NFL Betting News and Trends For Sunday, January 14, 2018

Sunday's Top Wagers
January 12, 2018
By BetOnline.ag

Raise your hand if you had “Blake Bortles” and “Case Keenum” in your quarterback survivor pool this far in to the season. The Sunday NFL divisional playoff battles are filled with so many questions, but none more fascinating than Bortles and Keenum playing for contracts.

Can they get the job done to keep their jobs?

Odds per BetOnline.ag

Jacksonville Jaguars (11-6) vs. Pittsburgh Steelers (13-3)
Sunday, Jan 7th – Heinz Field – 1:05 p.m. ET
NFL Divisional Playoff Spread: Pittsburgh -7 (41)

Can’t say enough great things about the Jaguars defensively. They’re the top rated bunch of stoppers in the AFC, and to make matters worse for the Steelers they’re 2nd in sacks, picks and 7th in fumbles. They do everything you could possibly ask for.

I wish I could say the same thing about Blake Bortles, a man who is commanding an offence that I have no idea what to make of. Leonard Fournette went from talking about how easy football is in Week 1, to looking like a shell of himself by the end of the season. The receivers are all pretty damn good, but they have Bortles hurling footballs down the field like he’s trying to get a raccoon off his parent’s roof by throwing jugs of milk at it.

Nope. Can’t do it. Won’t do it!

Odds to win AFC Champion and Super Bowl LII
Jacksonville Jaguars +800 / +1600
Pittsburgh Steelers +225 / +550

How many times do we have to talk about Ben Roethlisberger’s demise, the Steelers’ defence falling apart or what have you before we just remind ourselves that Pittsburgh is really, really good at winning football games? Even with a half-healed Antonio Brown, they’re a truly balanced contender.

Besides, Jacksonville spent this season lost to the Jets, Cardinals, Niners and Titans on the road this season. I don’t care that they beat Pittsburgh in Week 5. That was a lifetime ago. The Steelers show up in big games when it matters unless they’re playing New England.

I could rip off a bunch of trends, but I’m also leaning on the tired old adage that “warm weather teams play bad in cold weather”. That may sound lazy, but that’s the impact Bortles is having on me overall with this game.

I am betting, cheering and hoping for the Steelers-Patriots AFC Championship we all deserve. The last thing I need is to come up Bortles jokes for another week. Real Ben Roethlisberger takes down Fake Ben Roethlisberger in this weekend’s Ben Roethlisberger lookalike contest.

The combination of Bortles and the Jaguars defence makes this UNDER about as appetizing as UNDERS get.

NFL Divisional Playoff Free Pick: Pittsburgh -7 (UNDER 41)

New Orleans Saints (12-5) vs. Minnesota Vikings (13-3)
Sunday, Jan 7th – U.S. Bank Stadium – 4:40 p.m. ET
NFL Divisional Playoff Spread: Minnesota -5 (46.5)

The oddsmakers painted themselves in to a corner when they thought that the Vikings would be a public team. Not so fast. New Orleans is roaring on this NFL divisional playoff betting line already. While I expect it to change, I would suspect that it lands somewhere around the natural home line as opposed to any drastic shift in the other direction.

But what’s the actual best bet here?

Minnesota spanked New Orleans when these two teams met in the first game of the regular season. Back then, the Saints looked like they were going to get blown out by everyone and Sam Bradford was pretty much the best quarterback walking this totally spherical earth of ours. Times have changed. Like, a lot.

The Vikings rampaged through the regular season with a brilliant, spread busting record of 11-5 ATS and built an actual Super Bowl contender around backup quarterback and recent Texans castaway Case Keenum. It’s strange to hear people talk about Keenum in reverent tones. He’s making $2 million this year and has been a total afterthought in the conversation his whole career. What he’s managed is incredible, but it’s crazy that he’s piloting the best overall team in the league.

