🍺Friday Free Bet: Prop Bet for Bears/Saints

Finally hit a TNF prop play, maybe lying on the beach all afternoon was good luck. Going to test that theory today. Despite the game staying under the posted total, it was still a pretty decent game if you don’t count the SEVENTEEN (accepted) penalties.

The Steelers are never an easy team to figure out, and once again they’ve turned into a goofy statistical anomaly.

I’m sure you’ve seen the stat already since it’s everywhere, but the 5-3 Steelers have been outgained in ALL EIGHT GAMES so far this year. Not a sustainable formula for winning, but you have to hand it to them, they are finding ways to keep it close and have a very opportunistic defense.

This is where I stick up for Mike Tomlin though.

This was for sure one of the less egregious Steelers' wins. Sure, it fits the narrative of being outgained, but they were only outgained by 14 yards on the day. Winning a coin flip like that at home shouldn’t be ridiculed nearly as much as some of their other wins. The RBs picked up some of the slack, they didn’t turn the ball over, and the pass rush was nuts as always.

The biggest question I want answered if I’m a Steelers fan, or just anyone trying to forecast the future of this team is clearly what the deal is with Pickett.

They still had to cash in after this long ball, but this was a heck of a sideline pass on a crucial third down, that set up the winning score.

But then you have all the massive mis-throws as well. The supercut below is just one game, we’ve seen this all year. And, mannnnnn that third-down miss on the right side was brutal to watch. Even the announcers made sure to verbally stick up for Matt Canada on the air and give Kenny 100% of the blame there.

I have less to say on the Titans, I think we got about what we expected from them. They ran well against a defense that allows that and were pressured a ton by a good pass rush with their already bad OL losing guys left and right.

Levis is good so far. While he made some mistakes, he showed a ton of confidence at times. With Watt and Highsmith bearing down on him constantly, I want to give him some credit for a nice game. Derrick Henry eeeked out the prop play, which was nice.

Last week, Mr. Allen had our backs with a nice easy winner on Najee Harris under 41.5 rushing yards. The Steelers running back had just 13 yards on seven carries.

For week nine, our guy at 4for4 has us looking at his local squad (he’s not a Bears fan, to be fair):

Cole Kmet under 33.5 receiving yards -114 

Connor Says:

“The Bears are rolling out Tyson Bagent again and now face a unique challenge: The Saints play man defense at the third-highest rate in the league and have had a lot of success eating up bottom-tier passing games this season. The Bears absolutely qualify and I expect them to have a lot of trouble moving the ball here. Coming off a zero-target game two weeks ago, the Bears fed Kmet against the Chargers zone-heavy approach. Kmet also talked about in an interview last week how they were going to draw up a bunch for him.

I don't expect that to be consistent here. Against zone defenses this season Cole Kmet is averaging over 9 yards per target. Against man defense, he is averaging just 2.74 yards per target this season and has just 27 yards total against man coverage. If we want a bigger sample, we saw him average 8.9 yards per target against zone and a little over 6 ypt against man coverage. Beyond his man/zone splits, the Saints have largely been great against opposing tight ends this season ranking 5th in DVOA against the position and allowing 34 yards per game to the position in total. While their competition hasn't been stiff, it's a multi-year trend for the Saints with the same defensive scheming.”

Obviously, follow Connor on Twitter for more NFL betting content, and get in the 4for4 Discord if you want to see everything he’s betting each week.

Every week, Connor, Ryan, and Slop get together and go over at least a half dozen other free props on Friday afternoon at 3 EST on YouTube, if you’re the kind of person who wants a handful of free bets to go along with this one:

Last week was a very mixed bag for teasers, the 7-pointer I put together early in the week wasn’t much of a sweat, but I did a pretty bad job of ranking them for Sunday apparently. Minnesota trucked the Pack, and the Steelers’ voodoo took the week off vs Jacksonville.

The official Sunday morning teaser didn’t get there, but not much did for me last Sunday. It’s a long year, and I’ll continue to play these though. It’s still a winner long-term, especially for those crafty enough to continue to find outs that let you tease 6 points for -110.

Obviously, a bunch sitting on -3 like usual that don’t quite qualify, but I’ll keep my eyes on them for sure. Not super excited to bet on Brett Rypien, but a teaser against the Packers sounds okay if that one falls at all with the speculation on Stafford. Washington, Tampa, Dallas, and the Jets are also in the “close to it” range.

Little lighter week again, but man do I love the Cleveland leg. I don’t care who’s at QB for the Browns, I saw Clayton Tune play in the preseason.

Week 9 Teaser Rankings (Best to Worst)

We’ll talk on Sunday, I’ll try to have a newsletter out sooner than normal since wir spielen so früh Fußball.