Intro by Sam
There’s no way to contain our excitement: Week 5 was the best week in One Last Line history! We went a combined 5-0-1 totaling $31.45 in winnings. Yank recorded the highest winnings accumulated in any week, surpassing my 3-0 and $17.15 returns in Week 13 of last season. Yank also sits in the black for the year at total winnings of $35.65 and a record of 5 straight weeks in the black. While our world might still come crashing down, we’re starting to feel some momentum. Let’s take a look back at what went right.
The Recap
We started things off on the right foot by sniffing out some fishy line movement in the Eagles-Panthers game for our Collaboration. That game really wasn’t on our radar until we mysteriously saw the line move towards the Eagles despite a massive number of tickets coming in on the Panthers. As we’ve laid out, that fits the auto-bet strategy. Somewhere along the lines, the sharps like the Eagles. And while it didn’t look like it had a chance for most of that game, the Eagles managed to really come through for us.
In the Confrontation, we had a first: a push* (of sorts). Yank grabbed an alternative line of Bengals+3.5 by laying a little more juice (-125), while I had the Packers-3. As a resident hardo who hates losing, that was some tricky shit. Nevertheless, we negotiated that for the purposes of the Confrontation, the outcome of that matchup will count as a push in the head-to-head record, but as a win for Yank in the overall standings and the bank, because as Yank will tell you: he did *win* the bet. At the end of the day though, a push-win combo is about as good as it can get for the Confrontation which is rapidly becoming my Achilles heel, so I’ll take my not-loss while I can get it.
Finally, we both managed to be right on the same day with our Isolation picks. In the hunt for fishy lines, Yank was all over the Bears-Raiders matchup taking the Bears ML at +205. While it probably would’ve made sense from a football perspective no matter what, in retrospect, the Jon Gruden chaos probably played a bigger role behind the scenes and I should’ve seen that coming. While I would’ve like to have +205 odds, it was important that I get back in the win column and settled for the spread bet Texans+9.5. Davis Mills showed out for me a lot more than I anticipated but made me feel better for not taking the ML by ultimately letting the Patriots escape with the win.
The Strategies
- Watch line movement carefully. Sharps move the lines and we want to be on the side with them.
- Pick more underdogs. Even though many of them lose more than 50% of games, they still cover about 50% of the time.
- Put in bets earlier. Once you get to Sunday, the lines are close to perfectly efficient.
Week 6 Picks
The Collaboration (3-2):
The Los Angeles Chargers @ the Baltimore Ravens-2.5 (-115)
Yank: Thinking about last week as I read through The Recap, it’s impossible not to have butterflies in the stomach. It really can’t get any better than last week went for us. We’re really hitting our stride. I’m so excited to keep the momentum going in week 6 and ohmygodwhatthehellishappening? Have you guys seen the matchups this week? Every game is weird! Every line is weird! This is the toughest time we have ever had settling on a pick for the collaboration.
Sam: As Yank is right to point out, we’re both feeling pretty good after Week 5 and while Week 6 looks pretty daunting, you know who else is feeling pretty good after Week 5? Lamar Jackson and the Ravens after he amassed over 500 yards of offense by himself. That’s the guy whose side I want to be on. The strategies are hard to decipher this week. A lot of the lines moved in the direction of the favorites, but a lot of lines haven’t moved much at all. This game is one of those. The line has ticked slightly in the direction of the Chargers by about a half-point, but for how much money is on the Chargers, something isn’t adding up. While we’d like the line to move our way, the line only moving slightly feels like it’s balanced out by sharp money. And on the football side of things, Staley and his band of warriors on defense will be a tough task, but Lamar has shown he’s capable of hanging with anyone. No defense has yet to figure out how to stop him.
Yank: At the end of the day we had to pick something. The Chargers hype train is alive and well. I love Brandon Staley, but Ethan Douglas’ model on The Athletic suggests the Ravens are 6 points better than the Chargers. The Ravens are battle-tested and Lamar Jackson has come through in multiple precarious situations this year. I don’t really like backing a favorite and I definitely don’t like going against the line moving towards the Chargers, but might as well steer into the weirdness this week. Nothing makes any sense, so why should our picks.
Yank’s Play: $5.00 on the Ravens-2.5 (-113)
Sam’s Play: $5.75 on the Ravens-2.5 (-115)
The Confrontation (Yank 4-0-1*; Sam 0-4-1*):
The Dallas Cowboys-3.5 @ the New England Patriots (-110)
Sam: Here I am once again giving Yank another matchup that fits the strategies more for the Patriots than it does the Cowboys. If this ultimately doesn’t cover for the Cowboys, consider this the last time I will go against our strategies in the Confrontation. I’m willing to go against the strategies in this case for a couple of reasons. 1. The strategies aren’t crystal clear in this case. The line really hasn’t moved much. 2. The Cowboys are good at football. They can put up points in a hurry. They’re 3rd in points for in the NFL (after the Bucs have played an extra game). 3. They are 5-0 ATS this season. That’s particularly impressive when you think that the Cowboys are likely to be overvalued due to their star power and name recognition. Of course, they’re unlikely to go 17-0 ATS, but getting them at 3 points feels like a reasonable number even if it’s in New England.
