Welcome to Week 8 of the 2024 Bad Beats roundup, a weekly column where Geoff Ulrich and I dissect the worst betting beats from around the NFL. 

First off, I just want to say: This is a safe space. The Betting Life team loads a ton of bets in our FREE Bet Tracker every week, and trust us, we don’t just do it for show. As much as we espouse the longterm profitability of our FantasyLife+ tools and projections, we, like anyone, also get caught up in the moment when things go against us (this is a fancy way of saying we like to whine like toddlers when we lose… especially on the bets we should have won!).

If you want a more specific breakdown of some of the biggest missed fantasy opportunities, also be sure to read Ian Hartitz’s “Sheesh Report,” a weekly feature of heartbreaking videos and stats, like Isaiah Likely’s should’ve-been 85-yard touchdown:

LaMarca’s Bad Beat No. 1: Play to the Final Whistle

Let’s not bury the lede here. The biggest bad beat of the week — and possibly the season — belongs to the Chicago Bears.

Let’s start just by diving into the betting action. It was believed for most of the week that Jayden Daniels would not play, which resulted in the Bears being slight road favorites. They were roughly -2.5 for most of the week, but after the news came down that Daniels would play, the Bears closed at +1.5. That means that unless you waited until the very last minute, you likely got Chicago at a “bad” number.

Still, it shouldn’t have mattered. The Bears were inept for most of the game, especially when they decided to hand the football to a backup offensive lineman on third-and-goal from the one:

That’s right. They were going in for a potential go-ahead score, and they chose to give the ball to someone who probably hasn’t handled the rock since elementary school. He promptly fumbled, leaving the Bears down five points.

No matter. They still managed to find a go-ahead touchdown late, and a successful two-point conversion gave them a three-point lead with 25 seconds left. The Commanders had just one timeout left, so the odds of them getting into FG range were slim. All they had to do was avoid a Hail Mary, and all the Bears’ backers would cover.

You know what happened next. Daniels lofted one 65 yards toward the end zone only for a defender to pop the ball straight in the air and fall perfectly into Noah Brown’s lap. It was a textbook example of what not to do on defense.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the defender who made the awful play on the ball spent the first part of the play taunting the crowd:

If Tyrique Stevenson wasn’t a second-round pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, he likely would’ve been cut. That’s simply inexcusable.

The good news is that Stevenson has apparently learned from his mistakes:

Notes taken! Lessons learned! It’s all good, Chicago; I’ve got you next time!

What an absolute joke. Thankfully, I wasn’t on the Bears in this spot, but if you were, you have my condolences.

Ulrich’s Bad Beat No. 1: Take My Eyes, But Not Jordan Love’s Leg!

Despite the Packers winning but failing to cover the -2.5 spread against the Texans last week, I decided to dip my toes back in the Packers waters for Week 8, taking them early in the week at -4.5 against Jacksonville. After all, the Jaguars were coming in off a two-week stint in London, and Green Bay’s defense stepped up in Week 7, holding CJ Stroud to one of his worst days as a pro. 

This game started slowly but picked up steam right before the half. The Jaguars cut the lead to 13-10 with a field goal, but I fully expected Green Bay to take control in the third quarter. The Packers had just scored on three straight drives to end the second quarter, and Jordan Love looked like he was on the verge of heating up. 

Then, three plays into the Packers' first drive of the second half, Love came up gimpy. 

The Packers wasted no time in taking him out and inserting Malik Willis, who, to his credit, led the Packers on a TD drive the next series — although most of the work was done by Josh Jacobs, who scored on a 38-yard TD run. 

At that point, the score was 27-17, and it looked like Green Bay might squeeze this cover out, but things went sideways fast. The Packers punted on their next two drives without Love, and the Jaguars were able to tie things up. 

But wait! Even in this admittedly dire scenario for us -4.5 bettors, we still had a shot at the cover. With the game tied and less than two minutes remaining, Willis drove the Packers inside the Jaguars 20, thanks mainly to a 51-yard pass to Jayden Reed. 

Does Reed score on this play if he cuts back inside? Probably. But it’s what came after this play that poured salt on our already exposed Packers wound. Facing second and 7, RB Chris Brooks took the handoff and had a clear path to the end zone. However, instead of scoring, Brooks took a self-imposed dive at the 3-yard line and essentially ended the game. 

Brooks made the right move. The Jaguars had one timeout left and would have had about 50 seconds left to operate down a TD. Still, the TD would have been Brooks’ first TD of his career, and no one would have blamed him for losing track of the goal line in the heat of the moment (especially not me). 

Alas, Brooks is not as geographically challenged as I am. In the end, the Packers ended up winning (again) and also failing to cover a spread shorter than 6.0 points (again), leaving us Packers spread bettors empty-handed (again).  

LaMarca’s Bad Beat No. 2: Welcome Back Tua!

I grabbed the Dolphins at -2.5 when the lines first opened on Sunday evening and watched this number get all the way to -4.5. It closed as high as -5.5 at some locations, so I was extremely happy with the process.

Of course, as we’ve said in this column all season, process doesn’t pay the bills. This is yet another bet that we can add to the CLV dumpster.

All appeared to be going well in Miami. The Dolphins were up 10 points in the third quarter, and they had the ball with 6:22 left on the clock. If they could pick up another score, we would be in really good shape!

Instead, Tua Tagovailoa managed to drop a pretty clean snap. The snap had a lot of heat on it — it wasn’t entirely Tagovailoa’s fault — but the velocity propelled the ball all the way to the goal line. At that point, Tua did the right thing and just whacked it out of the back of the end zone for a safety:

Instead of being up 10 with the football, the Dolphins were up eight and playing defense. Making matters worse, the Cardinals managed to drive down the field and score a touchdown, though they did miss the ensuing two-point conversion.

The Dolphins gave us a glimmer of hope by scoring a touchdown on their next drive, pushing the lead back to nine. But with nearly a full quarter left to go, there was more than enough time for the Cardinals to score another touchdown and eventually kick a game-winning field goal.

I’m not sure if this falls under the traditional definition of a “bad beat,” but I can tell you it left a sour taste in my mouth that few games have matched so far this season. This one simply wasn’t in the cards (pun intended).

Ulrich’s Bad Beat No. 2: Minshew Strikes (in Garbage Time)

I took the under on the Chiefs/Raiders game early last week at 42.5. It was nice to see this line move in my favor as it closed around 41.5/42.0 at most sportsbooks. The game actually started out poorly for us under bettors.

Patrick Mahomes looked like a man on a mission early. He drove the Chiefs for a TD on their first possession. The Raiders then answered quickly, making it 7-7 before the first quarter ended. 

Things did slow down after that. The teams scored a combined three points in the third quarter and the Chiefs executed a masterful nine-minute and 43-second drive in the fourth quarter that ended up resulting in a FG that made the score 20-13 KC. Everything looked fine and dandy for the under bettors. 

Then disaster struck. The Raiders made a vintage Raiders move, fumbling the ball inside their 40-yard line and giving the Chiefs great field position. Patrick Mahomes converted a third down and then threw a TD on second and 9 to make the score 27-13. Things were getting tight, but with four minutes remaining and the Raiders needing TDs and TDs only, the under was still looking strong. 

Of course, Gardner Minshew had different plans. He managed to convert a fourt and 1 at midfield and then drove inside the Chiefs 20. On third and 10, he somehow threw a perfect strike to a well-covered DJ Turner, who had two Chiefs about to decapitate him. 

Considering all of the drops and incompletions we see every week, I have no idea how this pass was completed. But it did, and the Raiders ended up killing the under — and my bet.