It speaks volumes about putting a decent quarterback in a position to succeed. Zimmer had no choice but to entrust Keenum with the offence, and losing Delvin Cook along the way didn’t seem to slow down this team at all largely because he gave Keenum the freedom to be himself. Enter the lighting and thunder combination of Latavius Murray and waiver wire super hero Jerick McKinnon, couple them with two of the best receivers in the league and Minnesota is one of the best teams in the league.

Granted, having the league’s top rated defence helps a ton as well. The Vikings allowed just 275.9 yards and 15.8 points against, stats you know full well by this point.

This Minnesota team should be lauded for putting together a season to remember under otherwise impossible circumstances. It’s a great story that’s compounded by the idea that Minnesota could even be the first team to host and play in the Super Bowl.

Again, let’s pump the brakes there.

Odds to win NFC Championship and Super Bowl LII
New Orleans Saints +275 / +600
Minnesota Vikings +130 / +350

There’s a reason that people are jumping all over New Orleans at +5.0 already. The biggest tie breaker that exists in the NFL is the quarterback. Whacky, herky jerky things can happen in the playoffs but the better quarterbacks usually win out over the long term when all other things are relatively even.

New Orleans poses a massive threat to Minnesota with a trio of wide receivers that demand the attention of secondaries, giving Kamara and Ingram plenty of running room. The damage that the Saints can do on the ground is insurmountable in a game like this.

All of this completely opens up the offence for Drew Brees in a way that he has never been able to enjoy. The results are astounding. Brees threw for 4,334 yards this season with 23 touchdowns and 8 interceptions. That’s the lowest amount of yards he’s thrown for in 12 seasons since landing in New Orleans. His 536 attempts are also the second fewest ever outside of 2009. By cranking out a little less through the air, Brees has been able to mitigate mistakes. He has thrown for at least 11 interceptions every single year outside of 2018. And his rating is the third best ever during this tenure.

We all witnessed last weekend what Brees could do against a very capable Carolina secondary. He launched 23-of-33 passes for 376 yards and 2 touchdowns, completely taking over a game when his running game stalled out. This is deadly stuff. Brees as the engine of an offence was always terrifying. When he’s just one of many options? Holy hell.

People are also writing off the New Orleans defence like it’s not capable of ruining Case Keenum’s day. Of all the surprising metrics I’ve combed through to determine an advantage New Orleans might have that nobody is discussing, the fact that they hawked down 20 picks and 25 total takeaways this season is astonishing. Why? Because Minnesota only managed 14 and 5. That’s a big difference, especially considering that the Vikings played in a pass-first NFC North.

There’s unimaginable pressure on Keenum here, and a lot of signs point to him imploding. He’s playing for a contract. He’s still trying to prove that he’s the guy worth keeping over Bridgewater. He has to impress other NFL teams in dire need of a quarterback. At worst, he gets the franchise tag from the Vikings, but at best he’s offered a lucrative long-term deal that he frankly deserves.

Another surprising stat for the Saints is that they registered 42.0 sacks this season, tying them for 7th overall. By comparison, the Vikings only got to the quarterback 37 times which drops them to 17th overall.

We keep hearing about how other-worldly the Vikings defence has been while dutifully ignoring the simple fact that their division sucks, their schedule was easier than people want to admit and, most importantly, they’re playing the Saints this weekend.

New Orleans doesn’t have the same type of statistical numbers that Minnesota can boast defensively but they are sneaky in the big play areas – sacks and turnovers – that you need to turn the tides of momentum in a playoff game. I hate suggesting this about the Vikings, but they just don’t turn the ball over. They stop you – which is phenomenal – but you need a little bit more if there are genuine questions about what level your quarterback can take you to.

The public knows that New Orleans is an incredible bet at +5.0 right now. The sharps will bully this line down even further. Forget the road record of the Saints (4-4 SU and ATS) because a lot of it came against worthy teams like the Vikings in Week 1 before either team knew who they were, the Falcons and Rams with the Bucs stealing Week 17 away in their own version of a moral Super Bowl.

