Chiefs vs Packers Picks: How to Bet Sunday Night Football

Chiefs vs Packers Picks | Sunday Night Football

Regular readers are familiar with my weekly column — How to Bet Every Game & Every Team — so let's run the format back and find a Chiefs vs. Packers pick for each side.

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• Be careful about buying in at peak value on the Packers. Green Bay is coming off a huge road win over Detroit that everyone watched on Thanksgiving, and this line dropped from Packers +7 to +6 since Sunday, showing a rare spot where money appears to be coming in against Patrick Mahomes.
• Then again, the Packers are playing really good football of late, and it's not just that Thanksgiving game. Over the past five weeks, Green Bay ranks top 12 on both offense and defense by DVOA and 10th overall. The Packers actually rank higher than the Chiefs, whose offense rates league-average over that span and just 20th in passing as Mahomes continues to try to find some answers.
• You probably already know about primetime unders: 29-10 on the season (74%) and hitting at 62% over the past four seasons. Games with home underdogs have gone under 62% of the time the past three seasons, and Chiefs games are 8-3 to the under, including 11-0 in the second half. Be careful, though — this total has actually risen from 41.5 to 42.5.

Green Bay is starting to find a few answers in the first half and certainly came out firing in the first quarter on Thanksgiving, but the Packers have mostly been slow starters this season. Green Bay's offense ranks 21st by DVOA in the first half, but leaps to eighth in the second half, when Jordan Love has looked more comfortable.

You've heard all about Kansas City's second-half woes. The Chiefs finally scored in the second half last week for the first time in four games, but just haven't been great in the back half. The offense ranks 17th by DVOA in the second half with the defense at 11th, still fine but not great, and nothing compared to the first half where the Chiefs rank top three in both directions.

This doesn't quite get us below the key number, but it's a good way to isolate the part of the game where the Chiefs have been best against the part where Green Bay's been at its worst.

Pick: Chiefs -3.5 1st Half

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The Chiefs' defense has been really good, but Matt LaFleur has done an incredible job with the Packers offense and Jordan Love is playing the best football of his career. He's played his three best games ever over the past month and is starting to look comfortable reading the defense and throwing quicker, more accurate passes.

All those under tendencies above have suppressed this total. Combine that with the Chiefs being favored by six and it's left value on Green Bay's team total as 17.5 isn't a big ask. The Packers have gone over that in four straight games and have scored at least 17 points in all but two games on the season. Green Bay's offensive line will give it a chance, and the Packers should be able to run some to make life easier on Love. We know Mahomes will score some points, so the Packers need to get to 18 to have any real chance.

Pick: Packers Over 17.5 Points

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It's Packers or nothing with a line that feels a touch high, but I'm not sure I'm ready to trust Jordan Love in a marquee matchup against Patrick Mahomes.

Mahomes always seems to find a way when the spotlight is brightest, and I know from experience it's just not a lot of fun betting against Mahomes in a big game. Green Bay is actually more likely than not to make the playoffs at this point, so this qualifies as a big spot. I'll watch and learn.