The “RUMP”: Betting five NFL upsets for Week 6
Round-robin underdog moneyline parlay, a football-betting lottery ticket
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.
If there’s a right kind of fail, Week 5 was that for those of us on the hunt for live underdogs.
Only three ‘dogs ended up winning outright last week, so we didn’t miss out on much. Plus, we called one of the two big ones so our radar is still sharp.
Are we annoyed the Colts’ comeback came up short? Sure.
Are we still steaming about the Bengals botching everything to do with a game they had a 10-point fourth-quarter lead in? *Nodding aggressively*
You can’t win big if there’s no winning big to be won, so we won’t be too disappointed about missing out on winning 1.85 units, the net result of hitting the only three underdogs in our weekly gambit.
The RUMP Week 5 answer-key:
Was there a path to RUMP victory last week?
Each week we reflect on who we should have taken, had we gotten the answers to the test beforehand.
Cardinals +280
Giants +250
Cowboys +115
Some loser
Some other loserAs we get deeper into the season the task only gets harder and the upsets seem even more improbable. After all, they are underdogs (to varying degrees) for a reason. So, buckle up, it’s not going to get less weird.
For those new to the concept, we’ve coined the acronym RUMP for “Round-robin Underdog Moneyline Parlay.” In exchange for your (assumed) promise to bet everything else advised from THE WINDOW in single wagers, we cook up a NFL lottery ticket here. For more information on how it works and what to expect, check out the breakdown from Week 1.
How it works
Take 1.1 units and split that into 11 bets - one 5-team moneyline parlay and the 10 permutations of 3-team moneyline parlays that those five teams create. At most sportsbooks, you can simply add those five teams to a betting ticket and select 3-leg parlay (10x) to register your 0.1 unit bets. Three winners should do better than even money. Four wins connect four separate parlays and net an exciting return. When all five win? Say it with me - we’re diving into a gold doubloon silo like a young Scrooge McDuck!
Who to play
As always, these are five underdogs we like against the spread. Based on a pet peeve - our underdogs performing so well they win outright, we use their moneylines to make up an extra bet, hoping the five ATS games will more than make up for losing the RUMP if three or more fall short of victory.
Patriots (+7, +255) over Texans
If you want to see someone slowly realize that the Patriots might be live to win, check out my weekly appearance on Sheldon Alexander’s “Clutch Picks Podcast” from ClutchPoints.
Admittedly, the core thesis for this pick is that it can’t get any worse for the Patriots offensively, so Jerod Mayo won’t be inviting me to give the pregame speech. However, the Patriots’ league-worst market rating has come on the weakness of an offense that features pass protection requiring Jacoby Brissett, an immobile quarterback, to scramble out of a frequently caved-in pocket.
On a weekly basis, Mayo’s asserted that the better quarterback will be the starter, so we’ll take him at face-value that Drake Maye, if not technically “ready,” gives the Patriots a better chance at offensive production on sheer mobility alone. This is going to require a game plan that includes rollouts, bootlegs, and other things to take advantage of Maye’s young legs and big arm, so we’ll have our fingers crossed that they put the rookie in a position to succeed.
Let’s say New England can get more than the 171 total yards from the quarterback position, and maybe put up a robust 20-spot - their max-out totals with Brissett. How good does the defense have to be?
The short answer is “better,” but sometimes we forget that, while they’re separate units, offense and defense are complementary. Getting more rest and better field position thanks to legitimate drives has advantages measurable and immeasurable.
There’s also the matter of the Texans’ losing Nico Collins, who was quickly putting together an Offensive Player of the Year candidacy season. Last year, when Collins was out, Noah Brown stepped in for random huge statistical days, but he’s in Washington this season. Meanwhile, the ground game has sputtered since Joe Mixon hurt his ankle, and he’s questionable to return this week. Stefon Diggs should see a dose of Christian Gonzalez, at which point options are slim for C.J. Stroud, and an upset seems more viable for a potentially energized New England crowd.
Broncos (+3, +130) over Chargers
Who decided that the Chargers were 4.5-5 points better than the Broncos, and why does Denver get zero credit for winning three straight games - two on the road and a comfy win at home? That’s not worthy of being considered a league-average team?
Let’s say the betting market does think of the Broncos that way. Now we’re talking about the Chargers in a way that makes them a sure-fire playoff team, and there’s nothing on their resume that suggests that.
