Las Vegas oddsmakers have made all four visiting teams favorites in the opening round of the National Football League playoffs for the first time, citing the New York Giants' championship run last year.

In the previous seven years, only four road teams were picked by oddsmakers entering their first-round playoff games, according to RJ Bell, president of Pregame.com, a Las Vegas- based handicapping-information Web site. The Atlanta Falcons, Indianapolis Colts, Baltimore Ravens and Philadelphia Eagles are favored in this weekend's games.

"With wild-card teams winning two of the past three Super Bowls, including the Giants, the betting public is not really scared of backing a road team in the first round," Bell said in a telephone interview. "That's adjusting the market and making this quirk where we have these four road favorites."

The Falcons are favored by two points over the Arizona Cardinals in Glendale, Arizona, tomorrow, while the Colts are one-point favorites in San Diego against the Chargers, according to Las Vegas Sports Consultants, which advises Nevada sports books on betting lines.

The Ravens are favored by three points over the Dolphins in Miami the following day, when the Eagles are picked to win by the same margin against the Minnesota Vikings in Minneapolis.

'It Is Strange'

"It is strange," said Cris Collinsworth, an NFL analyst for NBC and former All-Pro wide receiver. "The minute I saw the schedule come out, I liked all the road teams, which I know from all these years of picking games that a red flag better go up. But it's going to be real difficult to go against that."

Since the NFL went to four wild-card games, in 1990, home teams have a 49-23 record in the first round of the playoffs. In the past four years, though, hosts are just 8-8 in games involving wild-card teams — the two non-division winners with the best records from each conference.

After the 2005 season, the Pittsburgh Steelers started their Super Bowl run with a road win after getting into the postseason as a wild card. The Giants won three straight road games in last year's postseason as a wild-card entry before beating the previously undefeated New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.

New Blueprint

"It used to be wild-card weekend didn't mean much," Hall of Fame coach John Madden, an analyst for NBC, said during a media conference call. "But you see two of the last three Super Bowl teams came out of the wild-card (round). And the blueprint is so fresh with the New York Giants."

The NFL in 2002 shifted to four divisions with four teams each, up from three divisions in each conference. Pregame.com's Bell is among those who say that's made it more likely to have a weaker division winner in the playoff field.

Teams that win the NFL's eight division titles earn a chance to play at least one postseason game at home, with four receiving first-round byes.

San Diego will host Indianapolis in the first round even though the Chargers, who were 4-8 earlier this season, won the American Football Conference's West Division with an 8-8 record. The Colts, who won the Super Bowl after the 2006 regular season, finished second in the AFC South at 12-4, trailing a Tennessee Titans team that had an NFL-best 13-3 record this year.

Manning on Playoffs

"Your goal is to try to win the division, get the best record, have the bye and get the home field," Manning told reporters this week. "That's what you want. But now that we're here, it's kind of anybody's to take."

The four division-winners playing in the opening round — San Diego, Arizona, Minnesota and Miami — combined for a 38-26 record this season. The four wild-card teams are 43-20-1.

"Sometimes you have a situation where one or two (division-winners) are weaker," said John Harper, a senior oddsmaker at Las Vegas Sports Consultants. "All four is a little unusual, but you have to remember these aren't eight- point favorites. You're not having to lay a lot of points."

Even so, this could mark the first time that all four road teams win in the first round of the NFL playoffs. Three visiting teams, including the Steelers, won in the opening round after the 2005 regular season.

"This is about as interesting as I can remember the wild- card round being," Collinsworth said.