Dave Price
Seahawks/Saints Over 48.5
The OVER is 8-0 in New Orleans' last 8 home games. Their offense is one of the best in the NFL, averaging 29.2 points per game this season. They are scoring an impressive 35.7 points per game at home. But their defense remains one of the league's worst. They are giving up 32.5 points per game overall and 39.3 points per game at home this season. The Seahawks will finally get their offense going this week and put forth one of their best scoring outputs of the season. Their defense is vulnerable right now because they just played an OT game against the Cardinals last week in which their defense was on the field for a whopping 46 minutes.
Frank Jordan
San Diego Chargers vs. Denver Broncos
Play: Denver Broncos -3.5
San Diego won on a Thursday game at home over Denver 21-13 sending the Broncos to their second loss. Denver responded on Monday night football with a 27-9 win over Houston. Denver is chomping at the bit to get back at San Diego for beating them and they will be as fired up as they were on Monday. One big key is will the Denver running game be as strong with Booker handling the ball or will that push the pressure on Siemian to lead the way fully in the passing game. San Diego started 1-4, but the last two weeks picked up two quality wins over Denver and Atlanta, but winning their third in a row will be tougher going into Denver. Rivers has 34 touchdowns and 19 interceptions in 22 games against the Broncos, but is 11-11 against Denver. Look for Rivers to be chased early and often as the Denver defense puts pressure on big time forcing some mistakes as the Broncos win 27-17.
SPORTS WAGERS
Cleveland +210 over CHICAGO
The Cubbies simply cannot relax while the Indians have all the swag in this series. Sometimes, a universe turns on a single moment, and sometimes that moment doesn’t matter. Two such moments of interest from Friday’s game, which the Indians ended up winning 1-0.
With one out in the fifth inning, Kyle Hendricks' last pitch of the evening clipped Jason Kipnis, sending the burly second baseman to first and loading the bases for Cleveland in a 0-0 game. At that point, Joe Maddon had seen enough, and the decision to pull Hendricks was fairly straightforward. Hendricks had pitched effectively enough for the previous four innings, but had leaned too heavily on an inconsistent strike zone (as called by John Hirschbeck) and left a pitch or two higher in the zone than you’d like on a night when the wind was whipping out of Wrigley Field to left.
And so, Hendricks’ night was done, after just 4 ⅓ innings. So far, so easy. But who to bring in? After an off day, and with Francisco Lindor—the hottest hitter on either team—at the plate, the Cubs had a litany of options at their disposal. Aroldis Chapman was available. Pedro Strop was available. Hector Rondon was available. Heck, even Carl Edwards Jr. was available, and Travis Wood and Mike Montgomery. But Joe Maddon went with Justin Grimm, the fourth or fifth guy in the Cubs’ pen.
Grimm wasn’t a bad choice, to be clear—he generates ground balls at about a 40 percent clip, and strikes batters out only a quarter less often—but, with the game on the line, he sure as hell wasn’t the first name to come to mind. Process says, in a moment like that, you bring in your top reliever, inning be damned, but, you know, who gives a heck about process. Grimm, prior to lat night, had thrown to 38 batters with the bases loaded. He had not generated a single double play. On his sixth pitch to Lindor, after getting ahead 0-2 early and then falling back to a full count with three straight balls, he finally got the twin killing he’d been looking for, and the Cubs left the inning with a seven percent better chance to win than they’d had at the outset. It didn’t matter, as the Cubbies lost anyway despite the weak move by Maddon that panned out at the time.
The Cubs were chasing pitches out of the zone the entire night and never really seemed to get in the game offensively. It continued last night too. Kris Bryant, in particular, had a bad night, missing badly on a few sequences, and time and time again Cubs hitters just straight up failed to make clean contact on balls fouled straight back or popped up. In a 1-0 game, you can look a lot of different places for the strategic move that mattered. if you want to talk about strategy, the middle innings of this game are where you want to focus—but who gives a crap about strategy when you can’t execute.
The Cubs couldn’t execute Friday night and they were worse on Saturday. They’re making errors, they are tight and there is tension throughout the ballpark, as fans are just waiting for them to lose. That, more than Andrew Miller, Justin Grimm, Kyle Hendricks, Josh Tomlin, Cory Kluber and others put them in a 3-1 series hole that they are not likely to get out of. The price in this one is sick. Of course the Indians can and probably will finish them off here.