At first glance, seeing the Chargers were -2.5, late on Sunday, my brain refused to register that the game wasn’t being played at SoFi Stadium, where very marginal home-field advantage might be assigned to an L.A. team that hasn’t proven they’re much better than Denver, if at all.
L.A. may travel well if both Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt are able to play, but even then that just means they’ll be able to compete with a Broncos’ defense that’s ranked 4th in DVOA. The Chargers are second in that category but Denver’s the team getting the three points at home.
In what should be a close, low-scoring game, where every point may matter, there’s more to like about where the Broncos are at compared to the Chargers.
Panthers (+6, +220) over Falcons
Apparently the market thinks the Chargers are world beaters, so a point spread in this game that’s higher than either of Carolina’s home games with L.A. or Cincinnati seems inflated towards a Falcons group that only wins by the skin of their teeth.
It’s possible that the Panthers’ big win over the Raiders was a dead-cat bounce that lingered just long enough for them to be competitive with the Bengals, and that Carolina’s ineptitude goes beyond Bryce Young, but we’ll give them one more chance to show they’re capable of still playing with Atlanta. A team they beat and played tightly last year.
The Panthers’ familiarity with Atlanta, along with Dave Canales having game-planned twice for the Falcons as a member of the Buccaneers last season, should mean they know what matchups they can handle, even if a lot has changed. If Kirk Cousins tries to squeeze throws into the same tight windows he got away with last week, the Panthers may be a turnover away from pulling off an upset.
Cowboys (+3, +140) over Lions
I don’t want to bet on the Cowboys, and you don’t want to NOT bet on the Lions. I get it.
This game will show up on our “By-the-numbers” best bet on Friday, because I can’t to a place where Lions -3 makes sense, other than public perception.
As we know from our Week 5 market report, the Cowboys were downgraded headed into Pittsburgh. It was easy to understand because they were missing Demarcus Lawrence and Micah Parsons, while also scraping their way to a win over the Giants, a week after back-to-back blowout losses.
Dallas won though, and while it came down to a final play, they did handily out-gain the Steelers, overcoming a significant deficit in the turnover battle to win. The missing stars on defense certainly didn’t hurt the Cowboys’ beleaguered run defense, allowing just 3.5 yards per rush.
What does Detroit want to do? Dominate you on the ground.
Whether they can or not, if we somehow downgrade the Cowboys off of a win to merely a league-average team (50/100, the bottom of their range), the Lions have to be upgraded into high 60’s. That would put them on the level of the Chiefs.
Wins at Arizona, an offensive breakout against the Seahawks, a week of rest off a bye, and revenge in their hearts from a controversial loss in ‘Big D’ last year, are all elements in thinking the Lions play to the top of their range. This point spread is assuming the best from Detroit and the worst from Dallas, and maybe that plays out on the field, but if you tighten each back towards their mean, this game becomes much closer to a coin flip point spread.
Has THAT much changed since Week 17 last year, when the Cowboys were 4.5-point favorites in this game? A 7.5-point flip - across key numbers - is excessive, whether or not Parsons plays this Sunday.
Giants (+3.5, +150) over Bengals
The Giants have graduated to “capable offense when playing bad/compromised defenses,” which is sweet for Daniel Jones and company.
We just referenced how well the Cowboys defense held up shorthanded against the Steelers, so the Giants touchdown-less TNF game two weeks ago is more excusable, since they’ve moved the ball well against the banged-up Seahawks (who were on a short week), the Commanders and Browns.
Like Kramer when he smoked too many cigars, you can’t look at the Bengals’ defense. It’s hideous. Their numbers are propped up by playing the Patriots in Week 1 and minimizing the Chiefs’ offense in Week 2 (likely due to Lou Anarumo’s familiarity with game-planning for Patrick Mahomes over the years). However, the last three weeks, the defense is starting to look like an old catcher’s mitt, and now they’ve lost starting cornerback Dax Hill for the season.
The Bengals’ offense will have to outscore all opponents going forward, but all of a sudden, the Giants holding the Commanders out of the end zone looks really impressive, and they’ve followed that by dominating in Cleveland, holding the Cowboys to 20 points, and the Seahawks to 13 in Seattle (with just 4.9 yards per pass attempt). Cincinnati’s 1-4 because they haven’t been able to overcome defensive shortcomings, so we’ll play against them doing that on Sunday night.
How the odds look this week:
Note: PLEASE find a sportsbook (Bet365, Betano, etc.) that offers an early payout for when a football team takes a 17-point lead. The last thing you want to have happen is to watch an underdog take a big early lead only to have it, and your potential big win, evaporate.