Your weekly dose of sports betting tips and news, every Saturday morning at 10am Eastern.
Tampa Bay at Atlanta, NFL Week 18 – On the latest episode of the Props and Hops podcast, host Matt Landes and pro bettor Hitman both see value in Tampa Bay scoring first. As of Saturday morning, FanDuel is offering +108 (under the scoring tab).
The first team to score prop is a derivative of the point spread for the full game. However, the Bucs play their starters early and most likely rest them late because they have locked up the division. The full-game spread of Atlanta -4 is not an accurate indicator of which team will score first.
DraftKings users not limited to 2 cents can further exploit this angle by betting on Tampa Bay to score first and lose the game at +280.
College football player prop – Quentin Johnston is TCU’s most talented receiver and an NFL prospect. However, his last two performances are most likely inflating this receiving total versus Georgia on Monday night.
- 164 yards against Michigan on 6 receptions
- 139 yards against Kansas State in the Big 12 championship game on 4 receptions
Just like for Michigan RB Donovan Edwards in the playoff semi-final (136.5 rushing yards), these recent performances tend to inflate a player’s yardage total in the next game.
DraftKings has posted a receiving yards prop of 87.5 yards for Johnston. The value is on the under.
Wisdom of computer crowds – Sam Hoppen has been aggregating NFL power rankings each week during the 2022 season. While no one computer model is perfect, an ensemble of trusted numbers, including my public, points based rankings, should be a powerful predictor.
Sam’s composite rankings have Green Bay at 8th despite their 8-8 record and struggles this season. The Packers are also 8th in my member numbers.
Green Bay is getting back key players like receivers Randall Cobb and Allen Lazard in the latter part of this season. While they haven’t made the playoffs yet, don’t be surprised by a late season run by Aaron Rodgers and the Packers.
Kansas City at Las Vegas, NFL Week 18 – With the Chiefs as 9.5 point favorites on the road, pro bettor Rob Pizzola thinks this spread is a bit inflated because of Kansas City’s incentive to play for the #1 seed.
In Week 5, Kansas City hosted Las Vegas and closed as 7-point favorites. Obviously, Las Vegas is not the same team with QB Jarrett Stidham and with Chandler Jones and Denzel Perryman on IR, but Rob thinks there has been an over adjustment.
With the exception of a 24-0 loss to the Saints in which the Raiders had the flu bug, Las Vegas does not have a single loss by more than a TD all season. Conversely, while the Chiefs continuously win games, they have issues in winning by a large margin. Rob makes this game much closer to KC -7, and that implies value on Las Vegas.
Check out all the great work Rob and co-workers do at The Hammer.
Injuries – The NFL data is obtained from ESPN.
- Miami QB Tua Tagovailoa is most likely out due to a concussion and back up Teddy Bridgwater is questionable with a dislocated pinkie on his throwing hand. This means that rookie Skylar Thompson might start against the Jets. Miami also signed veteran Mike Glennon to the practice squad this week.
- New York Jets QB Mike White is out with a rib injury. Joe Flacco will start against Miami instead of Zach Wilson.
- Philadelphia QB Jalen Hurts is questionable against the New York Giants with that shoulder injury.
- San Francisco QB Brock Purdy has a rib injury but is off the injury list as of Saturday morning.
- Baltimore QB Tyler Huntley was limited in practice this week and is questionable with a shoulder injury.
- Chicago QB Justin Fields will not play against Minnesota due to a hip injury. Nathan Peterman will start.
- TCU RB Kendre Miller is questionable against Georgia with a knee injury.
- Georgia WR Ladd McConkey is dealing with a knee injury. While their second leading receiver played against Ohio State, he did not have a strong game.
Connecticut basketball – In Dan Hurley’s fifth year, there wasn’t much expected out of the Huskies basketball team. Connecticut didn’t get enough votes to crack the top 25 in the preseason AP poll.
However, Connecticut has been a revelation, as they won their first 14 games of the season. While they dropped two games this past week, the Huskies have looked strong on both sides of the ball (4th and 6th on offense and defense by my adjusted points per possession, only data this season).
My member numbers like Connecticut by 6.2 points over Creighton at home today.
NFL dominance – As Damar Hamlin still faces his mortality in a Cincinnati hospital, this doesn’t seem like a week for humor. Instead, let’s look at how the NFL dominates the top 100 watched shows in the United States in 2022.
Football betting with a PhD edge
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