The Prez
Seahawks at Saints
Play: Over 47.5
The well traveled Seattle Seahawks take the "Big Easy" by storm in a Sunday event against the New Orleans Saints. This Week #8 event is scheduled to kickoff at 1:00 p.m. ET at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome
The Seahawks (-2.5, 47.5) pit their top-ranked scoring defense against an offensive minded Drew Brees and the Saints
New Orleans offense is one of the more machine like units in the league and their ability, talent and technical savvy under the leadership of Brees trumps Seattle’s overvalued defense. The Saints are averaging 36 points and 500-plus yards per game under the Mercedes roof and are ready to take advantage of a Seahawks defense that is coming off a grueling and grinding 6-6 tie in the heat of the Arizona desert.
Seattle is better known for winning game defensively but they are more than capable on offense with a healthy Jimmy Graham catching passes from Russell Wilson.
The oddsmakers have placed a generous over-under on the betting board for today NFC Free Pick. They have done so, for good reason, as the Seahawks’ offense has been held to 13-points or less in three of their six games this season. But today's spot is favorable for Wilson and company to break out of their point-scoring slump. Super-Russell and the 'Hawks offense are in a perfect position to excel facing the soft zone coverage of the Saints in the air-conditioned Superdome.
Marco D'Angelo
Kansas City Chiefs at Indianapolis Colts
Play: Kansas City Chiefs -2.5
Kansas City fans remember the last time they played in this stadium as it was the 2013 playoffs in Kansas City was up 38-10 in the third quarter before losing 45–44 and one of the most bizarre come backs in playoff history. Even though Kansas City was able to win last week you have to be concerned that they only put up 326 yards against a very bad Saints defense but they face another bad defense this week. Indianapolis returns home after back to back road games against division rivals Houston and Tennessee. Kansas City should have success running the football against the Colts as Indianapolis is allowing 4.7 yards per carry this season. Last weeks eight point win by Indianapolis is misleading as they got a scoop and score late in the fourth quarter to get that margin. The Kansas City dink and dunk offense will keep Andrew Luck and the Colts offense on the sidelines for long periods of time. My numbers have Kansas City winning by 6 or more.
Executive Sports
New York Jets at Cleveland Browns
Play: Cleveland Browns +2.5
Play Against Road favorites (NY JETS) with a good rushing defense allowing 90 or less rushing yards/game, after allowing 75 or less rushing yards last game. (54-23, 70% over the last 10 seasons.) ( 3-1 this season )
NY JETS are 3-13 ATS versus excellent rushing teams - averaging >=5 rushing yards/carry since 1992.
Cal Sports
Patriots vs. Bills
Play: Over 46.5
The Patriots’ offense has performed better on the road this year compared to at home averaging 409 YPG and 6.3 yards/play. Teams will usually have better numbers away when one of their home games was a shutout loss to this same Bills squad. Belichick and company are now 9-0 O/U with division revenge and they their games in Buffalo have gone OVER each of the last 2 seasons as well as 4 of their last 5 visits. The Bills offense has led them to not only 3 straight OVERS scoring 30, 45 and 25 points the last 3 weeks but they are also 3-0 O/U at home scoring 45, 33 and 31 points. NE currently ranks #6 in rush YPG and versus a Bills defense that ranks #27 makes the Tom Brady play-action even stronger.
Buster Sports
New York Jets at Cleveland Browns
Play: New York Jets -3
The Jets to say the least have had a very disappointing season but they do have a bright spot as they have the 4th ranked run defense in the league after holding the Ravens to 6 yards last week. OUCH. The Browns have had a typical Browns year so far with their 0-7 record and they are definitely looking to secure the Number 1 draft choice again even though we are just coming up on halfway through the NFL season. Both teams have had QB troubles and the Browns will get often injured QB Josh McCown back for the contest. While the Jets will have to settle for Ryan Fitzpatrick as Geno Smith was injured last week and is now gone for the season. We like the fact that Fitzpatrick is back and playing with a chip on his shoulder and we believe the Jets will rally around their veteran leader. This is just what the doctor ordered for the Jets as they try and put back to back wins together for the first time this year. This is also a good matchup for the Jets going against Cleveland's D that has been just bad this year against the run and the pass. The oddsmaker has this line at 3 at the time of this writing and we had this line at 5 1/2. Lots of value for us at 3 here so we will LAY IT.