NFL Week 15

Intro by Sam

Well, well, well it’s come to this. Yank has hit the bottom of the barrel. We’ve yet to successfully pull off the two-team teaser and what seemed inevitable has come to pass. As the picture above says, Yank must insert coins to continue. Let the record show that Yank is officially the first loser of One Last Line, but if we don’t turn things around, he might not be the only one this season…

Yank is going to get back in by adding a few handsome George’s to his Bank, but we’ll play it like he is starting at 0. He’s got to climb his way back in. And most importantly, this means we get to pick the Confrontation back up. Let’s get ready for Week 15!

The Recap

We are the public. The public are us. And the stupid Saints suckered us in with their shiny plays and flashy defense. Just like everyone, we thought the Saints were a no brainer to win against a bad Eagles team with a rookie QB. What we didn’t take into consideration was that Saints were on their 3rd straight road game and sometimes random games happen. We are going to be more wary of home/road like we said we would be moving forward.

Not much good happened down in the Isolation last week either. The Lions managed to pull out a last second back door cover to save me on the spread, but I basically leveraged the spread to bet the ML which never had a chance of hitting. In my second tease of the week, I faced two never a doubt losses from the Raiders and the Giants. Honestly, I’m pretty disappointed by that one. I thought I had really sniffed those games out last week, but in the end, being good at football is important and neither the Raiders nor the Giants can be described in that manner. And if matters couldn’t get worse for me as a Vikings fan, Dan Bailey choked away any chance of a Vikings victory (a personal desire) and the Vikings/Bucs hitting the Over at 53 total points. I think the recipe was still right, but getting 4 botched kicks will sink most bets and any hope of winning.

On to Week 15!

The Principles

1. Stay away from bad QBs and bad HCs. Only bet on HCs and Offenses you are confident in.
2. Bet for a team not against their opponent 
3. Parlay (and tease) at your own peril.
4. Due to the salary cap, there isn’t a significant talent gap between the vast majority of NFL teams.
5.  If you’re going to pick a dog Week 1, play the money line.
6. Division games are less predictable than non-division games, due to team/scheme familiarity.

Nominated Principles:

1. Vegas knows better. Some lines don’t look like you think they should – be very careful.

Week 15 Picks

The Collaboration (5-8 ATS; 1-5-1 bonus bets):

Two-Team 6-Point Teaser:

The Carolina Panthers @ The Green Bay Packers-2 (was -8)

The Houston Texans @ The Indianapolis Colts-1.5 (was -7.5)

Yank: It’s official. My super power is that I can sink any bet. The Saints were undefeated against the spread without Drew Brees, much less straight up. They had the number one defense by DVOA and the Eagles were starting a rookie QB. It was the lock of all locks, and they lost straight up. We’ve been saying it since the beginning but it’s a really good reminder that when it comes to competing against Vegas we are outgunned, outmanned, out numbered and out planned. The first and most important rule is if you are reading this you should fade us. That being said we tried to change up the strategy a bit this week. We wanted to make team beat writers our right hand men in the interest of not being surprised by injuries or other storylines that will affect the game that it’s hard to track from afar. I also am personally limiting myself to three picks per week going forward. So why does this teaser make the cut when we have learned first hand the past couple weeks it’s basically impossible to hit a tease? I’ll let Sam give the initial rationale. 

