NFL Picks Week 7: Late Slate Best Bets
Photo by Jane Gershovich/Getty Images. Pictured: Kenneth Walker (left), Geno Smith (right).
NFL Odds & Picks
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John LanFranca: I am not overly concerned about who is playing quarterback for the Broncos (Brett Rypien). This is simply a fade of an extremely limited Jets football team.
This Jets team has victories over the 15th, 24th, 25th and 31st ranked defenses according to DVOA. Now they travel to Denver to take on the second best defensive unit in football.
The Broncos will undoubtedly sell out to stop the run, and once they do, envisioning a negative outcome for New York’s offense isn't difficult to do. The Broncos have the best second-down pass defense and are facing a QB who may be the most sensitive to pressure in the entire league.
Zach Wilson has been pressured on more than a third of his dropbacks thus far, but it has not resulted in an abundance of negative plays just yet because the Jets have fortuitously found themselves in positive game scripts more often than not.
This Broncos defense has allowed a touchdown on only 8.7% of possessions, which is the best rate in the NFL. The one-dimensional Jets offense won't be the team to buck this trend.
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Brandon Anderson: On one side, we’ve got an outstanding offense with an elite quarterback and terrific receivers, a huge downfield passing game, and an improving defense playing in front of loud, raucous fans, and on the other side … it’s Justin Herbert and the home LA Chargers.
The Chargers were supposed to be a fun, explosive offense, but they have been neither. OC Joe Lombardi continues to stifle his attack on early downs with poor play calling, and Seattle’s defense is actually top 10 on first downs so that could be an even bigger problem here. LA’s offense will look really familiar to Seattle fans who watched Russell Wilson for years — running in place for two downs, then asking a star QB to go save the day on third down.
The Chargers are winning games but are missing big names on both sides of the ball. LA’s top two offensive linemen remain out, stud pass rusher Joey Bosa is sidelined, Keenan Allen hasn’t played since the opener, and Herbert and J.C. Jackson are struggling playing through injuries.
The Chargers are coming off a short week after an overtime game against a division rival, so this is a bad spot. LA ranks 29th on first-down defensive DVOA, and that’s a rough matchup for an opponent that’s been great doing the very thing the Chargers don’t: moving the ball well on early downs and setting itself up to succeed.
Seattle has the league’s best road offense so far. Geno Smith is balling, DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett are lighting it up deep, and rookie Kenneth Walker is running angry behind a rapidly improving line. Even the much maligned defense ranks 11th in DVOA over the last three weeks. Pete Carroll has covered 61% of the time as an underdog and Geno Smith is at 62% himself.
Come on down to Seattle island. It’s balmy and breezy and there’s still room for plenty more.
Seattle Island is starting to get a little buzz, but there’s still room for more. Give me a Seahawks cover, and give me the moneyline too.
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Sam Farley: Sunday sees the Seahawks in L.A. as they face the Chargers and there's one player primed to find the end zone. That man is Gerald Everett and here are the reasons why you need to back his anytime touchdown prop.
First, opportunity. Fellow TE Donald Parham is out, as is Josh Palmer while Keenan Allen is a game-time decision. From Weeks 1-4, when Parham was missing, we saw Everett score two touchdowns and total 181 yards. With Parham active over the following two weeks, he had no touchdowns and just 31 yards.
Now he can be unleashed again.
Then we have the opposition, the Seahawks are not good against tight ends. They've allowed four touchdowns to TEs this season, with only three teams giving up more. They've also allowed more yardage to the position than every team but the Cardinals (who have already played this week).
To put it simply, Everett has the ability, the opportunity and the opposition to make a mockery of the odds on him to score. Book it.
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Billy Ward: While the fine folks at BetMGM have wisely stopped offering +175 on the “No” side of this prop for every game, they’ve made some slight mistakes with how they’ve adapted the pricing. The +200 line on this game is the perfect example.
Based on my data set, this line should be about +152. That’s not quite enough of an edge to bet the +175 we’ve seen in the past, but at +200 it’s a solid edge. That +152 was calculated fairly conservatively as well, counting all games with a spread under 2 and total of 48 or more.
Most of the games in that sample size will have a higher total than the 49 in this game. As we know, lower totals correlate positively with the “No” side of this prop — though the spread is far more important.
Based on the fair line of +152, I'd take this down to around +175.
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Simon Hunter: We love an ugly home dog! That’s what you have in a 49ers team that just got blown out by Atlanta. Now they get to play the Chiefs, who the public is backing heavily.
DE Nick Bosa, LT Trent Williams and S Jimmie Ward all off the injury report and will play Sunday, which is huge for the 49ers. We’ve seen they are one of the best teams in the NFL when healthy.
This game screams mismatch. Why? Well, the best thing the 49ers do is run the ball and one of the Chiefs’ biggest weaknesses is defending the run.
I see the Chiefs in a big hole early and chasing the rest of the game. Not ideal, as we’ve seen over the years that if you can’t run on San Francisco and have to continually drop back, Bosa just dominates.
I would bet this down to -1 for the 49ers.
The pick: 49ers +1.5 (to -1) |
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