The Bettor's Guide to NFL Week 7
Despite some speed bumps in the first four weeks of the season, we've finally finished over .500 in our picks in back-to-back weeks. Once you get a quarter into the season, you know roughly where teams are from a power-ranking standpoint, which makes it easier to see where lines are overinflated.
You can look at several metrics, be it Football Outsiders' DVOA, FiveThirtyEight's Elo rating or even just the Massey rating, but if lines are significantly different in books relative to most metrics, the truth is that the public, which typically loses money, is buying into a narrative just a bit too hard.
It doesn't always work in your favor on a game-by-game basis, as Baltimore missing the spread by a half-point or Philadelphia's Carson Wentz turning the ball over for the first time in back-to-back drives last week can't be predicted. With that being said, you just need to be right more than 52.5 percent of the time to make some cash on most lines.
Tying in rational power-ranking conversations with narratives and recent trends, we attempt to give you the most educated reasons why a team will or won't cover a spread in each of 14 remaining games from this week. As always, our point spreads are brought to you by Odds Shark.
Record ATS total: 38-45-2
Record ATS last week: 7-6-1
Chicago vs. Green Bay
1 of 16
Line: Green Bay -8
Result: Green Bay 26, Chicago 10
With a true running back carrying the ball only four times in the entire game, the Green Bay Packers somehow managed to post 406 yards on offense, out-gaining the Chicago Bears by 217 yards, and possessed the ball for nearly two-thirds of the game.
The Packers entered halftime with a 6-3 lead after kicker Mason Crosby got the squad up with 17 seconds left in the second quarter, but Chicago recovered a fumble for a score 30 seconds into the third quarter. From there, though, Green Bay scored 20 straight to put the Bears away.
For the most part, the Packers dominated on Thursday Night Football, as third-string quarterback Matt Barkley had to come in for Chicago after Brian Hoyer broke his arm, per Tracy Wolfson of CBS Sports. Barkley completed just six of 15 passes to go along with Hoyer's 4-of-11 effort. Combined, the two had a passer rating of 22.9 with zero touchdowns and two interceptions.
At the end of the day, Green Bay's running back problem was less of a battle than the Bears' quarterback problem, and the fact that the Packers were missing their top three cornerbacks didn't show much. Chicago's top wide receiver effort in the game came from Alshon Jeffery, to no surprise, but he had only three receptions for 33 yards, which led the unit in both statistics.
Next week the Bears will go toe-to-toe with the Minnesota Vikings, who have the best percentage of covering games over the last two years of any team in the league. Align yourself with that top-three defense against a backup passer if Barkley, who has thrown zero touchdowns and six interceptions in his career, does start.
Cover: Green Bay 26
Los Angeles vs. New York Giants
2 of 16
Best Los Angeles line: Los Angeles +3
Best New York Giants line: New York Giants -2.5
According to FiveThirtyEight's numbers, the Los Angeles Rams are more talented than the New York Giants. Per Massey's numbers, the Giants shouldn't be three-point favorites based on their power rankings.
Los Angeles has lost its last two games, while New York just won last week. This is your classic example of giving the recently hot team just a little too much credit over a team on a cold stretch.
This game is in London, so neither is playing in front of a home crowd or even a home time zone. Would you really take the Giants by six points in New York or as a pick'em in Los Angeles?
Even though we make fun of Jeff Fisher for hovering around .500 as a head coach, he has a 16-22 record with the Rams since 2014, one win better than the Giants' 15-23 record over that time, since now head coach Ben McAdoo took over New York's offense.
The pick: Los Angeles +3
Oakland vs. Jacksonville
3 of 16
Best home line: Jacksonville PK
Best away line: Oakland +1.5
In Oakland's last 13 games, it hasn't lost back-to-back under head coach Jack Del Rio. While you may think the Raiders are inconsistent, which they are, they aren't consistently bad either.
Whatever magical power Del Rio has to allow his team to bounce back will be stressed this week, as he tries to beat the Jacksonville Jaguars, a team for which he was formerly head coach, while rebounding from a 27-10 loss.
Under Jacksonville head coach Gus Bradley, the team has a 4-9 record coming off of wins, including just a 2-7 record since the 2014 regular season began. If you pick the Jaguars in this pick'em situation, you're assuming three straight wins, a stretch that hasn't happened to that franchise since 2013.
As home favorites, the Bradley Jaguars are 3-3 against the spread, per TeamRankings.com, but the fact that they have been favorites only six times going into mid-October of his fourth year on the job is a reflection of the team's overall talent under him. On the other hand, Del Rio's Raiders are 9-2 against the spread as a road team.