Yank: I’m shocked that Sam selected this matchup for The Confrontation. Sticking to the strategies has won me money for 5 straight weeks. It really is as simple as that as we examine this matchup. Do 3 points seem like too few for the Cowboys to be favored by? Absolutely, you know who agrees? The entire public. The tickets are monsooning in for the Cowboys. Meanwhile, the line has not moved at all, sitting at 3.5 points all week long. Check. Secondly, I kind of hate this pick, my first George Constanza-type thought was to bet the Cowboys here. Check. Finally, who wins the coaching matchup here, the greatest coach of all time or Mumblecore Mike McCarthy? Check. A few weeks ago I told Sam I’d gladly take better-coached teams at home on the Moneyline as dogs every week, wash rinse repeat for the rest of the season. I’m taking the points here for the sake of the bit but don’t be shocked if the Pats win outright.
Yank’s Play: $5.00 on the Patriots+3.5 (-110)
Sam’s Play: $5.00 on the Cowboys-3 (-125)
The Isolation (Yank 2-3; Sam 2-3):
The Cincinnati Bengals @ the Detroit Lions+3.5 (-110)
Yank: I am telling you right now, go against this pick. I am certain this is going to lose because I chose it 100% with my heart. Did you see the Dan Campbell press conference last week? I love to make fun of the kneecap gobbling as much as the next guy but that guy has more heart than the Tinman after Dorothy leaves Oz. His players should be ready to run through a wall this week. Meanwhile, I am currently in Cincinnati and it’s close to impossible for me to envision these people supporting a 4-2 football team. More acutely they’ve been going to OT every week and have to be exhausted. Their kicker literally can’t tell if he has made or missed a kick. Joe Burrow has gotten more stuffing knocked out of him than the Scarecrow when the flying monkeys come to town. How many more meaningless opinions and Wizard of Oz analogies can I stack here? Listen, I will be the first to admit none of this means anything, but I am taking the (cowardly?) Lions and you cannot stop me (please please please for the love of god fade this).
Yank’s Play: $4.00 on the Lions ML (+160)
The Minnesota Vikings-2.5 @ the Carolina Panthers (-130)
Sam: We’ve already covered how weird of a week it is, so I’m leaning into that weirdness. A rarely seen, Sam taking his own team to win outright. This bet says less about my confidence in the state of the Vikings and some key nuggets I’ve picked up this week. First, the sharps have moved this line from opening at Panthers-1 and is now as high as Vikings-2.5. While McCaffery is out and the books/sharps likely had that information before us squares, but I think the sharps liked this line regardless. A running back can’t be worth 3.5 points. I grabbed this as the ML because I wanted to test what it would be like to essentially grab the line at what it was before the sharp movement. On the football side of things, there are a couple of Vikings nuggets that feel important. First of all, the Panthers play a single high safety. Typically Justin Jefferson and Adam Thielen feast when teams do that. Kirk doesn’t like throwing into double coverage and if JJ is guarded one on one, he might as well not be guarded.
Second, the Vikings did a self-scout this past week of why they haven’t been scoring as much the last few weeks and in the second half. They’ve hinted at the fact that they’ve become a little too predictable in certain sets (read: second and long runs). This could mean a lot more passing to the best players on the team, but I won’t hold my breath. So even if the changes are only minor, I think the defensive matchup favors a scoring attack through the air if the offensive line can hold up. Speaking of the offensive line, Christian Darrisaw, the Vikings 1st round left tackle will either start or play a majority of snaps this week. He showed a lot of the things that made him a first-round tackle in his handful of snaps last week, and while I’m sure there will be hiccups, Rashod Hill, the Vikings starter thus far, is graded worst in the league and is responsible for almost 40% of all pressures on Kirk this season. Darrisaw should be even a slight upgrade.
Sam’s Play: $5.20 on the Vikings ML (-130)
The Bank-Week 6
| Yank | Sam | |
| Starting: | $135.65 | $81.00 |
| Risk: | $14.00 | $15.95 |
| Potential Earnings: | $15.37 | $13.00 |
| Record: | 10-5 | 5-10-1 |
| Record Against The Spread: | 6-0 | 2-7-1 |
Authors: Sam Mattson and Michael Yanckello
One Last Line 