50-32-2 (61%) ATS all-time, 11-5-1 (69%) when +4 or longer, 4-0-1 when +7 or longer. #SundaySixPack

Jared Verse made it known last year after losing to Philly in the playoffs that he never wanted to feel the pain of losing in the playoffs again…”I don’t want my teammates to feel like this again. I only want to look in their eyes & see anything but pure bliss & pure happiness & I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that doesn’t happen again.” He was asked this week what he learned from his 1st playoff experience, “there’s gonna be one play that you have to take over like it has to be on you & you have to be your absolute best” I expect a huge game from him in this one especially with LA looking for revenge after losing to the Carolina in week 13. I think they correct their mistakes, stop the run & force CAR into more 3rd & longs which is where Verse can capitalize. Quentin Lake being back from injury will help a ton as well. Since week 14, LA ranks 2nd in pressure% & I don’t think CAR’s OLine will be able to contain their pass rush. CAR should have to drop back a ton in this game too as +10.5 point underdogs.

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Tailing @The_Oddsmaker

Adams is expected to return from a hamstring injury that’s kept him out a few games now. I’m assuming they were playing it safe and that he’s closer to 100% with a low chance of a setback, but there’s still a chance he could be limited. My projection is assuming he steps right back into his full-time role at full health, so any sort of limitation due to the hamstring only helps favor the under here. This is also an odd matchup where you have arguably the best team facing one of the worst playoff teams (ever) as 10-point road favorites. I do think the Rams win this one with ease, and it’s a great matchup for them on the ground with Kyren Williams and Blake Corum. It’s also a great matchup for Puka Nacua and the TE group, as the Panthers have struggled against WR1s and TEs this season. Davante tends to see a high % of his targets either downfield or in the end zone, which means anytime he does haul in a pass it has a massive impact on the game and often sets up the Rams to play with the lead and lean more run heavy. In a sense, every catch he makes can actually hurt his rest-of-game projection, which is a sneaky reason I like the under here. There’s also a chance we see some rain or wind in Carolina. Probably not enough to materially impact play, but it’s still a downgrade compared to playing indoors in LA and dings Adams slightly. We also saw Tyler Higbee return last week, which makes the TE group more likely to eat into Adams’ target share. All of this has me projecting him closer to 4.1 receptions with around a 60% chance to stay under 4.5. I have zero interest in fading his yardage or TD markets. I’m specifically fading him in this market. And again, this projection assumes he’s fully healthy and back to his normal role, so any limitations at all only add more hidden value to the under.

Per Evan Abrams: Since 2004, outdoor Wild Card games are 49-23 (68%) to the under. Add to that, this is the 2nd meeting between these 2 teams, another element that typically tilts to the under.

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