This Saints team has everything you could ever ask for and this game is way closer than the opening line suggests. Plus, Brees is in a dome. He LOVES domes! Let everyone else talk about how amazing the Vikings are defensively. They’re great. But New Orleans is stronger in strategically important areas that can shift the balance of power in a playoff game where the stakes are at their highest.

I loved the Saints prior to the playoffs starting as +1000 to win the NFC. I love them at +5.0. Hell I love them at any price on the moneyline when they’re getting points, but I’ll take the spread just to be safe. Especially when it’s this high.

NFL Divisional Playoff Free Pick: New Orleans +5 (UNDER 46.5)

Jacksonville Jaguars at Pittsburgh Steelers, 1:05 ET, CBS

These division winners will square off for the second time in just over three months, which is a bonus since it gives us an opportunity to examine whether what transpired the first time around was a fluke.

Was Ben Roethlisberger’s five-interception game simply a bad day in a storied career or potentially the beginning of the end? Did that game signal the rise of a young defense that looks elite and has already set one NFL record with seven touchdowns, or will they fail in their first road challenge against a veteran offense?

Jacksonville scored two of those seven defensive TDs on Oct. 8 and also racked up 231 rushing yards in its most impressive victory of the season, a 30-9 rout at Heinz Field after which a frustrated Roethlisberger commented that retirement might be around the corner.

Advertisement

Leonard Fournette broke off a 90-yard run with the game decided to add to the carnage, as Blake Bortles didn’t have to do much.

That again will be the key to victory for the upset-minded Jags, who arrive in Pittsburgh in the same situation that they were in back in Week 5 from a spread standpoint, getting 7.5 points.

“This is the least exciting game from an action standpoint,” said Bookmaker.eu spokesman Scott Cooley. “These are nearly the same odds we set during the regular season, and they were pretty tight then, and now. We've got a few sharps on each side of the spread, and the squares are actually fairly split as well, although there is slightly more public money on Pittsburgh.

“Currently, the money handle favors the Steelers 60-40. I don't think we'll see this total get to 42 as it feels like the pros are waiting to play the under in hopes of a better number.”

As of Saturday, the total is at 41 at most shops and many have taken back the additional half-point, offering Pittsburgh at -7.

Steelers safety Mike Mitchell provided bulletin board material by already commenting on a potential matchup with New England, which suggests the team may be looking past this game, but it would be awfully foolish to do that given what went down in the previous meeting.

Say what you will about the difference between a home playoff game and a regular-season affair, but there are a lot of reasons to be concerned if you’re Pittsburgh, starting with the fact that elite linebacker Ryan Shazier was present for that game and won’t be for this one. The Steelers couldn’t stop the Jacksonville ground game even with their fastest linebacker, so there could be plays to be made in the middle of the field.

Jacksonville’s biggest concern lies with the player who touches the ball on every snap, Bortles, who was largely dreadful in the Wild Card weekend win over Buffalo. He was out of sync with his passes and did the bulk of his damage with his legs instead of his arm, actually running for more yards (88) than he passed for (87) in his first career postseason start.

Roethlisberger has made 20 playoff starts over his career and obviously gives the Steelers a huge edge at the quarterback spot, but he’s got to fare better and avoid a pass rush that ranked second in the NFL with 55 sacks, one behind Pittsburgh.

Bortles actually threw the fewest number of interceptions in his career (13) and took his fewest sacks (24) while not turning it over in the red zone. His 60.2 clip on completions was also a personal best, but the Jaguars would prefer to keep it simple and allow the running game to do the bulk of the work.

Pittsburgh will likely also prefer to utilize its ground game to avoid having to challenge the best set of corners in the league, Jalen Ramsey and A.J. Bouye, who will be tasked with containing an excellent receiving corps featuring All-Pro Antonio Brown, Martavis Bryant and rookie Juju Smith-Schuster. Brown was sent home from practice due to an illness on Friday but looked good in practice all week after nursing a calf injury.

