NFL week 3 game scores, adjusted for point spreads

Order is finally coalescing in the NFL, 2022 edition: NFLbets is extremely confident that in retrospect just one result from week 3 will be considered odd, namely the Chiefs-Colts game – and those informal historians of the future will likely not factor in the intangibles of Pat Mahomes’ blowup at Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy.

How can we be so sure about the correctness of the week? SU winners went 14-1-1 this week, with the sole SU winner who won ATS was (who else but) the Detroit Lions.

Below runs the Official NFLbets ATS-Adjusted Scoreboard™, which runs down the week’s scoreboard adjusting for bettors. Note: Scores in bold denote those games in which the SU winner did not cover ATS.

• Cleveland Browns 24½ at Pittsburgh Steelers 17. Just trying to imagine what team might draw more derision in an NFL playoff round that DeShaun Watson and the Browns…

• Jacksonville Jaguars 38 at Los Angeles Chargers 7. Seriously, visualize a Jaguars-Browns AFC Championship Game – crazy that it doesn’t sound so crazy. The Jaguars fanbase would temporarily grow overnight by a factor of 10,000x and the “poor Cleveland” rhetoric that breaks out whenever the Cavaliers and now-Guardians make a playoff run will be forgotten.

• Detroit Lions 24 at Minnesota Vikings 22. The oddsmaker’s least favorite team in 2022? It’s gotta be Detroit: After giving NFLbets’ Super Bowl LVII pick fits for most of the game but taking the L anyway, the Lions now stand at 1-2 SU/3-0 ATS – this team could be a great bet to cover the ’spread but lose outright all year.

• Indianapolis Colts 20, Kansas City Chiefs 11½
• Miami Dolphins 21, Buffalo Bills 14½.Here’s a pretty safe bet: The Bills and the Chiefs probably won’t lose SU/ATS again in the same week all year.

• Baltimore Ravens 34½ at New England Patriots 26. What? The Ravens are the leading point-scoring team in the NFL so far? Indeed: They’re 11 points better than the Chiefs and a touchdown ahead of the Bills.

• Chicago Bears 20, Houston Texans 20
• Atlanta Falcons 27 at Seattle Seahawks 22
• Philadelphia Eagles 18 at Washington Commanders 8. The worst team in football might well be the Commanders. Also, the Falcons are now 3-0 ATS and therefore a best bet to fall this week against the EEEevil Browns.

• Tennessee Titans 24, Las Vegas Raiders 20. Meanwhile, Vegas is 0-3 sU/ATS and is starting to feel like the 1-7 team that closes the season missing the playoffs but winning 5 of their last 6…

• Cincinnati Bengals 21 at New York Jets 12
• Los Angeles Rams 16½ at Arizona Cardinals 12. Week 3 represented the first time in 2022 that both conference-winning champions won in the same week. And after just three weeks, it already appears the “difficulty of schedule” metric has flipped for these two.

• Carolina Panthers 22, New Orleans Saints 11½. For years, NFLbets has warned of the dangers of betting these NFC South intradivisional games, but if the oddsmakers continue overrating the Saints like it’s 2008, we’ll keep betting against ’em.

• Green Bay Packers 14 at Tampa Bay Buccaneers 11. We’re really not sure what people expected from a pair of quarterbacks who played no preseason ball and are over 40 years old – though the 2022 Tampa Bay Buccaneers with their disparate quality of defense and offense may go down as one of the great consistent under bets ever.

• Denver Broncos 11, San Francisco 49ers 8½. Also, the 49ers without Trent Williams. In next week’s Rams at 49ers game, Cooper Kupp might well outscore San Francisco singlehandedly – by a score of 6-3.

• Dallas Cowboys 22 at New York Giants 16. NFLbets still doesn’t entirely get the way NFL 2022 is going…

– written by Os Davis