Betting NFL openers is something very few casual bettors take advantage of, but it pays to at least take a glance at the opening numbers earlier in the week, rather than waiting until gameday to place all your wagers. You won’t always get the best number, but why not give yourself more options?
If you look at the board on gameday, you really are “stuck." You see a game lined a certain way, and that’s your only choice. Bet that, or don’t bet that. You have no options, really. If you check the board Monday, Tuesday, etc. you can frequently see large enough shifts that you get to pick your entry point, rather than having it determined for you by whatever the spreads are on Sunday.
As I often do on the radio show (“You Better You Bet”), hosted by Nick Kostos and myself, I will go over a couple bets I have either already made, or am very close to making, for NFL Week 10. In the case of being “very close” to making a bet, I am trying to attain a key number, and it hasn’t appeared yet. By waiting, my hope is that it does appear.
In exchange for these “choices” each day, you won’t be able to bet as much on NFL sides early in the week. The good news is, for the casual bettor, the limits are high enough you will literally never run into any trouble getting down.
Here are two games I'm looking to bet early in Week 10:
Houston Texans +3 at Cleveland Browns
This one may seem counter-intuitive. Wait, you might be thinking, the Browns are off a bye. The Texans just struggled to put away Jake Luton. What gives?
Well, the number is what gives. Three is a key number in the NFL, and my projection for this game is significantly less (Cleveland -1). In general, numbers in the NFL tend to move throughout the week toward my projection, unless there are unforeseen injuries (which happens but can be unpredictable at times). If I have an opportunity to get a +3 here, and I’m not sure one is coming back, that’s a time to hop in.
In addition to a perceived number advantage, one type of team you always want to avoid in the NFL (in my opinion) is the team that struggled on offense in their last data point (0-16 points). It may seem incredibly simple (bet on teams that didn’t score a lot in the NFL the next week, duh?) but in the first three months of the season, teams that scored 0-16 points the game before are 41.7% ATS in their next game, when they are home favorites. The home favorite portion of this is important, because it explains how the spread could get stretched out to give that team credit, despite their poor scoring the game before (the application of home field advantage creates an unreasonable number).
The final month of the season includes Week 16/17 when teams rest players and other teams quit, and the markets behave differently, so I filter that out of this angle. But while we’re still in the “legitimate” part of the season, this angle applies. Also, the worst-performing subset of this angle (teams that are the MOST worthy of fading) are teams off a bye.
Why? People forget that the team didn’t score much the game before, and think that a bye cleanses the team completely of their faults. Yes, in Cleveland’s case, they played in a hurricane (and lost 16-6 to Vegas), but clearly missed Odell Beckham Jr. as well against what is generally a porous Vegas defense.
My number, combined with historically valuable angles and a key number of 3, makes Houston a bet right now.
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Indianapolis Colts (+1.5) at Tennessee Titans (Thursday)
This is one I’m waiting on to see where the line goes, because we were never able to get that key number of +3 on the opener. I will have a Colts ticket in this game, it is simply a matter of picking the right entry point and getting the best number. It is worth the risk of this dropping to a pick, or Colts -1, in my opinion, since the reward may be seeing Titans -3 later in the week.
My number in this game is Colts -1, and that’s already with an adjustment for home-field that gets stronger for Thursday night teams as the season goes on. I can’t get to the Titans being favored here, so that’s a pretty strong signal I need to be paying attention to this market.
Most people may remember the Titans being ultra-competitive with the still-undefeated Steelers but there are warning signs everywhere with this team. The week before Pittsburgh, they needed to OT to dispatch Houston, in a game they probably should have lost. After narrowly losing to Pittsburgh, Tennessee lost outright to the Bengals.
Then this past week, they were significantly outgained by Nick Foles and the lowly Bears, a game in which Ryan Tannehill went 10-for-21 and Derrick Henry ran 21 times for just 68 yards. Tennessee was the beneficiary of a defensive touchdown in this game that really swung the likely winner.
Considering that Indianapolis closed a favorite against the elite Ravens in their last game (at home, granted), it is unlikely Tennessee can be getting so much credit here legitimately, especially given its recent track record.
Again, I know I’m betting Indianapolis barring a frightening injury report Tuesday or Wednesday, but I am simply lying in wait for the +3, and if it never shows, I’ll take the best number I can get on gameday. But by betting openers or spreads throughout the week, I am at least giving myself the option for something better than whatever’s available Thursday.
Follow Ken Barkley on Twitter @LockyLockerson