NFL week 4: Final results ATS (Underdogs rule the roost mixed metaphor edition)

02 October 2018

Well now, that wasn’t so bad. In fact, week 4 in the NFL was rather interesting – and lucrative for the bettor if taking the underdog ATS.

Underdogs went a very nice 6-5-2 ATS; of the six wins, four were on the road.

In five week 4 games, the results ATS and SU differed. Crazy!

On NFLbets’ part, we somehow managed to recommend betting on both of this week’s pushes: Vikings/Rams and Chiefs/Broncos.

Our published NFL picks and best bets went 1-1-2, for a profit of exactly zero Moneys (NFLbets’ preferred form of currency). Weird! But we’ll take it.

From a viewer’s perspective, plenty of nail-biters including two overtime games were to be seen. Happily, quite a few of the league’s mediocre-to-bad teams – including the Cleveland Browns, Houston Texans, Indianapolis Colts, Oakland Raiders – essentially let their offenses run wild to produce lotsa points and turnovers. Fun!

Below runs a complete list of results for week 4 in NFLbets’ standard format, i.e. adjusted for the point spread; all results listed in boldface indicate games in which the SU and ATS results differed. Embittered, cynical, jovial and other comments courtesy Os Davis.

•  Los Angeles Rams 31, Minnesota Vikings 31. Um, wasn’t this game supposed to be about the defenses…?

•  Cincinnati Bengals 37 at Atlanta Falcons 32½. As NFLbets stated going into this game, the Bengals have yet to win a game SU against a non-AFC North playoff team since 2014. Here’s to thinking that, with this defense, the 2018 Atlanta Falcons won’t be playing in the offseason either.

•  Chicago Bears 45, Tampa Bay Buccaneers 10. And yea, verily, was Fitzmagic banned from the kingdom of Tampa Bay henceforth after a poor performance on the battlefield in the first half. O, whither have the magicks gone…?

•  Houston Texans 36 at Indianapolis Colts 34. NFLbets’ disappointment of the 2018 NFL season, the Houston Texans, finally gets one in the SU and ATS win columns…

•  San Francisco 49ers 27 at Los Angeles Chargers 18½. …as did the Garoppolo-less 49ers, against whom NFLbets will most likely be loading up this week. Also, can we stop calling Chargers games in Los Angeles “home games”? Niners fans must’ve outnumbered Chargers fans and neutrals by a good 18 to 1.

•  Arizona Cardinals 17, Seattle Seahawks 16½. After letting the Cardinals run up a 14-0 advantage at the first quarter’s end, the Seahawks are the sole winless NFL team ATS with a wild mark of 0-2-2. 

•  Green Bay Packers 13½, Buffalo Bills 0. Speaking of bad, woof, those Bills. But hey, at least fantasy football players learned something: Namely, take the DST playing Buffalo.

•  New England Patriots 31½, Miami Dolphins 7. No need to take the Dolphins off the playoff contention list, however, even despite this spanking doled out by the Patriots and the subsequent Ls they’ll be taking at Cincinnati this week and vs Chicago in week 6. Six winnable games follow these, and we’re thinking the Fins could easily be 8-4 going into the week 14 rematch with New England.

•  Jacksonville Jaguars 23½, New York Jets 12. And those would-be usurpers of the emprie, the Jacksonville Jaguars led by much-maligned Blake Bortles? The Jets were easy fodder, but consistency may be too much to expect from this lot.

•  Detroit Lions 24 at Dallas Cowboys 23½. Now at 3-1 ATS, these otherwise unremarkable Lions may yet become NFL bettors’ sweetheart before season’s end.

•  New Orleans Saints 29½ at New York Giants 18. Just one interception through four games for Eli Manning? Come on, dude, you’re better worse than that!

•  Tennessee Titans 26, Philadelphia Eagles 20. Can we all agree that it’s never a good idea to bet on the Super Bowl champion repeating? Once listed among the top 3 or 4 on the odds table, the Eagles have dropped to 10th favorite at 22/1. Any takers? Thought not.

•  Baltimore Ravens 26 at Pittsburgh Steelers 11. See, this is why the Cleveland Browns are becoming the fan fave of this season: How can one be happy about the smug Steelers egregiously losing a division game, when the winning team is the just-as-hateworthy Ravens? Go Browns!

•  Oakland Raiders 42½, Cleveland Browns 42. Except then the Browns and spiffy new franchise QB Baker Mayfield go and blow their undefeated ATS run with a ½-point loss to a bottom-5 team. Guess we’d better pump the brakes on that Browns playoff talk just a smidge.

•  Denver Broncos 27, Kansas City Chiefs 27. Don’t ever bet against the Broncos as a home underdog. Don’t ever bet against an Andy Reid-coached team on the road on Monday night. And this week, everybody wins! Sort of.