Intro by Sam
What a week for the boys! Yank with the perfect 3-0 followed by a 2-1 day from me. If you haven’t been paying attention, we’re on to something here and we’re going to keep the momentum going.
The Recap
Last week was almost the perfect outline of how to win money on sports betting from your boys at One Last Line. We started with a no-brainer in the Collaboration by picking the Cardinals-7.5 to take care of the Nagy-led Bears. Andy Dalton looked like someone attempting to play QB for the first time and the outcome of the bet was never in jeopardy. Thank you Cardinals.
Of course, one of us has to lose in the Confrontation, and we all know it’s going to be me. I once again stuffed Yank’s wallet by picking the Broncos to cover 9.5 points against the Chiefs. The Chiefs only managed to score 22 points, 6 of which came from a pick-6. If you had asked me going into the game, I would take that every. single. time. And yet, the Broncos decided to be awful instead and virtually no show. They couldn’t really even threaten to backdoor cover for me. But it is what it is. I understand that this is my destiny.
In the Isolation, we both had slam dunk bets. I nabbed the Football Team and had the perfect read on that game. Stock up for the Raiders off of a nice win against Dallas and stock neutral for the Football Team. Throw in a weird line that moved towards the Football Team and you had a recipe for winnings. Yank had arguably the best pick of the weekend, getting the Chargers ML at +140 against the Bengals. It followed the same formula as my pick with the Football Team. Folks, that is how you win some bets. We’ve got a process and we’re sticking to it.
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 14 Picks
The Collaboration (7-7):
The Detroit Lions @ the Denver Broncos-10 (-110)
Yank: I have to admit up front, I do not like this Broncos team. I think Teddy Bridgewater is basically a replacement level QB and I’ve been unimpressed anytime I’ve seen them play. Fortunately the best thing we have done this year is take our own dumb opinions like that out of the equation. This line was Broncos by 7.5 on Wednesday it has ballooned up to Broncos-11.5 as of this writing. This is partially due to a Covid-19 outbreak knocking out multiple Lions starters, but the line moved significantly on Thursday and Friday even before that information was announced. As I’ve said many times this year, I want to be on the side with the people who move the lines. And when you start to examine the situation for each team coming into this game the rationale gets even stronger.
Sam: I’m really nervous that I’ve led Yank down a losing path here. Betting on the Broncos after what they did to me last week is nerve-racking. They stink. That being said, I was originally pulled to this matchup by two of our core operating strategies. The first major reason to like this is that we both absolutely don’t want to bet on the Broncos. Its a terrifying proposition. But bets that we’ve hated have cashed out more times than would seem possible. The second is our classic stock up/stock down analysis. The Broncos are a great stock down team. We’ve seen them at times be terrible and at other times beat up on bad teams. Consider the Lions a bad team. And while it isn’t just stock down for the Broncos, its also stock up for the Lions. They won a game! Betting against the Lions after a win couldn’t be more enticing to me. It feeds this narrative that they’re fighters and are competitive, which to some degree they are, but they’re also 1-10-1 for a reason. While we hate this pick, it has all the signs of what has made us money all season.
Yank’s Play: $5.00 on the Broncos-9.5 (-115)
Sam’s Play: $5.50 on the Broncos-10 (-110)
The Confrontation (Yank 10-1-1*; Sam 1-10-1*):
The Dallas Cowboys-4.5 (-110) @ the Washington Football Team
Sam: Just call me Dan Campbell because I’m 1-10-1 and the only thing keeping me going in the Confrontation is my cups of coffee and the taste of kneecaps. Yank has basically ripped my soul from me like when Justin Tucker broke the hearts of Lions fans by doinking in a 66-yard field goal. So at this point, I might as well put my poisonous touch to good use. This week I’ll be taking the Cowboys and the points against the Football Team. If the Cowboys lose, which they should now, Americans across the country will rejoice. If they cover, then I’ll have earned a few more dollars in my wallet. The reason I’m taking the Cowboys in this one is that the Cowboys are finally more or less healthy again after a few weeks of missing key guys on both sides of the ball. At full strength, I believe and the Cowboys have demonstrated that they can be one of the best teams in football. WFT on the other hand is a huge stock up. They have won 4 straight games and have somehow managed to grab hold of a playoff spot 13 weeks in after it looked like they were dead in the water. And yet, they’ve only managed to score more than 20 points in half of their games and scored 17 twice the last two weeks against the bad Seahawks and Raiders’ defenses. Consider me skeptical.
