Plenty of fans are jumping on the Colin Kaepernick bandwagon, as we’re seeing the 49ers as a road favorite at Atlanta, and the spread is actually moving even more in San Francisco’s direction.
Meanwhile, Tom Brady, Bill Belichick and the Patriots opened as a big home favorite against the Ravens, but money has been coming in on Baltimore. The line is still more than a touchdown, but it’s definitely moving.
It’s turkey day, and that of course means plenty of NFL football to go along with turkey and family gatherings. Check out our NFL Lines pages for all the odds for this weekend’s football action. In today’s games, the Detroit Lions try to break a long turkey day losing streak as the Houston Texans travel north. Houston is favored by three on the road.
RG3 is coming off a monster game and he leads the Washington Redskins into Dallas to face a Cowboys team that barely beat the Browns last week at home. Dallas is favored at home by three so this is basically a toss-up.
Finally, the New England Patriots travel to New Jersey tonight to take on the New York Jets. The Pats are favored by seven on the road even without Rob Gronkowski.
Notre Dame had a huge road win last weekend, and the Fighting Irish have certainly gotten everyone’s attention. After years of mediocrity, Notre Dame is certainly relevant again.
Take a look at the college football lines for this week and you’ll see Notre Dame is a 17 point favorite over Pitt? Can they cover? Here’s this week’s free pick from Vegas Vic:
3:30 Eastern (Saturday, November 3rd)
Pittsburgh +17 over Notre Dame
You have to figure the Irish are going to be somewhat flat in this situation if not totally flat in this situation as a double digit home favorite coming off of last weeks huge/satisfying national tv 30-13 upset road win at Oklahoma as a double digit road underdog crushing the Sooners. Lines do matter in perception. Who is the underdog and who is the favorite does matter in scheduling/situations/results. Pittsburgh is just good enough to give Notre Dame a fight and the Panthers are playing with double revenge having lost 17-23 and 12-15 the last 2 seasons vs Notre Dame. If the Irish show up flat in this situation off last weeks big win at Oklahoma they are going to be hard pressed to cover -17 points. If the Irish show up totally flat in this situation their 8-0 start ends with an outright Pittsburgh upset…
The first two weeks of the NFL season are always wild, as we really don’t know what many teams are made of. Keep that in mind when you’re looking at the NFL lines to make your picks. It’s easy to get caught up in the preseason hype or grand conclusions based on week one of the regular season.
Many of the fans in Cleveland and the experts around the country were convinced that Trent Richardson and Brandon Weeden would be “busts” after their tough debut in week one against a very touch Philly defense, but then both players bounced back with excellent games against Cincy in week two. If you ignored the hysteria and took the Browns last week, you would have either pushed if you had 7 points or you would have been a winner had you shopped around and gotten 7.5 points. You can always shop around for the best odds on our NFL live lines page powered by SBR which gives lines from seven different sources.
This week, the Browns are 3 point dogs at home against Buffalo. I like the Browns, but this one is far from a lock. Richardson and Weeden have a bright future if you look at last week’s game, but they’re still rookies, so they’ll have more tough games like the week one debacle. This game is tough to predict.
I like San Fran giving 6.5 points on the road against the Vikings. The 49ers look like the best team in the NFL right now, and while the Vikings look better, they’ll have a tough time against this monster defense.
Going into the season, the hype machine fueled by ESPN and other major sports outlets was in overdrive over Russell Wilson. In a way you had to feel sorry for the guy, as the odds are stacked against him in many ways as a 5′ 11″ mobile quarterback trying to make it in the NFL and start as a rookie. With the start of the NFL season, everyone was super-anxious for more sports betting, but all of that excitement led the hypesters and even the betters to make irrational statements and decisions.
For example, Bill Simmons named Russell Wilson was the quarterback who would have the biggest impact this NFL season as he would lead the Seahawks to the Super Bowl. Yes, this was absurd, but many NFL “experts” said similar things, even though Wilson had only played in the preseason. Again, anyone making grand proclamations based upon the NFL preseason is either stupid or is just getting caught up in silly hysteria. Things were even more crazy when you consider that the Seahawks went from being a road dog by three points in their opener at Arizona to a three-point favorite on the road after Wilson, a rookie, was named the starter.
Of course reality set in in game one, as Wilson struggled and fools like Simmons who put the Seahawks in all their parlay bets got killed in week one.
Fortunately for Wilson and the Seahawks, he played much better in game two, a home win against the Cowboys. Hopefully, all of the analysts have sobered up a bit and we can evaluate Wilson over time as he plays in real games. He faces Clay Matthews and the Green Bay pass rush on Monday night with Seattle as a three-point underdog at home, so we’ll see how he does with another test.