NFL Week 14: Best bets for Sunday
A trio of favorites, two struggling offenses, and an unorthodox teaser
Matt Russell is the creator of THE WINDOW, and former lead betting analyst at theScore. If there’s a bad beat to be had, Matt will find it. You can find him @mrussauthentic on X.
Week 13 summarized the season nicely - good reads derailed by outlier events.
Houston led 23-9 in the fourth quarter and Mac Jones was in the game for the Jaguars. How often do the Texans (-3.5) cover given that circumstance?
The Action Network’s “cover probability” feature assessed those chances at 98%, but then this happened:
Meanwhile, the Chargers needed every one of Kirk Cousins’ career-high-tying four interceptions to overcome a line that was inflated in L.A.’s direction before they mustered just 10 first downs and 10 points.
Neither the Seahawks or Jets could manage 260 yards of offense, but their game still crawled over the total thanks to a pair of 90-yard+ defensive/special teams touchdowns, that one couldn’t have seen coming.
While we continue to aim to be on the “right side” of winning probability, never underestimate the prevalence of luck in sports betting results.
Underdogs bet against the spread via the Week 14 RUMP:
Falcons (+6)
Browns (+6.5)
Jets (+6)
Raiders (+7)
Bears (+4)Jaguars @ Titans (-3.5, 39.5)
On the surface, the Titans seem to qualify as a team that “has no business giving points to anybody,” but as we mentioned above, the Jaguars probably should be coming into this game having taken another sound beating.
Coming off their big upset at Houston, Tennessee no-showed the first quarter in Washington:
Two fumbles setting up short Commanders’ touchdown drives ended the game before it started, but the Titans have otherwise been playing better with Will Levis back, as their second-year quarterback has thrown seven touchdowns to just two interceptions after missing a month.
Tennessee’s offense continued to show explosive tendencies in Washington, with three different players catching passes for 27+ yards, and the Jaguars’ poor defense - committed to playing man-to-man - will likely get burned by Levis on a few occasions.
Mac Jones led the backdoor-cover effort last week, but that garbage-time stat accumulation boosted his season-long numbers, giving him his first two touchdown passes and a still-paltry 5.6 yards per attempt.
Getting the hook with the Jaguars is tempting, but they’re unlikely to move the ball with efficiency and likely to be victimized by the Titans’ quick-strike offense.
Pick: Titans (-3, -115 at DraftKings/-116 at Pinnacle)
Bills @ Rams (+3.5, 49.5)
Evidently, Sean McVay and the Rams made the right halftime adjustments in New Orleans last week. After 90 total yards in the first half, they were 4-for-4 on successful second-half drives, scoring a touchdown on three.
Against the Bills though, they won’t be able to play a good 30 minutes and hope to stay close.
The Rams have six wins, and as long as Matthew Stafford’s paired with McVay, the market will give them a punchers’ chance, but against good teams, L.A.’s been outmatched this season, only coming close to covering (versus the Lions and Packers) on guile alone.
More recently, the Rams couldn’t muster enough offense to beat the Dolphins at home, and were throughly dominated by the Eagles. The Bills definitely profile more towards the latter.
Buffalo’s tweaked the offense for their local weather this time of year, but that doesn’t mean they can’t still go “high-octane” indoors, against a team who’ve allowed the fourth-most yards per pass attempt, even after holding up well against the Saints.
The Bills still have the Chiefs to look up to in the standings, and a team rating that hasn’t gotten out of control despite seven straight wins. With the Lions on deck, expect Buffalo to bank another win, before next week’s cross-conference showdown.
Pick: Bills (-3.5, -110 at Bet365)
Chargers @ Chiefs (-4, 43)
Black Friday saw the Chiefs play the Chiefiest game possible:
Take an early lead
Flirt with the idea of covering a big point spread
Make one defensive mistake to keep the opponent alive
Run out the clock, or watch them screw something up
Win by a small margin
It’s why Kansas City has been the worst bet against the spread since October (0-6 ATS), and frequently a drag on betting accounts for the last few regular seasons. They have no interest in winning games by a significant margin.
However, that’s not what’s being asked of them here.
