In today's Betting Life Newsletter, presented by Guillotine Leagues:
Total Recall: “One must first have a solid foundation.” An age-old adage, simple and true. As someone who builds forward-facing arguments to forecast publicly, I find this core philosophy resonates with me as a root principle. Nothing great has ever been built of mind or matter without an unshakable base.
Wednesday marks square one to set that foundation for the NFL betting week ahead. My favorite place to start that grind comes directly from the books themselves. Remember, the house can’t help but tip its hand by posting live lines.
For whatever reason, team totals can be impossible to wrangle in one spot, creating a constant source of frustration. In my never-ending quest to make this newsletter an irreplaceable part of your daily routine, I charted all the baseline (-110) NFL team totals with this weekend’s opponents. Allow me to do the dirty work and highlight outliers so you won’t have to.
Gut Reactions: Venue plays an obvious role in totals, but this weekend feels especially heavy-handed. Six of the seven lowest totals hit the road, and all six of the highest expected totals will host. We called out BAL last week for being too high (29.5) against an above-average Browns’ defense. I will repeat this every week—a ton needs to happen to score 28-plus points. Plus, we suspected Cleveland would operate on offense (they did), which also eats up precious game clock.
I’d stick Buffalo in that same exact bin for Week 9 against what I’d conservatively call a top-quartile Dolphin defense. Remember, it’s significantly harder to dominate defensively when the offense is impotent. Similar to Cleveland (maybe even more so), Miami is competent with the ball, possessing the ability to sustain clock-consuming drives throughout.
Total recall indeed …
You can also use our NFL Game Betting Model to identify the biggest edges on game totals, spreads, and moneylines!
What else is in today’s newsletter?
- Wednesday Charts
- The New York Prop Exchange
Wednesday Charts🧠📊—Team Expected Points Added Per Play
Each week we present the league through the lens of a single image. While no one picture or stat can truly shoulder such a load, learning to take the temperature of each team’s offensive and defensive expected points added (EPA) will sharpen your game—this per-play metric that defines the value of each play by the effect it has on the offense's likelihood to score.
It provides an analytically dense, perspective-laden snapshot that is absolutely worth familiarizing yourself with.
NOTE: The cross is league average. Also, positive EPA is ideal on both sides of the ball—so in this specific case below, the closer to the upper-right corner, the better a team’s combined performance in both phases.
THE GOOD:
DET—Keeping the far-right corner as a goal in mind, the only word is wow. Perfect example of these charts providing a unique perspective, the Lions are the league’s best offense and second-best defense, but here you can see by just how much.
PHI—Philly’s Week 5 bye came at the perfect time. Returning both A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith boosted the offense in three straight wins since—culminating in a massive statement win last week in Cincinnati.
You can dive into more Team Styles, Trends, and data with our Utilization Report Tool Suite here!
THE BAD:
DAL—Every roster-based preseason concern for pessimistic Cowboys fans continues to manifest and compound weekly. This last month’s been so bad it’s honestly hard to tell which side of the ball’s disappointed more given the relative health of their star players. Losing Dak Prescott or CeeDee Lamb could (and by could I mean will) cause an immediate catastrophe.
LV—Quarterbacking matters … a lot. Professional front offices should know better than to enter a season with two prospective QBs who frankly would struggle to make most teams as backups. Jettison is your best player on offense (no slight to my boy Brock Bowers) and there you have it—a recipe for weekly disaster out in the Sin City desert. Watching the tape I’ll plant my flag on the defense’s ability to perform but it simply cannot be done alone. Inefficient play from the offense, packaged with an abundance of bad sacks and inexcusable picks creates shortness of field and breath.
THE UGLY:
CAR—Abandon ship! Swim for shore and don’t stop. There are hardly words for this current iteration of the Panthers, one of the most disjointed and poorly constructed rosters in NFL history. Do yourself a favor and do not bet on CAR this season (you can thank me later).
More Team-Based Trends To Follow
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The latest analysis and insights from our merry band of sports betting nerds:
📈 Joe Flacco in, Anthony Richardson out. How does this change affect the spread?
🏀 The NBA is back with a massive Wednesday slate … betting edges to exploit.
📊 Movers and Shakers entering Week 10. Updated College Football Power Rankings.
⚾️ Game 5 … where is the public leaning?
👀 Week 9 bets are flooding in … don’t miss the early value.
The New York Prop Exchange⚾️🏛️—All Hands On Deck
What a World Series so far (yes, even for Yankee fans). I’m still all messed up from Game 1, tilted Gleyber Torres let Shohei Ohtani get to third on the throw-in from Juan Soto. It’s always the little things that wind up making all the difference in life, I guess. And for the record, I LOVE Freddie Freeman too; a consummate professional, family man, all around great dude. Fandom aside, it almost seems a shame New York lost that instant classic—if only to have it tied right now with the promise of more baseball.
The Highlanders turn to Cole 45 tonight with hopes the 324M dollar man will validate that enormous bi-weekly paycheck. Doesn’t take pro analysis (though I guess we did lay all this out last week) to see the Dodgers not only mash, but similar to their pinstriped counterparts, L.A. brings a great collective approach to the plate in terms of patience, reach, and contact quality.
Every plate appearance becomes a battle, taxing the opposing starter’s precious pitch count. And that’s where I’m placing my chips tonight, on what I really hope isn’t our last MLB prop of 2024. Gerrit Cole managed to get through six innings in Game—but that was on just 88 pitches, 1 shy of his 2024 playoff-high, only five days ago (image below). Combine the element of elimination with Los Angeles’ quant-obsessed analytical team and I highly doubt Boone gives Cole a leash long enough to get 18 outs.
Of course, Cole could also come out and get shelled from the jump, yanked early, and booed—in which case at least I can cry over the quick hook into a small pile of money when I go to sleep tonight.
THE BET: Gerrit Cole Under 17.5 Outs (-125; FanDuel)
