Looking for sharp sports betting action this weekend? Your curated list of tips, analytics and humor, every Saturday at 10am Eastern.
Pittsburgh vs New Orleans, NFL Week 7 in Paris – Bob Stoll, the gold standard in football handicapping and the founder of Dr. Bob Sports, digs deep into the details of every game. For this NFL game in Paris, Bob has an interesting angle on the New Orleans Saints offense.
OG Cesar Ruiz struggled with pass protection his first few years in the league, but he has allowed an excellent 3.1% pressure rate the last two seasons. His pressure rate has been even better this season. Ruiz is questionable to play against Pittsburgh, and Bob rates the drop off to rookie Jeremiah Wright at 1.2 points.
Ruiz, a limited participant in practice on Friday after not practicing all week, is questionable to play. Even if he plays, Bob’s model has Pittsburgh by 4.5 points, and there is value in Pittsburgh -3, -110.
Check out all of Bob’s NFL analysis at Dr. Bob Sports.
Houston at Utah, College Football Week 8 – Korey Betts, who runs the excellent College Football Betting 900 podcast, notes the raw numbers overrate Utah’s pass defense. Utah has played opposing pass offenses that rank 100th on average.
In contrast, Houston’s pass offense with QB Connor Weigman ranks 1st in success rate and 26th in sacks allowed. By Korey’s projections, Houston should have 11 possessions and score 2.66 points per possession. This projects 29.3 points for a potent Houston offense against Utah.
There is value in Houston over 24.5 points, -102 available at FanDuel. Check out all of Korey’s four shows for serious college football betting information.
NFL interception prop – Cincinnati QB Joe Burrow hasn’t had the greatest season, but at least he takes care of the football. Burrow has a 1.6% interception rate this season, better than the NFL average of 2.1%.
However, interception rate isn’t a good predictor of future interceptions. My interception model looks at how often a quarterback throws the football into dangerous situations, and Burrow is worse than NFL average by this metric.
In addition, the market projects 37 pass attempts for Burrow, the highest in the NFL this week despite a competitive match up against Baltimore. More attempts imply a greater chance to throw an interception, and my model puts this probability at 57% for Burrow. There is value in Joe Burrow over 0.5 interceptions, -121 available at DraftKings.
Members of The Power Rank get access to more NFL interception props at 11am Eastern on Saturday.
Should Arch Manning get benched? Texas has lost two straight games, and two Arch Manning interceptions did not help against Oklahoma. Manning has thrown 5 interceptions this season compared to 7 interceptions all of last season.
However, Manning has not thrown the football into dangerous situation at a higher rate this season. I use bad balls, or the sum of interceptions and passes defended, to quantify this. Manning has a 12.7% bad ball rate, about the same as last season and better than the 13.2% college football average. He has been unfortunate with interceptions this season.
The data does not say the same thing about Michigan quarterback Bryce Underwood, who got benched last week.
College football humor – After five top programs all lost last week, an Alabama used AI to make a video of the coaches singing “Outstanding,” a song that has become a meme for washed athletes. Kalen DeBoer is priceless in this must watch :23 video.
Smarter sports betting in less than 5 minutes
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