Presented by BetOnline.AG
We all know the feeling, looking at $500 blinking in your bank account and experiencing the desire to see it magically grow while watching sports. It’s the whole reason sports betting exists in the first place. This last week was stressful and few things can do more to ease that than winning a fat wad of fresh cash.
Just like very week, if this is your first time seeing what all the fuss is about with sports betting, BetOnline will strap on the training wheels and get you up to speed, adding a $1,000 bonus to your new account as they do it when you join up today.
As always, all odds listed are courtesy of BetOnline.AG.
Lock of the Week
In a week of hotly contested games, with most spreads under a touchdown, there’s really only one lock we can probably count on here and it pays next to nothing. In the last couple of weeks I’ve given you a couple of options, only to settle on the bigger payout but that’s not happening this time.
You can look at the New Orleans Saints moneyline of -400 against the San Francisco 49ers’ C-squad and take it at -400, but that’s trusting that the Saints can keep winning against an elite defense when quarterback Drew Brees is not even hitting four air yards per pass attempt (he’s currently at 3.7).
Could we really be comfortable laying any serious smack down on the Las Vegas Raiders at -240 against the Denver Broncos, a spunky team that lost three of its four defeats by a single score? That moneyline is too much risk with too little reward for me.
So this week we’re just protecting the bank, pushing a big chunk of our chips to the center of the table for the Green Bay Packers at -1000. The Jacksonville Jaguars delivered our lock last week, in spite of their best efforts, and to think they could do the same this week is to believe the Houston Texans and Green Bay Packers are about equal in talent (they are not) and in coaching (they are most certainly not).
Pack QB Aaron Rodgers is making his own MVP case with a 67.5 completion percentage, 2,253 yards passing, 24 touchdowns and just two picks through eight games. That’s a 48 regular season TD pace right there, good enough to tie with Dan Marino for fifth all time in the NFL. It would be the third time that Rodgers hit 40 or more in a season in his career.
Pick: $250 on the Packers at -1,000 at BetOnline.AG
Teaser of the Week
While we might not be too eager to toss a big wad on the moneyline for the Saints and Raiders, that doesn’t mean we can’t use them to make some bank.
While the Saints haven’t been exciting to watch on offense this year, Brees is still leading the lead in completion percentage at 74.0. He’s tossed 17 TD passes to go with just three picks and, more importantly, New Orleans is 6-2 and in firm control of the NFC South after delivering a schoolyard beatdown to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Sunday night, 38-3, led by fellow NFL nursing home resident Tom Brady. The Saints defense forced three terrible Brady interceptions and held him to just 209 yards, something that probably made him mad enough to go out an eat a carb after the game. They also ground Tompa Brady into the turf three times with sacks. They’ll be facing a team in the 49ers either quarterbacked by Nick Mullens or C.J. Beathard and that’s pretty much all I need to write about that.
As for the Raiders, they just escaped Los Angeles with a second-half comeback win over the Chargers. Derek Carr wasn’t spectacular, completing 13 of 23 for 165 yards and two touchdowns, but he protected the ball and let the running game, led by Josh Jacobs and Devantae Booker, do its work. Jacobs and Booker combined or 133 yards and two scores on the ground.
Denver hasn’t been an easy out for anybody as we discussed before, but Drew Lock isn’t even completing 60 percent of his passes at this point and has six interceptions to go with his six touchdown passes.
Teaser pick: $200 on the Raiders at +1 and the Saints at -3.5 at BetOnline.AG
Prop Bet of the Week
There was plenty of talk in the preseason about the Jacksonville Jaguars “Tanking for Trevor.” Specifically Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence, the rightly perceived No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. And, you know, the Jags really gave it the old college try and they would have gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for those meddling New York Jets.
It turns out the Jets were in full tank mode without making any special effort and trading away stars to do it. Not that they didn’t trade away their best player anyway, dealing safety Jamal Adams to the Seattle Seahawks. But they didn’t need to. This was a team built to tank for anyone at anytime.
But do they have the will, the desire, the heart to go 0-16?
As Monday night’s skin of their teeth 30-27 loss to the New England Patriots shows you, it’s tougher than it looks. Since the NFL implemented true free agency and went to a 16-game schedule, it’s only happened twice. The 2008 Detroit Lions went 0-16 and then, nine years later, the Cleveland Browns did the same. There have been plenty of one-win teams along the way, but to go completely winless, to show that kind of ineptitude in a league with a worst picks first draft, free agency, a salary cap and, more importantly, a salary floor, is truly a Herculean feat. It’s why, as bad as New York is, the odds of them not going 0-16 pays at -350. It’s a significantly safer bet.
But we’re trying to make some money here long term.
Here’s what the Jets are looking at the rest of the year; at Chargers, Dolphins, Raiders, at Seahawks, at Rams, Browns, at Patriots.
They will, unquestionably, be the underdog in all those games. This past Monday was their best effort of the season by far and it still wasn’t good enough. I think that prop on New York going 0-16 looks pretty solid, especially at a +225 payoff.
Pick: $40 on the Jets to go 0-16 at BetOnline.AG
The Crazy, Longshot, Throwing-a-Dart Parlay of the Week
But I tell myself that I was doing all right. There’s nothing left to do at night. But go crazy on you. So let’s try to add some zeros to the bank account in the process.
With so many tight games on the schedule, this is the perfect time to sneak a solid parlay past the goalkeeper. We’ve got a good group of moneyline contestants this week with the Houston Texans at +150 over the Cleveland Browns, the Carolina Panthers at +195 over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Buffalo Bills at +110 over the Arizona Cardinals, the Seattle Seahawks at +109 over the Los Angeles Rams and the New England Patriots at +255 over the Baltimore Ravens.
No one should need too much convincing that the Texans can knock off the Browns. They are the Browns after all. The Bills have cleaned every other NFC West team’s clock and the Cardinals forgot to even set theirs back. Is it ridiculous to think that Russell Wilson, in the midst of his own MVP campaign, will keep the Seahawks from losing two in a row? The only way the Tampa Bay Buccaneers could have been more exposed by the Saints Sunday night is if their OnlyFans got hacked. Maybe the Panthers can make the most of it.
And, finally, after listening to weeks of “The Patriots are done,” a big win over Baltimore is just what Bill Belichick needs to shut everyone up and prove that his contract with the Prince of Darkness remains in full effect .
A $10 parlay bet on these teams pays $1,139.10 at BetOnline.AG