Since the start of the 2021 season, only the Lions, Ravens, and Bills have been shorter underdogs than the 4-point spread the Chargers are garnering here. In five games, those teams are 4-1 outright in Kansas City, with Baltimore just Isaiah Likely’s toe away from the NFL opener coming down to a 2-point conversion. All three are among the short list of contenders for the Super Bowl - this season and last.
If that’s what the Chargers are capable of, then a line this short is fair, but it’s more likely that they got away with one last week against the Falcons - a win served up by Cousins.
With dicey W’s against the Bengals and Falcons, L.A.’s narrowly avoided a 3-game losing streak that would have drastically altered their power rating in the betting market, and put this line up near the touchdown this matchup usually is lined at.
The Chiefs’ propensity for close games makes the underdog appealing, but K.C.’s 0-6 record ATS might be creating value in a matchup that’s not requiring Mahomes and company to win by more than one score.
Pick: Chiefs (-4)
Best bet on Substack: Who isn’t a sucker for a list? ‘Tis the season, but here’s ’s top-10 Christmas movies of the 21st century. While I’m not an “Elf” guy, I respect everyone’s opinion on this crucial matter. Though, if you have “The Night Before” in there (which I like), you also need “Office Christmas Party” - my personal favorite.
By-the-numbers bet (6-7):
Where possible, we’ll include a bet on a point spread that’s gotten away from our scope of expectation, but where I don’t have a viable on-field case for a bet.
Jets (Already bet via RUMP underdogs at +6) over Dolphins
As discussed in our review of the best underdogs to back this week, we mentioned in the RUMP article that oddsmakers are finally rating the Jets appropriately poorly. However, they’re dragging their feet on how the Dolphins are performing.
Miami’s 3-3 since Tua Tagovailoa, and weren’t notably the better team in wins over the Rams and Raiders. An inability to block up a run game that should be making better use of their speed at tailback, and Tyreek Hill’s minimal contribution relative to his impact in the past, has made the Dolphins a mediocre team. Instead, they’re being rated in the top-10 of the NFL by the market this week:
Total of the week (6-6-1):
Saints @ Giants: Under 41 total points (-110 at Bet365)
The key to the Saints’ otherwise mediocre offense might have been the effective and versatile usage of Taysom Hill. Once Derek Carr got healthy, and the Saints started throwing the ball to the veteran runner/passer/tight end, New Orleans averaged 422 yards per game, compared to 320 yards in the other nine games.
While the Giants’ defense should be even more compromised with the loss of Dexter Lawrence, their vulnerability in the middle should mean the Saints have success with long drives via the run game, with little need for the explosive deep-shots that have worked at home but might not have as much success outdoors in MetLife Stadium.
The Giants’ scored 20 points at Dallas on Thanksgiving but a sorry 4.2 yards per play was augmented by a fluky 29-yard almost-touchdown by Drew Lock, and an 80-yard touchdown drive in garbage time where Lock did score from 8 yards out. No amount of extra rest should help the Giants’ offense, and we should see New York’s vanilla “maybe we shouldn’t try all that hard to win offense” continue its ineptitude on limited drives thanks to the Saints time-consuming efforts on offense.
Teaser of the week (5-7):
Eagles -6.5 / Seahawks +8.5 (6-point teaser, or alt-line parlay at -119 at DraftKings)
There aren’t many traditionally tease-able games, so we’ll go with an unorthodox first leg, teasing the Eagles from -12.5 down to -6.5 (or using DraftKings alternate spread markets to parlay).
While the Panthers have shown some scrappiness lately, allowing 6.3 yards per play to the Buccaneers’ tailbacks last week doesn’t bode well for how their defensive front will do against the Eagles’ offensive line.
It’s a tricky scheduling spot for Philadelphia, coming off the win over the Ravens, with the Steelers and Commanders on deck, but the Eagles’ market rating for this game expects them to play towards the middle of their season-long range, if not a little low.
Maybe that ends up being the case, but with a little value on the Eagles at -12.5, teasing them down to a point where they only have to win by seven acts as an exception to our general teaser rules.
Those rules perfectly align with teasing the Seahawks up through the key numbers of +3, +7, and +8, in a rematch that Seattle won comfortably just two weeks ago, and what should be a close game with first place in the NFC West on the line.
Snowin’ and blowin’ up bushels of fun, now the jingle hop has begun.