It’s the end of the football as we know it…
OK, so NFLbets might not go quite that far just yet, but the Thanksgiving break turned into an industrial-sized can of worms this week. With the coronavirus outbreak in the Baltimore Ravens camp taking down Lamar Jackson, a handful of other players and assistant coaches, the league announced the forced closure of all team facilities on Monday and Tuesday, and the Ravens-Steelers game was moved from Thursday to Sunday to Tuesday.
Earlier, NFL officials admitted that the playoffs might be expanded to include yet another two teams, meaning that two deeply inferior-unto-bad teams are guaranteed to be playing on the NFC’s side of the postseason. (Do we really have to start pretending the Chicago Bears are a potential playoff team again?)
As for this Sunday, somehow 12 games are still kicking off, none with particularly friendly or “gotcha!” lines. There’s hardly a dearth of opportunity in week 12 NFL betting, though. We find a couple of away underdogs pretty appealing, starting with…
Admittedly, NFLbets’ preference for the Chargers requires some reverse logic. The Bills are a solid 7-3 SU and a believeable 5-4 ATS. They’ve won five games against quality opponents and might’ve had a sixth last week if not for the superhuman skills of DeAndre Hopkins. In sum total, then, no underlying mathematical justification to bet against Buffalo here.
But the Chargers? This team, as you’d suspect, is a mass of outlier numbers, especially lately. The Chargers are on an 0-4 ATS run in which they were twice favorites, twice underdogs. And truly eye-opening is that the over in Chargers games has hit seven games in a row, including three away games at more than resepctable defenses in Tampa Bay, New Orleans and Miami. Also of note: In six of these seven games, this week’s over of 52½ points was topped – can the sportsbooks possibly still be underestimating the now prospective Rookie of the Year and serious stud QB Justin Herbert?
The bettors might be as well: This line has swung from as little as Chargers +3½ to its current +5, so NFLbets is liking that trend as well. We’ll respect the outliers in this one and say take the “Los Angeles” Chargers +5 at Buffalo and take the under on an O/U of 52½ points.
After getting out to a 3-2 SU/ATS start, the Panthers went the way of many a team with rookie head coach to go 0-5 SU/2-3 ATS before shutting out the really very bad Detroit Lions last week. This short line may be indicative of that win: Since 2015, teams the week after shutting out the opposition are 19-8 SU and 14-13 ATS. (Note: Two shutouts were perpuated by teams in their last game of the season.)
The Vikings meanwhile somehow blew a 5-1 ATS run and a chance to get back to .500 and maybe start thinking about a theoretical 8th playoff seed -- which is looking more likely all time. Even more disconcerting about the 4-6 mark is the relative strenght of schedule; Minnesota has played just five games against quality opponents (Green Bay twice, Indianapolis, Tennessee and seattle), and they’re 1-4 SU/3-2 ATS against those teams.
Losing a game when your sometimes error-prone quarterback throws for three TDs against zero interceptins and outdoes his counterpart by more than 100 yards might prove difficult for the average team, but the 2020 Minnesota Vikings have been finding ways to lose in unique ways. Last week, the Vikes got busted for 80 yards’ worth of penalties, including three classic drive-extenders in the fourth quarter.
The truth is that the Vikings D is bottom-5 in points allowed and, after three consecutive respectable games against their NFC North division mates, were exposed by one of the lowest-watt offenses, i.e. the Cowboys with Andy Dalton, they’ve faced all season long. We’re thinking the Panthers will score. Take the Carolina Panthers +3 at Minnesota.
Tough to bet against the 49ers here, as they’re on 0-3 and 2-5 SU/ATS runs, but the overriding truth is that the injury situation in San Francisco hasn’t gotten much better over the past month. The 49ers will again be playing extremely shorthanded in all three areas of the game.
Among the notables in the week’s casualty injury report are Tein Coleman (still out), Tom Compton (out due to injury in practice) and Deebo Samuel (in). LBs Dre Greenlaw and Azeez Al-Shaair are out due to unspecified illness and Joe Walker is on the Covid list. Listed as questionable are Raheem Mostert and Jeff Wilson Jr., who conventional wisdom might hold as crucial -- but in San Francisco’s week 6 win over these Rams, the Niners went for just 122 yards rushing as Jared Goff and the Rams offense could do nothing productive for most of the second half.
And for NFLbets, this last bit is the true key to this second meeting. With last week’s win over the Buccaneers, the Rams moved to 4-0 SU/3-1 ATS after “winning” the first quarter, and 5-0 SU/4-1 ATS after leading at halftime. So figure the Rams have more talent on the field and that Sean McVay is able to adapt from six weeks ago. The short week is a bit of a red flag, but volume betting in on the 49ers this week.
So take the Los Angeles Rams -6 vs San Francisco and, if the 49ers lead after a quarter or two, hedge with in-game live betting against the no-comeback Rams.
–written by Os Davis
Visit our sportsbook partners for latest odds, betting options and bonuses