On the injury front, both teams come in relatively healthy considering the fact we’re in mid-January. Although Shazier is obviously out, still recovering from a horrific back injury, the Steelers will have corner Artie Burns (knee) and Stephon Tuitt (elbow) each practiced in full, so the bulk of their defense will be in play here.

Jacksonville also had health issues on the defensive side of the ball as Ramsey (achilles), Paul Posluzny (abdomen) and Telvin Smith (ankle) all took days off to try and heal up, but all will be in the lineup against the Steelers. Pittsburgh settled for field goals on all three red-zone drives and will need to make better use of its opportunities while balancing out the risk of testing the Jags defense.

In a game that will likely be decided by whatever the game’s biggest mistake winds up being, weather will also be a factor. Snow and temperatures in the teens were part of the equation on Saturday night, but it’s expected to be sunny on Sunday afternoon. In this case, don’t equate that with warmth since the game time temperature is expected to be roughly 10-14 degrees.

Follow Tony Mejia on Twitter at @TonyMejiaNBA

The final game of the divisional round looks to be the most entertaining one as the Saints visit Minnesota to face the Vikings in a Week 1 rematch. Minnesota is two victories away from being the first team ever to host a Super Bowl in its own stadium, while New Orleans is attempting to reach its first NFC championship since its Super Bowl winning season of 2009.

HOW THEY GOT HERE

The Saints (12-5 SU, 9-8 ATS) ended a three-year playoff drought by capturing their first NFC South title since 2011. New Orleans rolled through a trio of 7-9 seasons from 2014-2016 and things didn’t look to improve following an 0-2 start in 2017 following losses to Minnesota and New England. Things turned around in Week 3 as the Saints blasted the Panthers as five-point underdogs, 34-13, spurring on an eight-game winning streak. During that stretch, New Orleans limited six of those teams to 17 points or fewer, while covering seven times.

New Orleans split its final six games of the regular season, with all three losses coming on the road to the Rams, Falcons, and Buccaneers. Quarterback Drew Brees lifted the Saints to a home playoff victory last Sunday over the Panthers, 31-26, but Carolina cashed as 6 ½-point underdogs. Brees threw for 376 yards and two touchdowns, as the Saints overcame only 41 yards on the ground. The Saints are 7-4 in the playoffs since Brees arrived in New Orleans in 2006, including a perfect 5-0 mark at the Mercedes Benz Superdome.

The Vikings (13-3 SU, 11-5 ATS) were expected to ride the back of quarterback Sam Bradford this season as Teddy Bridgewater continued to rehabilitate from a knee injury suffered in 2016. Bradford won the opener against the Saints by throwing three touchdown passes, but a knee injury put the former Oklahoma standout on the shelf for 14 of the next 15 games.

Advertisement
Career backup Case Keenum stepped in and following two losses in first there starts, Minnesota won 11 of the final 12 games, including a perfect 5-0 mark at U.S. Bank Stadium. Keenum threw for 3,547 yards and 22 touchdowns, as the Vikings also went a majority of the season without standout rookie running back Dalvin Cook, who ripped up his ACL in a Week 4 overtime loss to Detroit. Latavius Murray became the feature back and compiled 842 yards and eight touchdowns in his first season with the Vikings after a four-year stint in Oakland.

HOME/AWAY SPLITS

Minnesota dominated at home this season by posting a 7-1 SU and 6-2 ATS record, while holding all eight opponents to 19 points or less. Since eclipsing the OVER in its first two home contests, Mike Zimmer’s team finished UNDER the total in five of the final six home games. The Vikings have won 13 of the last 17 home contests since the start of the 2015 season, but that includes a 10-9 setback to the Seahawks last January in the Wild Card round.

