So here we are, faced with the eternal question: To bet or not to bet? Whether ’tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune – “outrageous,” definitely; “fortune,” we’ll see – and/or to suffer through another Thursday Night Football game.
Whereas NFLbets typically strongly advises against betting on Thursday night NFL games due to the far greater number of variables involved, we’ve found quite the tempting reason to bet – and even watch – TNF. On Amazon Prime Video. Again.
Miami Dolphins at Houston Texans in week 8 is more the kind of matchup we’ve learned to expect over the past two to three seasons – whenever the Color Rush concept was introduced, basically. As an audience, we’ve collectively settled into an uncomfortable acceptance of garish uniforms, on-field mediocrity and/or lopsided laughers: Aside from the TNF games of week 3 (Cleveland Browns 21, New York Jets 17) and week 4 (Los Angeles Rams 31, Minnesota Vikings 31), this series been nigh unwatchable again in 2018, comedy value of the clueless Arizona Cardinals last week notwithstanding.
The TNF trend toward the blowout is one reason behind this seemingly too-high point spread: After all, the Texans have one by more than 7 points just once this season: last week against zombie Blake Bortles and his downtrodden Jacksonville Jaguars.
But favorites are 6-0-1 ATS in Thursday night games this season (7-0-0 if you caught the Rams at -6½ against the Vikings) and are 7-0 SU. And in five TNF games, the final result ATS wasn’t truly close. These extreme marks are of course outliers, but favorites as well as home teams have performed well better on Thursday night than otherwise historically. Some key stats from the past 36 Thursday night games go as follows.
• On Thursday nights, underdogs have won SU just seven times of 36 for a measly winning percentage of .194; that’s significantly poorer than the usual .326.
• Favorites have gone 24-10-2 ATS for a .714 winning percentage going back to Opening Day 2016, also a significant difference from the usual .550 mark.
• On the current run, the home team is 24-12 SU and 24-10-2 ATS on Thursday night. Once again, these compare quite favorably (so to speak) to expected results SU historically, which give the home team a 57% to 60% chance to win SU in a typical NFL game.
Here’s our theory to justify the numbers: NFLbets believes that home field advantage makes up for all those aforementioned extra unknowns: Houston players are coming off an away game, but they are coming home with all the concomitant advantages therein. If you believe in these sorts of things, the nationally-televised factor will make referees far more likely to err on the side of caution, i.e. the home Texans.
More specifically speaking, Miami enters this game on a 1-3 SU/ATS run; Houston is 4-0 SU and 2-2 ATS (but 2-1-1 if you took them at -3 vs the Dallas Cowboys in week 5). The latter is not exactly a positive for betting on the Texans here, but NFLbets’ most compelling stat is the 0-3-0 mark ATS this team has managed at home thus far. Not only are they the sole team without a home ATS win, only two teams (the Atlanta Falcons and Green Bay Packers) have gone winless ATS *on the road* through seven weeks.
Now, we realize this is going to sound crazy, what with DeShaun Watson into his second week of playing with a bruised f@$&#&#*ing lung and all, but we’re recommending that NFL bettors take the Houston Texans -7½ vs Miami. Don’t believe the Texans can cover 7½? Fair enough; we’ll also recommend taking the Texans in a money line (ML) bet; at -300 or show, you’ll have to proportion accordingly to hedge the point spread bet. Finally, we’d also say grab the under on an O/U line of 44 points. This over/under opened at 45½ and may yet drop to 43½ before kickoff.
Get ready for a low-scoring, grind-it-out Thursday Night Football game. Yippee. Geez, we hate betting these things…
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