The pick: Oakland +1.5
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Buffalo vs. Miami
4 of 16
Best home line: Miami +3
Best away line: Buffalo -2.5
Quietly, the Buffalo Bills are one of the most dominant 4-2 teams in recent memory. If not for a 3rd-and-long coverage bust against the Baltimore Ravens in the third quarter of their Week 1 game, the Bills would be 5-1, holding a tiebreaker in the AFC East and the top seed in the AFC right now.
Buffalo started the season 0-2 in a five-day stretch with two one-score losses, but it has won four straight games by double digits. Against the spread, the team is beating the spread by an average of 9.9 points, the third-best mark in the league, according to TeamRankings.com.
According to Football Outsiders' DVOA metric, the Bills are one of two teams in the NFL with a top-10 offense and a top-10 defense, and they are the only team in the league with those qualifiers and a top-10 special teams unit too. They are ranked as the third-best team in the league per the advanced stat, Massey claims they are fifth in the league and should be favored by 5.5 points and FiveThirtyEight's numbers say they are the sixth-best team and should be favored by four points on the road.
Miami's two wins came against squads with eight (Pittsburgh) and nine (Cleveland) sacks on the season, as its offense can function without the liability of its offensive line getting in the way. For reference, those are tied for the third- and sixth-worst marks in the NFL, while Buffalo's 20 sacks are second-best in the league.
Miami doesn't have receivers who can win in man-on-man situations, and the Bills often blitz several players, leaving their defense in man coverage. The way you can beat them is by outscoring their offense on splash plays, but since that Ravens game they've scored over 30 point or more in four of their last five games.
The only time Miami was able to break that threshold in regulation this year was against the Steelers last week. Recency bias might have some swinging Miami's way this week, but you need to remember that this was the same squad whose singular win heading into Week 6 was an overtime match against the Browns that they would have lost if Cleveland had a functional kicker.
Over the last two years, Miami is just 3-7 against the spread at home, as it has been noted as a team with just a slight home-field advantage.
The pick: Buffalo -2.5
Indianapolis vs. Tennessee
5 of 16
Best home line: Tennessee -3
Best away line: Indianapolis +3
According to TeamRankings.com, the Tennessee Titans are 0-3-1 against the spread over the last two years as the home favorites. Not only are they bad as home favorites, but they are rarely ever home favorites, especially by a field goal or more.
FiveThirtyEight's Elo numbers have the Titans as the third-worst team in the league, which if you buy into this line means you believe the Colts are one of the two worst squads in the league. Massey's numbers also have Indianapolis as a straight-up favorite against Tennessee.
How much of this line has to do with the fact that the Colts just lost on national TV in a boring game? News flash: Every AFC South game is going to be a snore of a head-to-head battle, including this one.
Just because the Colts are boring doesn't mean they're horrible. All numbers point to the Colts being undervalued here. As long as this number is at the key number of three, take it.
The pick: Indianapolis +3
Washington vs. Detroit
6 of 16
Best home line: Detroit -1
Best away line: Washington +1.5
In the first time in his NFL career, Washington quarterback Kirk Cousins won't be a road underdog heading into this game. That then raises this question: Are the Redskins really that much better this year than last season?
The problem with most NFL fans is they treat close wins and multiscore wins as a win instead of relying on nuance instead of a team's record. The Baltimore Ravens started the season by ripping off close wins, an unsustainable path to success in the NFL, just to come crashing back to Earth over recent weeks.
In the same fashion, the Redskins have won their last four games after starting 0-2, with three of their wins coming by a combined 15 points in one-score games. That doesn't mean they're "owed" a loss moving forward, but they are performing like a .500 team that right now would find itself in the playoffs.
It's not often that you see home teams with the quarterback advantage being virtual pick'ems in a dome. This year, Cousins has nine passing touchdowns and six interceptions, about what we expected from him.
Detroit's Matthew Stafford has posted 33 passing touchdowns and six interceptions since offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter got that offense going during last season's bye week. His touchdown-to-interception ratio is nearly four times of what Cousins' has been recently.
Don't fall for betting on a 4-2 team over a 3-3 team just because their records are one game apart. In shootouts, take the underdog, but Washington as a home coin flip will suffice.
The pick: Detroit -1
New Orleans vs. Kansas City
7 of 16
Best home line: Kansas City -5.5
Best away line: New Orleans +7
You can make the case that the Oakland Raiders are a better version of the New Orleans Saints this year. They are both squads that rely on their passing game and have few positive units outside of that, other than the Raiders' ground game.
The Kansas City Chiefs destroyed the Raiders 26-10 last week, in Oakland no less. All that did was give them a warm-up and a proven game plan to beating a similar team in the Saints, in Kansas City, this weekend.
This is bad for the Saints, whose quarterback Drew Brees has had a history of large home-away splits in his career. Despite playing just one more home game than away in his NFL career, he has thrown 80 fewer touchdowns on the road, outside of his domed stadium.