The Saints split eight games away from the Superdome this season, which includes a 20-0 shutout of the Dolphins in London back in Week 4. New Orleans last won away from the Big Easy in Week 10 in a 47-10 blowout at Buffalo, while its past three road defeats came by seven points or less, including underdog defeats to the Rams (26-20) and Falcons (20-17).

ATS NUMBERS

New Orleans had its issues in the underdog role this season by compiling a 1-4 SU/ATS record when receiving points, one season after posting an 8-1 ATS mark as a ‘dog in 2016. Minnesota started 2-3 ATS but put together seven consecutive covers prior to a Week 14 loss at Carolina as 2 ½-point favorites. The Vikings covered the next two games before failing to cash as 13 ½-point favorites in a 23-10 Week 17 win over the Bears.

SERIES HISTORY

Minnesota held off New Orleans in the season opener at U.S. Bank Stadium, 29-19 to cash as three-point favorites. The Saints registered four field goals in the first 52 minutes prior to a late Brees touchdown pass to Coby Fleener to cut the deficit to 10. Cook rushed for 127 yards in his NFL debut, while wide receivers Stefon Diggs (93 yards, two touchdowns) and Adam Thielen (157 yards) each torched the Saints’ secondary.

The victory by the Vikings snapped a four-game losing streak to the Saints dating back to January 2010. That game is a famous one because it’s the last time these teams met in the playoffs, a 31-28 home triumph by New Orleans in the 2009 NFC championship. Brett Favre was intercepted in the final minutes of regulation, as the Saints won in overtime on a 40-yard field goal by Garrett Hartley, but the Vikings covered as four-point underdogs.

PLAYOFF HISTORY

The Saints didn’t win their first postseason game until 2000 against the Rams, but New Orleans has picked up a playoff victory in four of the past nine seasons. Since Sean Payton took over as head coach in 2006, the Saints have won only one of four road postseason games, not including the Super Bowl victory over the Colts in 2009. New Orleans has never won multiple playoff games in a season outside of 2009, while losing its last two divisional playoff games by fewer than eight points.

Minnesota has picked up only one postseason victory since 2005, routing Dallas at home in the 2009 divisional round. The Vikings missed the playoffs last season, while suffering the heartbreaking one-point defeat to the Seahawks in the 2015 Wild Card game. Minnesota is in rarified air, as this franchise hasn’t made a Super Bowl since 1976, while losing five of their past six playoff games.

HANDICAPPER’S CORNER

VegasInsider.com handicapper Joe Nelson breaks down the New Orleans’ side, “The Saints are the only NFC team remaining led by a Super Bowl winning quarterback and while Brees was less prolific in the passing game this season, his stat-line is very similar to his 2009 season numbers, the year when the Saints upset the Colts in Super Bowl XLIV. Brees had a career-high 72 percent completion rate with his fewest attempts since that 2009 season and the fewest interceptions he has thrown since 2004.”

On the flip side, Nelson says Brees will have his hands full with the Minnesota defense, “This year’s Vikings team led the NFL in total and scoring defense. The key matchup will be the ground game with the Saints breaking their reputation to become one of the NFL’s top rushing offenses, posting 4.7 yards per carry. Minnesota allowed just 3.7 yards per rush. The turnover and scoring differential numbers for these teams were nearly identical in what is expected to be the most intriguing playoff game of the weekend with the winner headed towards being the favorite in next week’s NFC Championship.”

BOOKMAKER’S TAKE

Scott Cooley of BookMaker.eu points out to beware of the public underdog, “The public believes points with the Saints is a gift from God so they’re on that side to the tune of 70 percent. But during the last 48 hours, the sharps have spoken and they are all over Minnesota. The OVER in this game is our biggest total liability thus far. Sharps and squares love the over, and it’s the most wagered option by the wiseguys in the Divisional Playoffs thus far.”

You can reach Kevin Rogers via e-mail at [email protected]