A day early and hopefully not a dollar short. Stone. Cold. Locks. I love this buffet of games I am about to serve up to you. Let’s review how we did last week:
3-3-1. Perfectly average. But still good enough to keep my ATS record @ 63%. 23-15-3 on the year. Here we go!
Penn State +4.5 @ Ohio State- I’m still not sure how good Ohio State actually is this year. They’ve played 1 solid opponent, which they probably would’ve lost to if ND had decided to play 11 guys on defense at the end of the game. That home field advantage is legit but I still feel like the better team might be the underdog in this situation. Penn State’s defense is tremendous, they’ve allowed just 2.1 yards per carry this season, and Ohio State’s attack starts with the ground game. Also, Penn State is unbeaten against the spread this season and in this rivalry, Ohio State has only covered the spread once in their last 5 tries. Nittany Lions +4.5, lock it up!
UCF +19 @ Oklahoma- I know, gross, right? But hear me out. UCF has done nothing to prove that they can win this game but, that doesn’t mean they can’t cover a massive spread. Let’s not forget, they were 2 point favorites on the road @ Kansas, the wise guys believe in this team, then of course things went sideways in that game, but this just feels like massive overcorrect, and its easy to wrap your head around the idea that Oklahoma might be slightly overvalued after their programs biggest win in years. Plumlee is back and healthy, that should help stabilize the offense, and let’s not forget, Gus knows Dillon Gabriel pretty well. Advantage UCF…at least in terms of this bloated #. Lock it up!
Commanders -2.5 @ Giants- Am I tailing Raheem Palmer here? You damn right. The man knows what he’s talking about. The Giants covered on SNF so now everyone loves them again. This team still stinks, and they’re signing guys off the street to play on the o-line. They just signed 2 lineman to play for them, one off the Eagles practice squad, the other off the Falcons practice squad. Commanders have a good d-line and should dominate the trenches in this one. Commanders -2.5, lock it up!
Lions +3 @ Ravens- The wise guys are going to be all over Baltimore here and I think they’re dead wrong. First of all, this team is making its way back from London, which is still problematic, even if the Jags were able to overcome it a week ago. The Ravens just aren’t as good as their record tells you they are, they have benefited greatly from playing against injured or non-effective QB’s all year. CJ Stroud, first start. Joe Burrow, still injured. Gardner Minshew, awful. Dorian Thompson Robinson with 1 day to prepare. Lost to Kenny Pickett. Malik Willis in London. The Lions are legitimately one of the best teams in football and should probably be favored here. I’ll happily take them +3. Lock it up!
Falcons +2.5 @ Bucs- Selling all my Bucs stock hard and fast. I think they got exposed last week and I’m not sure that corrects itself in 1 week’s time. How’s this for a trend? Todd Bowles off a loss as the coach of the Bucs, 1-8 against the spread. He doesn’t rally his team, that’s what that stat tells me. I think they drop another one, Falcons +2.5. Lock it up!
Chargers +5.5 @ Chiefs- Locked this one in before Sunday Night Football even played itself out. This has bet of the year potential for me. The Chargers are mystifying in their ability to blow games, but almost as consistent as they are with not closing out games or making good decision in key moments – that’s also how consistent they are when it comes to playing in close games. The Chargers have only lost by 6 or more 3x since the start of last season…they haven’t lost by more than 3 once this year…and they were built with the specific intent of going toe to toe with this Chiefs team. LAC +5.5, lock it up!
Jags/Saints UNDER 40- A rare TNF lock and a rare bet on a total. This one is just too good to pass up. Not only do you have 2 of the best defenses in the NFL matching up, you also have history on your side with the under. TNF totals of 40 or less hit the under 76% of the time dating back to 2006. Saints games alone are 6-0 to the under this season and if you go back longer than that, they’ve gone under 15 of their last 16 games. And this game is on Amazon Prime which screams UGLY every week. Under, lock it up!
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