Raiders at Lions: MNF Betting

I'm a bit under the weather today so keeping it brief, but I'm still hoping to put up a better performance than Mahomes. Luckily Skyy Moore is nowhere to be found.

Market

This took some Lions’ money last week even after the shellacking by the Ravens. The Raiders coming off a 30-12 loss to Tyson Bagent were not inspiring much confidence in the betting markets as it turned out.

Getting up to as high as -9 on Monday, it’s been solid Las Vegas money since, as Jimmy G grew more likely to play. This continues into gameday with the price getting pushed down to -7 this morning.

This total was 44 last week, and opened slightly higher (44.5) on Sunday night, but still took over money with the price heading all the way to 47 before finally meeting resistance. Now 46.5 across the board.

Injuries

Starting RB David Montgomery will sit again with his rib injury, but the real mess is up front in the offensive line. G Jonah Jackson is out and C Frank Ragnow is doubtful. The other starting Guard, Halapoulivaati Vaitai is also questionable with a back injury after missing time already this year with a knee problem. Losing the entire interior line for a game isn’t great even if you do have strong tackles. Even worse was a late addition to the report:

On the other side of the ball for Detroit DL Josh Paschal, DT Benito Jones and LB Malcolm Rodriguez are all listed as questionable.

The biggest news on the Las Vegas side is of course at the quarterback spot, but their injury list is sort of extensive as well.

Linebackers Kana’i Mauga and Divine Deablo have been ruled out. LB Cutis Bolton and CB Nate Hobbs are questionable.

Kicker Daniel Carlson is also listed as questionable with a groin injury. The Raiders signed kicker James McCourt on Wednesday as an insurance policy.

Matchup

The offensive injuries for Detroit are troubling, but we’ll see if the Raiders can take advantage. Maxx Crosby will mostly be taking on Penei Sewell so they’ll likely need others up front to step up against the beat-up interior OL to pressure Goff. Detroit got it’s lunch handed to them in the trenches last week, I’m just not sure Vegas can bring that sort of heat outside of Crosby.

Jimmy Garoppolo’s return is massive. Quietly efficient as always, he’s going to need to be a little more confident in the deep ball if they want to have a shot at the upset. Already a poor running team, I don’t love the matchup in the trenches for this offense, this Raiders offense likely goes as Jimmy goes.

Obviously, the Lions are a lot better team than what we last saw. Baltimore was clicking the whole game and put the Lions in a hole right off the bat. Even without Montgomery, they should be able to get the running game going a bit this week against this Las Vegas team that ranks 30th in defensive success rate against the rush, one of only three teams allowing a positive EPA/play across all running plays so far this year.

Winning a prime-time home game feels like a necessary step to take in order to be taken seriously as a contender in the NFC. While they really don’t have any competition left for the division, you can’t bottle these opportunities if you want to keep pace with Philly.

Betting

I don’t like a ton outside of maybe some Gibbs props, luckily Connor has another free one this week over at 4for4 (the player props from him and Noonan were about the only thing I bet that won this weekend)

I’ll be playing this: