If you had Rams -10.5 going into yesterday's Wild Card game, I need you to know something: you were never going to cover. The gambling gods had other plans, and those plans involved the most chaotic fourth quarter in NFL playoff history.

The Quick Hit

• What happened: Rams beat Panthers 34-31 after four lead-changing TDs in Q4
• The damage: Rams -10.5 got annihilated; over 45.5 cashed easily with 65 total points
• Why you should care: This tied the all-time playoff record for most go-ahead TDs in Q4
• The move: Rams advance but looked beatable. Their divisional round line will be interesting.

The Fourth Quarter From Hell (Or Heaven)

The Rams were up 14-0. They were up 21-17 at halftime. And then the fourth quarter arrived, and all hell broke loose.

The lead changed hands via touchdown four times in the final 15 minutes. That's never happened before in NFL playoff history. If you had Rams spread, you watched your bet die, come back to life, die again, and then stay dead. If you had Panthers spread... same thing, just in reverse.

Carolina's Bryce Young—yes, the same Bryce Young everyone wrote off after last year—led the Panthers back twice in that fourth quarter. Jalen Coker went off for a career-high 134 yards. This 8-9 team that backed into the playoffs by winning tiebreakers was giving the Rams everything they could handle.

Stafford Does Stafford Things

Down 31-27 with under two minutes left, Matthew Stafford did what Matthew Stafford does: he delivered. The likely MVP went 6-of-7 for 71 yards on the game-winning drive, capped by a 19-yard touchdown to tight end Clayton Parkinson with just 38 seconds on the clock.

Final line: 24-of-32, 304 yards, three touchdowns, one pick. That's your MVP frontrunner, and he earned every vote with that final drive.

Puka Nacua was Puka Nacua—10 catches, 111 yards, a touchdown, plus 14 rushing yards and another TD. The man does everything.

Spread Bettors in Shambles

Let's be real: Rams -10.5 was always ambitious. Carolina may have been 8-9, but they won the NFC South and hosted their first playoff game in a decade. The crowd was into it. The team clearly believed.

If you had the over? You're dancing. The 65 total points crushed the 45.5 line by nearly 20. If you had the under, I don't even know what to tell you—that was dead by early in the fourth.

The Panthers covered +10.5 by the skin of their teeth, losing by just 3. That's the kind of backdoor cover that builds empires for some bettors and ruins weekends for others.

What's Next

The Rams advance, but they didn't look like a team that's going to roll through the playoffs. Nine penalties. A defense that allowed career games from Carolina's young core. They'll need to clean things up fast.

Up next: a trip to Chicago to face the Bears, who just pulled off their own historic comeback against the Packers. That line should be fascinating.

The Bottom Line

The Rams won, but if you had them covering double digits, you're probably already checking your bankroll for Wild Card Sunday action. Carolina fought like hell, and Bryce Young just announced himself as a legitimate franchise quarterback.

Sometimes the best games are the ones where nobody covers what they expected. Yesterday was one of those days.