Betting on the Saturday NFL Doubleheader

Short and sweet today. Not only do I have a wife who’s not happy that I’m working this morning, but I also have ribs to smoke. Hope you’re enjoying your holiday weekend so far and thanks for reading.

• Market: There has been some push to get this out to the 3, but each time it gets there the Steelers find some support. Currently, most of the PIT +3 comes with extra juice. The total has ticked back up after an initial move to the under.

• Weather: depending on where you look, anywhere from a 30-50% chance of some rain. Light winds.

• Injuries: The Bengals are healthy outside of the painful absence of star WR Ja’Marr Chase. The Steelers on the other hand have a glaring hole in the middle of the defensive secondary with Minkah Fitzpatrick (knee), Trenton Thompson (neck), and Damontae Kazee (suspension) all out. Down their top three safeties, they will be forced to start Elijah Riley (who’s also on the injury report with a hurt ankle) and Eric Rowe (up from that practice squad) at the safety spots.

I spoke about it on the podcast Wednesday and even with the line moving in my favor a bit, I still think the situation will lead to Cincinnati ending up in the mid-20s. They were able to adjust and get the offense going late against a MUCH tougher Minnesota defense last week and now get a below-average group missing important coverage pieces.

The Bengals’ defense can certainly be moved on, but I just have no inkling of what sort of performance we’ll see out of Mason Rudolph. What about George Pickens? Is their best WR in the doghouse, or will he put in the extra effort to prove he’s a good teammate? I’ll just be sticking to betting on the Bengals offense here:

Bengals Team Total over 20.5 -115

Bonus: if you missed it, Connor had a player prop in yesterday’s newsletter

Market: The early +14.5/14 was gobbled up quickly and we saw this down to as low as 10.5 on Tuesday before Bills’ support came back and took this up to where we currently sit. The total has been bet up a couple of points, it opened at 42.5 on Sunday.

Weather: it’s indoors, but I copied and pasted the bullet points from the other game preview so here we are and to be fair, this stadium did have a weather delay in 2021!

Injuries: Keenan Allen is again out for the Chargers. They also have a handful of defenders on the injury report. CB Deane Leonard and special teamer Tanner Muser are doubtful while slot corner Essang Bassey and DT Nick Williams are questionable. The Bills will be shorthanded on defense as well with DT Jordan Phillips and S Micah Hyde out and DT DaQuan Jones, DE AJ Epenesa, and CB Kaiir Elam all questionable. Quotes from the team make it should like Jones and Epenesa are unlikely to play.

We tried to make a case for the under in this one on the live stream Wednesday, but I’m a little worried considering some of the starters that are sitting on defense.

With extra time to prep, maybe we do see a little of the new coach bounce with Giff Smith. While I’m not hopeful that we see fireworks from Easton Stick leading an offense missing its best weapon, the fact that there was some market support for the over is enough to just have me playing a donkey prop instead.

We lauded Joe Brady for sticking with the run last week after it was terribly obvious that it was working and working well. Now the Bills will face a team that’s dead last in EPA/rush over the past five weeks

I once played craps out at the Wynn in Las Vegas, and an older gentleman kept placing bets on numbers right after they were rolled as if that first time unlocked something and we’d suddenly see an avalanche of 6s or 8s. After a few bets one of the dealers joked with him, saying “They pay better if you bet them before they’re rolled.”

I’m kind of in the same boat with James Cook here and I don’t care. Sure, the defense looked to have quite a bit of quit in them last week, but they gave up 126 yards to the three-headed monster of Ameer Abdullah, Brandon Bolden, and Zamir White. I’ll ride Cook to have an encore performance in a game that could see large chunks of positive game state for the Bills

James Cook over 71.5 rushing yards -115

Also using this in some teasers since it’s hanging just below 13 this morning, my favorite combo being the Colts in Atlanta:

6-point teaser: Bills -6.5/Colts +8.5 -110