Thursday Night AFC East Clash

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Market

Miami love for the past day or so after dropping down to -1.5 a couple of days ago. Currently looking to maybe test -3, with some of the -2.5s being indexed up to -115 or higher.

Despite the injuries to the Buffalo defense, the total is now down to 48.5 after opening at 50 and popping up to 51 early.

Injuries

Mostert was ruled out with a chest injury, but for future reference, they have come out and said he’s not a likely IR candidate, and it’s not a long-term injury. Achane has been practicing but still is a guarantee to go as he’s supposed to be testing his knee out before the game tonight to see how it feels.

Also out for Miami is WR Malik Washington (quad). DB Elijah Campbell (Achilles) is listed as questionable. Jalen Ramsey is a full go for the Miami defense as are LB David Long Jr. (finger), OL Liam Eichenberg (shoulder), and LB Jaelan Phillips (Achilles).

The Bills ruled out CB Taron Johnson (forearm), DE Dawuane Smoot (toe) while reporting DE Javon Solomon (oblique) as doubtful. Running Back Ty Johnson was removed from the injury report, and as we all saw earlier this week, Josh Allen’s hand appears to be fine.

Matchup

How good is the Bills offensive line? The win rates for the Arizona offensive line, as well as the pressure rate, are comically low after one week. We know that the Cards are going to struggle to find a pass rush with that roster, but it still takes two to tango, and I had this Bills’ front five rated pretty well coming into the season.

It should be a bit more of a test this week, and I think it’ll still pan out in Buffalo’s favor with two strong tackles anchoring the line. The interior is a bit more of a question mark, but I worry less about that since we don’t have a 37-year-old pocket passing statue under center. Allen moves around the pocket just fine.

It’s very early still, but similar to last year, I think Miami needs to find a bit more consistency and more ways to finish drives off. They had 400 yards and 6.2 yards per play vs Jacksonville but underperformed those stats on the scoreboard and needed an FG with two minutes left just to get to 20 points and break a tie. Losing 100+ yards on penalties and failing on both 4th downs they attempted didn’t help their cause.

A short week and injured running backs perhaps aren’t the recipe to remedy all this, but they do get to face a beleaguered defense at home.

Betting

We talked it out on the podcast a bit and I show a little bit of value on the Bills in my raw numbers, but with the beat up defense and the nature of how Miami can strike quickly, I’m shying away and just looking at props for what I would expect to be a game that Buffalo runs a bit more.

Not only for the “ball control/keep the fast guys on the bench” aspect, but after seeing what the Jags did last week at times, I would think they have to expect to be able to have even more success with their offensive line versus this Miami run stop unit.

Ty Johnson is cleared to play, but was limited a bit this week with a knee injury, I’m expecting a similar stat line to last week for Cook.

James Cook over 14.5 rushing attempts -102

James Cook over 57.5 rushing yards -110

Some punts on the first TD market since I’ve laid off that bit this year and had a nice week one. It is likely going to continue to be the chalky answer, but I think there’s some value on the receivers here, with Allen, Hill, & the Running Backs eating up the top of the market.

Shop around, find the best prices!

Keon Coleman +1200

Mack Hollins +2500

Braxton Berrios +2800

Durham Smythe +4000

Look Ahead Lines

For anyone unfamiliar, these are just early, early lines. Even though week 2 hasn’t started yet, if you wanted, you can bet on week 3. Open up your sportsbook, click NFL, and just keep scrolling. You’ll see them.

I’ve always tracked them as a way to understand how the market reacted to the results and injuries from the upcoming game, but this year I’ve started to look more into betting into these markets. Last week I took a peek, ran my numbers and found a nice Texans -3.5 available and took a small position. Hell, I even had some instant confirmation from the other early birds in the Discord.

I thought about it a bunch and while it’s probably not great for account health long term, the thrill of soft-CLV is too alluring to not at least put some smaller action into play a full 10 days ahead of time.

My quick thoughts on the process:

1. I’ll run my numbers from this week on next week’s games looking for value against the posted lines, same as always.

2. I should use my evaluations of this week's games as additional inputs. Sure, I’ll be wrong plenty of times, but if I believe Team A wins this week and Team B has a bad matchup and may look bad, a perceived edge on Team A vs Team B a week from now should get an additional bump. My beliefs say that the direction of the market would be in my favor.

3. Injuries are the final piece, and I’m not talking about predicting them, because that’s impossible. This would just be another small bump for likely to return players. Reading the tea leaves on guys who are coming off IR, getting back to practice or are simply someone who was held out this week and is strongly trending toward playing the next game. This is the smallest factor of the three, but I don’t want to discount it.

So, from now on, Thursdays will have some look ahead bets. Should be fun to keep track of how often I can stay ahead of the market on this sort of thing.

Early Week Three Bets

Chargers +2.5 @ Pittsburgh

Buffalo -3.5 vs Jacksonville

Indy -2.5 vs Chicago

Avoided Minnesota getting +4.5 hosting the Texans based on the matchups this week for the Vikes and Houston and worries that Addison may be a multi-week issue. I think we may see a better price Monday.

Also avoided the Rams at home getting +4.5 vs the 49ers. Offensive line woes may not show this week vs Arizona, but they could get eaten alive vs San Fran. Not excited to get involved too early here.