Your weekly digest of sports betting tips and news, every Saturday morning at 10am Eastern.
Carolina at Atlanta – On the Matchbook NFL podcast, Rob Pizzola likes this game as a buy low spot on Carolina, a team that has lost their last 4 games. Atlanta has won 3 in a row but against poor competition.
In his analysis, Rob favors Carolina’s pass rush against Atlanta’s pass protection. He likes Carolina +3 in this game, which agrees with The Power Rank’s prediction (essentially a 50-50 game).
Matchbook makes it easy to not listen to their entire NFL podcast but still get the bets of a professional like Rob Pizzola on their insights page.
Market movement for Indy – An important game for AFC South supremacy originally had the Tennessee Titans favored by 1.5 points in many places. Now, per FanDuel Sportsbook, the Colts are favored by three.
Why the movement? Indianapolis may be as healthy as it has been all season, and QB Carson Wentz may be less turnover prone outside of an inclement weather game in Northern California. Still, The Power Rank favors the Titans to win outright.
Injuries – Unless otherwise noted, these injuries were checked against the ESPN NFL injuries page and USA Today for college football.
- Dallas QB Dak Prescott remains an unknown as of Saturday morning because of calf soreness. The line in Sunday’s game has moved from Cowboys -2.5 to Vikings -3.
- Cleveland QB Baker Mayfield should play against the Steelers despite dealing with a shoulder injury.
- Arizona QB Kyler Murray played through a left ankle injury at the end of Thursday night’s game against Green Bay. Keep an eye on his status before the Cardinals travel to San Francisco in Week 9.
- Indiana QBs Michael Penix Jr. and Jack Tuttle are both out indefinitely.
- Syracuse QB Garrett Shrader is listed as questionable, although he showed no signs of an injury when talking to reporters on Wednesday.
Not All Injuries Are Created Equal – The line movement for Thursday night’s game is a learning opportunity.
As Eric Eager and George Chahrouri explained on the PFF Forecast podcast, just because Green Bay was projected to play without its top two wide receivers doesn’t mean they are worth three points. While the market moved that much in Arizona’s direction, the spread never moved through the key numbers of 3 or 7, making the overall movement less consequential.
For more information about key numbers in the NFL, check out the visuals in this post.
Upset alert in college football – As CBS Sports counted last week, college football is setting a record for most AP Top 25 teams to lose outright to start a season. Only nine teams in the latest rankings are undefeated, but that will be whittled down as Michigan and Michigan State collide.
While a win for Michigan or Michigan State wouldn’t be considered an upset because both teams are in the AP top 10, the markets and analytics expect a number of other top teams to go down (ranks are from the AP poll):
- #9 Iowa, a 3.5 point underdog at Wisconsin
- #10 Ole Miss, a 3 point underdog at #18 Auburn
- #11 Notre Dame, a 40% chance to get upset by North Carolina according to The Power Rank
- #12 Kentucky, a 1.5 point underdog at Mississippi State
- #16 Baylor, a 52.4% chance to get upset at Texas according to The Power Rank
- #21 San Diego State, a 1 point underdog at home to Fresno State
Expect mass carnage among teams that the pollsters think belong in the top 25 right now.
The Early Bird… – Perhaps the best advice ever dispensed: bet football early in the week. This is why sportsbooks go through painstaking analysis to make sure they are as sharp as possible at release.
Check out this feature on the process that Circa uses to release college football lines early on Sunday morning.
It’s Up to You…New York… – New York continues to iron out the details for online sports betting within its borders, and it has set a goal of launching before the Super Bowl. Bids from several different sportsbooks are being made and, as you might expect, tax revenue is the name of the game.
Data driven betting information
These nuggets were sent to The Power Rank’s email newsletter. This is a free service that strives to be:
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