DraftKings is the official odds provider of the Deep Dive Newsletter

It's been a busy week for me. I'm coming off a four-day weekend of travel and heading on vacation later this week (I know you don’t care, but still), so I’m way behind and will be working late to both catch-up and get ahead. Also, betting was sub-par, making Monday morning worse than normal.

I'm going to keep the recap brief and focus my time on tonight’s game.

So, one sentence for each game:

• Chargers 17 - Falcons 13 - The Falcons may have a Kirk Cousins problem; a couple of those INTs were horrid balls that a vet can’t be throwing.

• Steelers 44 - Bengals 38 - I have no idea what Joe Burrow needs to do to win a game, but I think it involved signing some defensive players.

• Cardinals 22 - Vikings 23 - A BAD decision at the end of the game by Gannon may end up costing them a shot at the playoffs.

• Colts 25 - Pats 24 - I wasn’t jazzed about the 2-point conversion decision as a bettor, but I'm really proud of them for making the call anyway.

• Seahawks 26 - Jets 21

• Titans 19 - Washington 42 - The Titans looked like they were happy enough with the win last week, not getting much going on offense until late.

• Houston 23 - Jaguars 20 - Stroud is still struggling to find what he had last year; I’m starting to think Slowik lost his fastball.

• Rams 21 - Saints 14 - The Rizzi effect lasted exactly 2.5 games, a horrible 2nd half effort for the Saints.

  Bucs 26 - Panthers 23 (OT) - I’m falling in love with Bryce Young and cannot fathom anyone who isn’t rooting for him (except for fans of other NFC South teams).

• Eagles 24 - Ravens 19 - It's great to see the Eagles get up off the mat after a slow start, especially if we recall how the past few seasons got off the rails late.

• 49ers 10 - Bills 25 - The injuries to the 49ers took a little luster off this win, is it too early to have an MVP moment (probably, but the lateral and diving TD were so cool).

I did manage to catch up with my injury news from the past week. I’ll dig a little deeper this afternoon and keep updating this:

Last Chance For Deposit Match Bonus!

Market

Lookahead on this was around +6.5 and ended up sliding down a bit and reopening at +5.5 last Sunday. Steady Broncos money, especially late, and we’re right back where we started with expensive 6s and cheap 6.5s for the home team.

The total has been all over the place: Lookahead was 40, opened 42 on Sunday night, and was bet up slightly. I am seeing two-way action seemingly all week, working back and forth between 41 and 42.

Injuries

The Broncos will decide today if they want to let WR Josh Reynolds return to action. Cornerback Riley Moss is out with a knee injury. LB Drew Sanders has been activated and will make his 2024 debut tonight.

For the Browns, WR Cedric Wilson remains out with a concussion and is joined by a few teammates. S Juan Thornhill (calf), OT Jed Wills (knee), CB Myles Harden (tibia), and DE Sam Kamara (head) have also been ruled out.

Matchup

The Browns are coming off a win and have had 10 days to let that one soak in, but the big question will certainly be: “Will we see the same effort level from this defense tonight.”

Myles Garrett seemingly had something to prove and put on a show against a hated divisional opponent and his counterpart in elite edge rushers, TJ Watt. The tackling seemed crisper, and the defense flew to the ball in the upset win. We’ll likely find out pretty early in this one if that was a one-week spike or if the team has found something and will continue to try to play spoiler to these playoff teams.

My worries do extend across the field as well with a Denver team finding much more success than they were projected to. Young QBs playing above their head and defenses are two of the things that can sometimes things can turn sour. Despite my dislike of the human Sean Payton, I respect the hell out of the head coach Sean Payton and think that this is where the big-ass contract really pays off, as his veteran leadership can keep this ship steady on the road to a playoff berth.

The Browns held up ok last week against TJ Watt. It looked like they had a plan to get extra bodies over there for the whole game and really managed to slow him down. It’ll be another tough test with 3-4 Broncos that they’ll have to be keeping at bay on passing downs. With the LT injuries and Cedric Tillman leaving the WR corps a bit thin, I wonder if the Browns will focus on the slot, TEs, and RBs as targets tonight, keeping the pass rush stymied with quick hitters.

Betting

I do have a little Browns +6.5 in the pocket from lookahead betting 10 days ago and thought I was going to find a little closing line value for a bit. A few props I like, considering the game state:

Jameis Winston attempts over 35.5 -130
Nick Chubb rushing yards under 52.5 +110
Cortland Sutton catches over 5.5 +105
Nik Bonitto over 0.25 Sacks +120

With the Broncos’ offense starting to pick up some steam, the Browns are likely in comeback mode for most of the game.

I love Jameis to keep drives moving, especially in the 2nd half, and I hate Nick Chubb against this rush defense (he’s not looking as good as he did pre-injury). A much sharper prop player than I played this not long ago and sucked some of the value out of the number, but I still like it at anything over 50.

Sutton is something I had circled, and then I saw others playing in Discord this morning to help cement the confirmation that he can win on the outside, especially vs. Man.

The sack prop is a play on how well this entire pass rush has been in winning on passing downs and, again, playing into my projected game state. I did double-check with 4for4’s Ryan Noonan to make sure it wasn’t a bad bet before I placed it, though.

good luck, have fun, talk to you Wednesday.