Well, last week was certainly like shooting fish in a barrel: Between our Picks of the Week and Best Bets, NFLbets went an insane 8-1 in betting.
Now.
The trick when such good fortune and prescient prognostication pays off is of course not to immediately turn the winnings into too many reache – but there’s just so much good stuff in week 9…
NFLbets Picks of Week 9 follow.
On the surface level, the 2019 Arizona Cardinals are overachieving nicely with rookie Kyler Murray at the helm and playing in what is clearly the NFL’s best division. The Cards stand at 3-4-1 SU going into this Thursday night football matchup and are averaging a respectable 24.5 points per game.
But take a closer look: Sure, they ran up 34 points on Atlanta and 27 each against Detroit and at the Giants. But against teams with winning records – specifically, at the Baltimore Ravens, vs the Carolina Panthers, vs the Seattle Seahawks at the New Orleans Saints – the Cardinals are a predictable 0-4 at home win/loss record but are a decent 5-3 ATS, averaging a measly 14.0 points. And don’t forget those 26 sacks taken by Murray against just 7 TDs. The 49ers are bringing a defense which is the 2nd-stingiest in points allowed, tops against the pass and just a flat-out badass at bringing the pass rush.
And we haven’t even gotten to Jimmy Garoppolo and that 49ers offense yet. So yeah, we’ll say take the San Francisco 49ers -10½ at Arizona. Normally, we’d also advise to take the under in a TNF game, but the Niners just might score 43 all by themselves in this one…
NFLbets is thinking about this one abstractly first. To put it plainly, the 2019 Bears appear to have contracted a case of Blake Bortles Syndrome – and it’s terminal. Mitch Trubisky and his inability to throw a pass more than 10 yards is utterly demoralizing a team that looked like a Super Bowl contender, never lost a game by more than 7 points and were very good to bettors with a league-best 12-5 ATS.
This season? Five times the opposition has been held to 17 points or less – and the Bears went 3-2 SU (2-3 ATS) in those games. The offense is bottom-10 in most statistical categories; one of few exceptions in pass attempts. And in a year when visitors are just killing it, particularly ATS, the Bears and the Atlanta Falcons are the only teams which have yet to win ATS on the road.
Normally, NFLbets’d stop right here, write “regression to the mean” and advise taking Chicago +5, but these Bears are a tough sell to NFL bettors for sure.
Plus, there is the opposition: The 2019 Philadelphia Eagles, the league’s most frustrating team. At 4-4 SU (3-5 ATS), these Eagles stymied bettors repeatedly over the first 7 weeks of the season and were at a league 2nd-worst 2-5 ATS before taking care of business at the Buffalo Bills last week. Oddly enough, Philadelphia has played four teams with winning records – Packers, Vikings, Cowboys and Bills – and all four were away games.
So despite the shortcomings of these Eagles, NFLbets figures that after three consecutive road games, they’ll be ready to exploit homefield advantage. At just 1-2 ATS in Philly thus far, this is the regression that NFLbets is looking for here. Take the Philadelphia Eagles -5 vs Chicago and take the under on an O/U of 43 points
The fact that NFLbets is betting on this or any AFC South game suggests that we indeed have let last week’s success go to our head, but who can resist betting the UK games? It’s time for another hallowed NFL betting tradition: The breaking out of stats on the Jacksonville Jaguars playing in their second home. NFLbets doesn’t like to lean on history too much for insight into current games, but we’ll make an exception for the UK games due to the special relationship between the Jags and London, not to mention the difference experience makes on this game.
So since the Jaguars/NFL games in London became rote in 2013, the Jaguars are – you guessed it – 3-3 SU/ATS at Wembley. However, the stat we dig lots more is the over/under record in UK Jags games, i.e. the over is 5-1, with the first under hitting last year by 2 points.
How geeked is NFLbets by recent success? We’re going completely against our own grain – not to mention the 50% chance of good old London rain – to advise NFL bettors to take the over on an O/U of 46½ points. J.J. Watt’s absence aside, these are a couple of scoreboard-spinning offenses already. For the record, the most points scored in a U.K.-hosted game is 69 scored by the Saints and Chargers back in 2008. We probably won’t see that many, but NFLbets wouldn’t be surprised if this game produced the most points in week 9.
NFLbets’ Picks of the Week last week: 5-1.
NFLbets’ Picks of the Week this season: 23-13.
Check here for the current NFL Weekly Odds:
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