NFL Picks and Betting Strategies - Week 3

Overrated home teams, Goliath beats David, and other opportunities on week 3 of the NFL.

Wild & exciting week 2! One of my favorite strategies that we've talked in the past came true in two games and if you follow me on Twitter, you could've capitalized on MNF. Strong teams blow out weak teams. The spread is hardly ever above 14 and many strong teams blowout their opposition by more than two touchdowns.

On MNF we saw the undermined by recency bias Green Bay Packers cover a double digit spread against a weak prey in the Detroit Lions & Jared Goff. Tampa Bay also took care of their double digit spread against Atlanta triggered by their defense and Tom Brady wanting to get TDs under his belt. The Bills and Miami a similar story but one could argue Miami wasn't as weak as the latter two but the Bills were also under rated from their first week loss. 

Unfortunately this week there's only one double digit spread and it's Denver which wouldn't be categorized as "strong" just yet. The second highest spread, Baltimore against Detroit, could be an interesting one. At 8.5 road favorites, the Ravens are coming off a big win and should cruise in Detroit and players will be eager to gather stats into their game logs. 

The machines were trained and the numbers crunched. Below are the model outputs. We talk about 4 games that look interesting against the spread. There were like 4 QBs that went down last week so we have to be careful with back QBs and just sit out of those games to see how they perform. 

Here's the breakdown on games where there seems to be something off with the spread:

NEW ORLEANS +3
The Saints are going to Foxborough and these two teams are considered equal by putting a spread of 3 for the home team. But are they? The Saints are coming off a really poor offensive performance against the Panthers. Winston threw 0 TD and 2 INT and they rushed for a total of 48 yards, 19 from Winston himself. Maybe we are underestimating the Panthers D? The Patriots beat the Jets, c'mon man! In terms of ranking of defenses and offenses they might be the same, but the variability is worth noting. New Orleans has been the most night and day team so far while New England has been consistently ranked upper 20s on both sides of the ball on both games. It won't be another dark night for the Saints and they not only cover but win outright. 

GREEN BAY +3.5
Another prime time game for Aaron Rodgers and he's an underdog? Against Garoppolo? This is too good to be true. Sure they have also been night and day, but Rodgers won't be consistently bad. There's no other QB that can throw like he did on Monday. The defense might be the issue for the Packers especially on the ground where SF can take advantage. The 49ers are currently ranked 13th in defense but that's just two games and in one of them they allowed 33 points to the Lions. This means that GB will score big which will force SF to throw the ball and with Garoppolo that means game over, Packers roll. 

Get my other two takes and the results of the statistical models free on Rokfin

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