Football betting makes Thanksgiving feel like a holiday, you know…? In NFLbets’ opinion, Thanksgiving is the second-greatest betting day of the year: Three games, at least six bets to make, four days to analyze, and best of all we tend to do better on this day than on the Super Bowl.
We love this day of football so much, we had planned to run a trilogy of pieces, culminating in the marquee matchup of Baltimore Ravens at Pittsburgh Steelers, but nope. Instead, we grouse.
Aaaand down goes the third Thanksgiving Day football game thanks to coronavirus protocol, but for the Baltimore Ravens – not to mention prospective Ravens bettors – a rescheduling of the game until Sunday may be for the best.
On Wednesday night, the line stood at….
Baltimore Ravens +5 at Pittsburgh Steelers, over/under 44½ points
NFLbets figures these lines should stay about the same; while the O/U of 44½ seems low. After all, just 7 of 28 games in the matchup of Jim Harbaugh’s Ravens vs. Tomlin & Roethlisberger’s Steelers have kicked off with lines of 45 points or more.
With regard to the point spread, +5 is seriously advantageous for the bettor – though the aforementioned Ravens-Steelers series is tied at 13-13-2 ATS, 17 of the 28 games have been decided by fewer than 5 points.
Betting this game on Sunday will depend on the bettor’s relative confidence in the Ravens to pull themselves out of a 1-3 SU/ATS tailspin in which all three losses were for 6 points or fewer and the team could not put together more than 24 points. And since going for 270 passing yards on opening day, Lamar Jackson has topped 206 just once – against the lowly New England Patriots two weeks ago. The result is a team currently barely making the playoffs, barely ahead of the likes of the Miami Dolphins and Las Vegas Raiders.
Or will it? The Titans, Bills and Raiders have all shrugged off weeks during which several players missed practice and/or teams had games rescheduled; the former two won after a schedule shakeup, while Vegas got Kansas City down to a last-second TD. If anyone needs a break – even a regular timespan between games – it’s the Ravens.
What’s more, Baltimore and Pittsburgh may be enjoying even more time off. On Thanksgiving Day, USA Today and ESPN reported that an outbreak is continuing in Ravens land: “the Ravens experienced additional positive tests for the coronavirus on Wednesday, which would mark a fourth day with an outbreak for the team.
“The Ravens have already placed a total of nine players on the COVID-19/reserve list this week, and they have had several staff members also test positive. The team announced Wednesday that it had disciplined a coach for not reporting COVID-19 symptoms, and for not consistently wearing a mask and tracker.”
If this game actually goes off on Sunday (or Monday), you’d have to take the Ravens plus the points, but NFLbets wouldn’t be surprised if this game is cancelled altogether and the league declares eight teams will be given playoff berths – which would add up to a bigger win for the Ravens.
Stay tuned…
–written by Os Davis
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