Week 15 of the season is already in full flow after the Raiders scored 63 points on Thursday night to finally bring to an end the Brandon Staley era at the Chargers while we had three games last night which had playoff implications across the conferences. The Bengals won their third game in a row with Jake Browning at QB as they beat the Vikings in Overtime, the Steelers lost their third game in a row by getting smashed by the Colts and Jared Goff threw 5 TDs for the Lions as they comfortably beat the Broncos to take a big step towards the NFC North title and a home playoff game.
Sunday is highlighted by the Cowboys at the Bills which nearly made my best spread of the week as I think the Cowboys superior defense will help them get the win in Buffalo, although the cold weather expected there has put me off as Dak doesn’t have a good record when things get chilly. The early games don’t look great on paper but will surely throw up some shocks.
As a whole scoring has been down quite a bit this year and the league don’t tend to like that so I think we could see an uptick with the referees letting the players play more than they would otherwise (The ignored very blatant DPI on Tee Higgins last night could be representative of that)
Best Spread – Ravens -3 (QuinnBet)
The Baltimore Ravens are the best team in the AFC this year, they’re getting career best play out of Lamar Jackson now that he has some talent to throw the ball to and are probably the best defense in the conference as well despite giving up over 30 points to the Rams last weekend, that game will be a wake up call to them as they look to cement their place atop the conference and keep on target for the 1 seed and bye week.
The run game is always good with the threat of Lamar Jackson taking off and the explosivity of Keaton Mitchell helps them no end in that aspect with Gus “the Bus” Edwards proving ever reliable at the goal-line when they get there. They’re getting good play from Odell Beckham at last who had 90+ and a TD last week and he forms a good trio with Zay Flowers and Rashod Bateman.
The Jags are fine, they’re an average team and despite Trevor Lawrence looking fine with an ankle sprain last week he did give the ball away multiple times. They have been relying on Evan Engram since Christian Kirk went down and I think they’ll struggle to put up more than 20 points this weekend. The defense has given up 30 points to backup QBs in multiple weeks now and facing the AFC MVP-leader at QB probably won’t go well for them. Let’s go DIRTY BIRDS.
Talking of Dirty Birds I do like the Falcons to cover against the terrible Panthers as well.
Best Total – Bears @ Browns over 37.5 (Bet365)
I was tempted to go with the Comnanders and Rams in LA, they have been dead-nut over teams for most of the season and I don’t see that changing with the Rams offense looking like it’s firing on all cylinders, but it’s the highest on the board so while I may still go on it personally I didn’t want to take it here.
The Bears have been resurgent in recent weeks with Justin Fields trying to show he’s the man for the future in Chicago, he has ran for over 50 and a TD and provided a 4th down TD for DJ Moore who has had a big season, the offense is mainly those two but Cole Kmet has stepped up multiple times this year as well, but this total doesn’t really come down to them. The Browns defense has dropped off as the offense has stepped up in recent weeks and that’s my angle on the total going over here.
Joe Flacco is, remarkably, the best QB they’ve had all season and he’s pushing the ball downfield a lot more than the other chumps they’ve had under center this year. David Njoku and Amari Cooper can show up while Elijah Moore seems to have a decent connection with Flacco. They maybe without Kareem Hunt but Jerome Ford has done well on the ground.
It’s a low total, the weather doesn’t look like it’ll be too bad so I’ll take the over.
Best TD Scorer – Raheem Mostert – 11/10 (SkyBet)
The Miami running back has scored 18 times this season, that’s more than he had in his entire career before this season and while I do think the Jets defense will put up a fight the Dolphins will be looking to bounce back from their Monday night loss and the ground game with he and Achane should be the way they do it in a potentially weather affected game. I am very surprised to see him priced above evens so I’ve got to take him to find the endzone here.
Deebo Samuel is also above evens for the 49ers in a game I think they win by 14+ against the Cardinals, so that’s a tasty double if you fancy it.
Best Player Prop – Tommy DeVito o30.5 rush yards – 5/6 (PaddyPower)
The Italian stallion has actually made the Giants kinda fun and watchable since he came into the line-up and he retains his place after guiding the Giants to a win over the Packers on Monday night. He rushed for 71 yards in that game as he looks to take off when he feels pressure instead of taking costly sacks. He’s got Saquon Barkley looking good on the ground and the passing game worked well this week past as well. But it’s the ground I’m looking at as he goes up against a Saints defense which has been poor against rushing QBs so far this season.
Good Luck if you’re following and with whatever you’re on this week!
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