Don't be surprised at all if this game is a direct reflection of last week's Oakland-Kansas City match.
The pick: Kansas City -5.5
Cleveland vs. Cincinnati
8 of 16
Best home line: Cincinnati -10
Best away line: Cleveland +10
When Andy Dalton isn't getting pressured, he thrives. When you look at the Cleveland Browns, who is their top pass-rusher?
Their current leading defender in the sack category is Cam Johnson, who has two and wasn't signed until October. The team has just nine sacks in six games, the sixth-worst mark on a per-game basis in the NFL.
Dalton is going to have all day to throw, as he hopes to crack the 24-point mark for the first time this season. According to TeamRankings.com, though, the Browns are the cure for the common offense, as they have lost against the spread by an average of 10.4 points, the second-worst mark in the league.
Not only is Cleveland not being respected by the public and by books, but it isn't even covering. For reference, the Bengals are 2-4 and their margin of victory against the spread is still worse than three of the only four teams with a worse record against the spread than them.
Cleveland is b-a-d.
The pick: Cincinnati -10
Minnesota vs. Philadelphia
9 of 16
Best home line: Philadelphia +3
Best away line: Minnesota -3
In Week 3, the 2-0 Pittsburgh Steelers, who were highly thought of from a power-ranking perspective, were 3.5-point favorites on the road against the 2-0 Philadelphia Eagles. The Eagles haven't won a game since taking that matchup.
On the flip side, the Minnesota Vikings, who are 19-3 against the spread since 2015, according to TeamRankings.com, are still the NFL's lone undefeated team. So why are they just 2.5-point favorites?
The Vikings, from a power-ranking standpoint, are at least where the Steelers were heading into Week 3, as they might be the most dominant team in the league. They have a plus-53 point differential on the season, which is only six points behind the Buffalo Bills, who have played an extra game this season.
It should also be noted that a chink in the armor of the Eagles has appeared over the last couple weeks. The Vikings are respected less against a perceptually worse Philadelphia team than the lesser Steelers were a few weeks ago.
There's nothing sexy about Minnesota, but that's also one reason why it's been massively underrated the last two season.
The pick: Minnesota -3
Baltimore vs. New York Jets
10 of 16
Best home line: New York Jets PK
Best away line: Baltimore +2.5
Geno Smith at his current state must be better than Ryan Fitzpatrick. If he weren't, the New York Jets wouldn't be starting him, considering how vocal the locker room has been in terms of support for Fitzpatrick, while we're just one year removed from Smith losing his starting job to a teammate punching his jaw.
Dating back to rumors about Smith being on Twitter during team meetings during the draft process, Smith's ability to be "the guy" in the locker room has been questioned, right or wrong. With that being said, heading into last week, based on his last five games played, Smith was on pace for production equivalent to a 4,000-yard season with two-and-a-half times more touchdowns than interceptions.
Again, he's better than Fitzpatrick.
At the same time, since 2013, the Baltimore Ravens are just 2-7-2 against the spread as road favorites, per TeamRankings.com, and you can still find this line as a pick'em in some places. One team has a brand you have learned to trust, despite them not pulling through in these situations over the last four seasons, while the other was just embarrassed in a prime-time game.
The pick: New York Jets PK
Tampa Bay vs. San Francisco
11 of 16
Best home line: San Francisco +2.5
Best away line: Tampa Bay +1
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have never been road favorites under quarterback Jameis Winston. With this 2.5-point line, that means the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who have won a total of one game of over a touchdown under Winston, would be 8.5-point favorites at home over San Francisco.
Some of this may have to do with Colin Kaepernick's performance in a blowout loss against the Buffalo Bills, but perspective is needed there. According to Football Outsiders' DVOA metric, the Bills are the third-best team in the NFL, while the 49ers rank 27th and the Buccaneers rank 29th, despite the fact that they're favored on the road.
I'm not sure if there is a lot of anti-Kapernick money involved here, considering the fact that this line has swung two points away from his team since the line dropped, but FiveThirtyEight and Massey both think this line is several points off. Something just doesn't add up here from a power-ranking perspective.
The pick: San Francisco +2.5
San Diego vs. Atlanta
12 of 16
Best home line: Atlanta -5.5
Best away line: San Diego +7
With a line in favor of a seven-point victory for the home Atlanta Falcons and a total of 53.5 points, the San Diego Chargers are only projected to score about 23 points against the Falcons, who have the 26th defense in the league, according to Football Outsiders' DVOA metric. Through six games this season, the Chargers have posted scores of 21, 22, 27, 31, 34 and 38 while scoring the second-most points in the league this season.
This is a shootout, and the typical advice for a shootout is to take the underdog, but this has even more legs to it. Atlanta was given credibility as a legitimate contender when it beat the Denver Broncos, but when San Diego did it last week on Thursday Night Football, it didn't receive the same respect.
