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As always, all the odds listed are available at BetOnline.AG.
Lock of the Week
If you’ve taken even a cursory glance at the NFL’s Week 8 matchups, then you know there’s no more lopsided contest than the New York Jets at Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs, led by All-Universe quarterback Patrick Mahomes are a ridiculous 19.5-point favorites in the game. That’s the kind of spread you only expect to see in college football when Alabama hosts Toledo.
The problem with a lock that’s this locked in is that it’s not going to pay anything. Currently the Kansas City moneyline is -3000 and frankly, that’s just not worth the trouble.
So we’re backing off that one and instead going with the Los Angeles Rams moneyline (-225) over the Miami Dolphins. The Rams are coming off a dominant win over the Chicago Bears and the Dolphins are starting rookie quarterback Tua Tagovailoa for the first time this season. LA has the sixth best defense in the league, allowing just 312.9 yards and 17.7 points per game.
They also happen to have the best defensive player on the planet in Aaron Donald, currently second in the league with eight sacks. And if that wasn’t enough, they’ve probably got the 10th best in Jalen Ramsey patrolling the defensive backfield. Coming into Monday night’s game, Ramsey was fifth in yards-per-target in the league with 4.52. His shutdown performance against the Bears won’t hurt that stat.
Pick: $275 on the Rams moneyline at -225 at at BetOnline.AG
Teaser of the Week
Now that we’ve got some cash in the lockbox, it’s time to try to pocket some real bank with a two-team teaser. We’re not going to fill our Scrooge McDuck moneybin with lock moneyline bets. We’ll smash our faces on the floor with our first dive.
The Buffalo Bills are currently leading the AFC East with a 5-2 record and have one of the hottest young quarterbacks in the league in Josh Allen. Allen is completing 67.6 percent of his passes for 2,018 yards, 16 touchdowns and just four picks. They host the always dangerous, but significantly down, New England Patriots and would love nothing more than to deliver a season-defining schoolyard beat down.
But it’s still the Pats and Bill Belichick’s deal with the devil remains ironclad until we see differently, so that’s why the current line is so low, Bills -3.5. At the same time, there are rumors that New England is shopping Stephon Gilmore before the NFL’s trade deadline and that all but feels like a white flag on the season. If ever there was a time for the Bills Mafia to make the Patriots sleep with the fishes, this is it.
Over in the NFC side, we have the New Orleans Saints at -4 road favorites over the Chicago Bears, who were just taken to the woodshed and left there by the Rams on Monday night. The Saints are in a battle in the NFC South with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a team that this same Bears squad took out just a few weeks ago. And while they’re currently sitting at 4-2, it’s not a comfortable 4-2. They’ve barely beaten the Detroit Lions, Los Angeles Chargers and Carolina Panthers by single scores in their last three contests.
Add to that the current knock on Drew Brees, that he’s old and his arm won’t let him throw it consistently downfield, and you’ve got a recipe that the Bears can eat like so much perfectly heated porridge. The stats aren’t helping Brees’ case as he’s currently averaging just 5.2 air yards per completion, with puts him at No. 28 out of 32 NFL QBs.
I like the Bears in the upset and I like the Bills in a Jackie Chan-style kung fu-ing of the Patriots.
Teaser pick: $175 on the Bills at -9.5 and the Bears at -2 at BetOnline.AG
Prop Bet of the Week
After spending all season at the top of the Regular Season MVP odds, Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes has now slipped to No. 2 behind Russell Wilson. Wilson is currently at +110 for good reason. He leads the NFL with 22 touchdown passes and a 10.0 touchdown percentage. Wilson has completed 71.2 percent of his passes for 1,890 yards with just six interceptions all while contending with the worst self-administered nickname in all of sports, “Mr. Unlimited.” It sounds like a Big & Tall store in a strip mall.
Here’s the problem; three of those picks came in last Sunday night’s loss to the Arizona Cardinals.
Wilson’s performance so far is unsustainable because the Seahawks defense relies too much on him to bail them out. It worked through the league’s first six weeks. In Week Seven, it did not.
Mahomes, on the other hand, is going to be Patrick Mahomes. He’s completing 65.7 percent of his passes for 1,899 yards, 16 touchdowns and just one interception. His interception rate of 0.4 percent is the best in the league. He’ll probably throw 40 touchdowns this season and, while Wilson might too, he also has to contend with better defenses and is the toughest division in the NFL. Currently every NFC West team is above .500. If Mahomes takes home his second MVP, it pays at +400 right now.
Pick: $40 on Patrick Mahomes as Regular Season MVP at BetOnline.AG
The Crazy, Longshot, Throwing-a-Dart Parlay of the Week
We are stacking up games in our crazy parlay this week, fully looking for the purple banana until they throw us in the truck.
With our last $10, we’re putting it on a five-team moneyline parlay with the Patriots at +165, the Raiders at +135, the Steelers at +155, the Broncos at +155 and the 49ers at +150.
Here’s what I’m thinking. While there’s a chance Belichick might be tossing in the towel, Cam Newton has been publicly called out by Jeff Garcia, a QB that could not hold Newton’s jock during his prime, but certainly couldn’t pull of its bedazzled lime green ostrich feather strap. Yes, New England has lost three games in a row, but we’ve all written their obituary before. How did that go?
The Raiders are matching up with the Cleveland Browns and, well, they’re the Browns. The Broncos have been plucky all year and the Chargers are still starting a rookie QB. The 49ers and Seahawks will probably split this season and the Steelers are the NFL’s last undefeated team, coming in as an underdog against the Baltimore Ravens. They might take issue with that.
A $10 parlay bet pays $1,002.36 at BetOnline.AG