Yank: This is the second pick of the piece where I truly dislike everything about the team I am betting on. All of Sam’s reasons to be skeptical of the Football Team are valid. Taylor Heinicke is a gunslinger, which you have to respect, but he is also not good? The Cowboys offense is the clear best unit in this game on either side. The Football Team are almost assuredly overvalued in terms of points in the spread coming off four straight wins. This game is located in their home stadium, which is great, but it is also where their own fans had raw sewage leak out all over them in the stands earlier this year. This team is more likely than not to stink like that raw sewage this week. There are truly only two reasons I can think of to bet on them. Number one: Mike McCarthy is the Dallas Cowboys head coach, and short of Matt Nagy, he is the best coach to bet against in football. Number two: and perhaps most importantly, Sam is against them, and his track record this season speaks for itself.
Yank’s Play: $5.00 on the Football Team+4.5 (-115)
Sam’s Play: $4.40 on the Cowboys-4.5 (-110)
The Isolation (Yank 4-8; Sam 9-5):
The Buffalo Bills @ The Tampa Bay Buccaneers-3.5
Yank: For what feels like the umpteenth straight week, I’m taking a stock down team versus a stock up team on the moneyline for my Isolation pick. Everyone’s most recent memory of the Bills is the Patriots running the ball on them over. And over. And over. Meanwhile the Bucs just annihilated the Falcons for the second time. However, when you look beneath the surface there is reason for doubt on both narratives. Buffalo played in what is undoubtedly the weirdest game of the season due to weather, and it’s not their fault that everyone got to watch it, but the effect of looking bad in that game is magnified. The Bills are easy to doubt because of their lack of wins over quality opponents this year but they are still more or less the same team that ran through the AFC last year, particularly on offense. They have the talent to put up 35 on anyone. Meanwhile the Bucs have looked vulnerable each of the last few times they’ve played a real, non-Falcons team, including against previously mentioned gunslinger Taylor Heinicke. I don’t know much, but I am confident Josh Allen is better than Taylor Heinicke. I have to acknowledge that betting against Tom Brady at home is almost never a good idea. Having said that, this is another classic example of a game that I truly feel like either team could win. Whenever I can get +150 odds on a potential 50-50 game I am going to take them.
Yank’s Play: $5.00 on the Bills ML (+150)
The Baltimore Ravens @ the Cleveland Browns-2.5 (-120)
Sam: This matchup is somewhat similar to the Collaboration pick this week. I don’t love that the Ravens are a stock-down team, but a few weeks ago Yank and I outlined how critical injuries/wear and tear are at this part of the season. This wager is partially a bet that the Ravens are on the verge of being dead. They’ve won a lot of close games this season because of spectacular plays from Lamar and Justin Tucker for that matter, but they keep losing guys. At this point, they should be able to merge teams with another dead team just so they have enough guys to finish out the year. There has also been a lot of line movement on this game. On some books, this game opened at Browns -1, and it’s now Browns-3. The loss of Marlon Humphrey is sure to have impacted the line, but it seems like it’s moved on top of that news too. Finally, Yank pointed out to me that the Browns have a great advantage this week. Not only are they coming off of a bye, but their last game was also against the Ravens… Why the NFL schedules games like that we’ll never know, but this essentially means that the Browns coaching staff will have dedicated almost 3 straight weeks to game-planning against the Ravens. We believe that coaching can have a bigger impact on the outcomes of bets than something like predicting individual QB play. So I’ll be testing out the strength of the Browns coaching staff with this pick, but also the strength of roster spot numbers 60-75 for the Ravens…
Sam’s Play: $5.40 on the Browns-2.5 (-120)
The Bank-Week 14
| Yank | Sam | |
| Starting: | $159.30 | $95.32 |
| Risk: | $15.00 | $15.30 |
| Potential Earnings: | $16.20 | $13.50 |
| Record: | 25-17-1 | 20-27-1 |
| Record Against The Spread: | 16-5-0 | 11-18-1 |
Authors: Sam Mattson and Michael Yanckello
One Last Line 