On top of that, in the Chargers' last seven losses, they have never lost by more than seven points. They might be bad at finishing games, but they don't tend to lose games by multiple scores.
Quarterback Philip Rivers keeps them in games, and he also has success against the Seattle defense types.
Two head coaches in this league, Atlanta's Dan Quinn and Jacksonville's Gus Bradley, started off as Jacksonville defensive coordinators, running their Cover 3-heavy schemes. These are Rivers' results against such defenses.
| Year | H/A | Team | Result | SD | Opp. |
| 2016 | Home | JAX | Win | 38 | 14 |
| 2015 | Away | JAX | Win | 31 | 25 |
| 2014 | Home | JAX | Win | 33 | 14 |
| 2014 | Home | SEA | Win | 30 | 21 |
| 2013 | Away | JAX | Win | 24 | 6 |
| 2010 | Home | SEA | Loss | 20 | 27 |
Over more than a half-decade, Rivers-led squads have scored more than 23 points in five of six games, winning the same amount and never losing by more than a full touchdown and PAT attempt. He's had success against similar defenses, and this line has been inflated toward Atlanta, despite the fact that the Chargers are coming off of a long rest.
The pick: San Diego +7
New England vs. Pittsburgh
13 of 16
Best home line: Pittsburgh +8
Best away line: New England -7
From a power-ranking perspective, this line is off.
This line opened with the Pittsburgh Steelers being two-point underdogs at home and it has risen all the way to eight points. That means that in New England, the Patriots would be 14-point favorites.
On what Earth would this be imaginable under Ben Roethlisberger? That brings up this question: How much is a starting quarterback worth from a power-ranking standpoint?
Since 2004, when Roethlisberger was drafted, the Steelers are 9-2-2 against the spread as home dogs, according to TeamRankings.com. That would suggest that the opening line, with Pittsburgh as two-point dogs, was too in favor of the Patriots from the jump, and it also values Roethlisberger to Landry Jones as a six-point swing.
Per TeamRankings.com, the Patriots, who are 5-1 against the spread this season, are hitting at a higher clip than any team since the 2004 San Diego Chargers. You can either claim them as the ultimate outlier or assume that a regression is coming soon from an against-the-spread perspective.
This line would suggest the start of it. No team is more than a three-point favorite on the road this week, other than the Patriots. They aren't five points better than the rest of the league.
The pick: Pittsburgh +8
Seattle vs. Arizona
14 of 16
Best home line: Arizona PK
Best away line: Seattle +2
Here's what we know about the Arizona Cardinals:
- They are coming off a short week of rest after beating the New York Jets on Monday Night Football.
- They just beat a team that often plays man coverage, with a horrible burn rate, and are going against a team that notoriously drops three defensive backs deep into zone coverage.
- Quarterback Carson Palmer has thrown 14 touchdowns and 13 interceptions since injuring his thumb against the Philadelphia Eagles last season.
Under quarterback Russell Wilson, as underdogs, the Seattle Seahawks are 11-4-1 against the spread, per TeamRankings.com. Eight of those 16 games happened in 2012, meaning that over the last four seasons, on average, you've only been able to bet on an underdog Seahawks team two to three times a season on average.
They are currently underdogs against the Cardinals, who aren't even above .500 and whose wins came against the 1-5 New York Jets, 1-5 San Francisco 49ers and 2-3 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who in 17 combined games have as many wins as the Seahawks have had this season in five attempts.
The pick: Seattle +2
Houston vs. Denver
15 of 16
Best home line: Denver -7.5
Best away line: Houston +9.5
There are plenty of narratives in this game. It's a Brock Osweiler revenge game. It's a Gary Kubiak revenge game. It's a Wade Phillips revenge game. It's an entire locker room revenge game.
Here's one thing to think about though: The Denver Broncos were expected to win 9.5 games heading into this season, according to the vast majority of books coming off of a Super Bowl victory, and those casinos don't get built in Vegas because they routinely lose money.
The Broncos have lost back-to-back games and their four wins came against squads with a combined record of 7-16. Maybe they really are playing like a 9-7 quality team, even if their record doesn't directly reflect that.
Would a 9-7 team be favored over a division leader and a 4-2 squad in most circumstances? Over the last two years, the Broncos are just 2-6-1 against the spread as home favorites, per TeamRankings.com, so being overrated as favorites wouldn't be something new to this team.
The pick: Houston +9.5
Locks of the Week
16 of 16
1. San Diego +7 vs. Atlanta
2. Seattle +2 vs. Arizona
3. New England vs. Pittsburgh +8
4. Buffalo -2.5 vs. Miami
5. Oakland +1.5 vs. Jacksonville
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