Sam: Whether its causation, correlation, or pure chance, the two teams that haven’t covered in our teases the last two weeks are road teams. This week, we wanted to take that element out of the play by playing the Packers at home, who have been quietly awesome – evidenced by them sitting atop the NFC right now – and the Colts who have been no-doubt shaky at times this season but are a good all around team. Another major factor for us the last two weeks, is that we spent a lot of time investigating one matchup and were convinced the other matchup would not fail at all. See: We are the public. This week we are getting two teams who aren’t super public teams – at least not to the degree that the Saints were last week. Finally, on the dawn of the 5th day, at first light we looked to the beat writers. The Packers have a powerful offense that is full steam ahead right now, while the Panthers are struggling on defense and not closing out close games. Teddy is 0-7 with the ball in his hand to win the game this season. Not so much all on his shoulders, but the kind of full-team mistakes you come to expect from a 4-9 football team. In the other matchup, we have the Colts going against the Texans. If you remember from just two weeks ago, this game came down to the wire. In the meantime, the Texans got served a bloody knuckle sandwich from Mitch Trubisky and the Chicago Bears – yes, you read that right – the same QB who got benched for Nick Foles earlier this year. The Texans have the look of a team who has just been eliminated from playoff contention, down to two healthy cornerbacks, and WRs dropping like flies. On the otherside of the field, the Colts are getting healthy with an intact OL, Jonathan Taylor rounding into form, and a defense that has been solid all year. 

Yank’s Play: $6.00 on the Packers/Colts Teaser (-127) 

Sam’s Play: $7.00 on the Packers/Colts Teaser (-120)

The Confrontation (7-5 Sam):

The Buffalo Bills-6 @ the Denver Broncos+6

Sam: The Confrontation is back! And we’re choosing a matchup that involved a lot of heated debate. I don’t actually think Yank or I have strong feelings about either of these teams to be perfectly honest, but this is more of an investigation into the art of gambling. I think this matchup has all the makings of a Bills let down spot. They coming off of their best win by beating the Steelers, they’re a hail mary away from a 7-game win streak, and they’re on the road. Can you say trap game? But then I started reading the Broncos beat writers and weirdly enough, I felt like the Broncos are also feeling themselves a bit. The Broncos just beat the Panthers (barely) and its already like we’re talking about Drew Lock blossoming into a good QB. He had one game. Against the Panthers. Congratulations. I wanted to pick the Broncos this week, the Lock hype makes me nervous, but the nail in the coffin was the Broncos losing two cornerbacks to season ending ACL tears last week and immediately giving up 17 4th quarter points. The recipe for the Broncos winning was in Fangio’s game plan, but there is only so much you can do when you have 3 healthy corners on the roster. The Bills should be able to feed Diggs if they so choose over and over again this week and as we saw last week, thats a winning strategy. My hope is the Bills aren’t too high on themselves and want to use this week to capture the AFC East crown.

Yank: I should start this section by acknowledging I see Sam’s points and to some extent I actively dislike this pick. Here’s the fact though, as evidenced by the $100 I blew through in 14 weeks I am dumb and bad at gambling as we’ve tried to repeat as often as possible. It seems like the Bills should roll here, so why is this line less than a TD? It is probably at least partially due to the game being in Denver, with a short week to prepare. But, home field advantage has not seemed to be a big deal this year. The Bills are rolling, coming off a huge win with an awesome passing offense. The Broncos are missing several key DBs. This feels like a no brainer Bills cover, and yet, the only line movement I have seen this week is this line moving towards Denver. I got this line at 6, but it has since moved down to 5.5 and I have seen it as low as 5 in some places. Smarter people than me clearly think this is a potential let down spot for the Bills. I don’t love it, in fact I kinda hate it, but that may be the best reason of all to take the Broncos. 

Yank’s Play: $6.00 on the Denver Broncos+6 (-120)

Sam’s Play: $5.00 on the Buffalo Bills-6 (-115)

The Isolation (Yank 6-12; Sam 9-17):

Moneyline Parlay:

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. the Atlanta Falcons

The Kansas City Chiefs at the New Orleans Saints

Yank: Much like our initial tease in The Collaboration, as we researched games this week our initial lean was that there may be some value on the underdogs. That skepticism holds in the sense that I do not necessarily feel confident that BOTH of these teams will cover the spread. On the other hand, particularly in the Bucs case, looking into these games gave us much more confidence in Tampa Bay. The Falcons will be missing Julio Jones which is a big blow to their offense. The Bucs on the other hand seem to be peaking at the right time. Injuries at OL and RB and a kicker on the COVID list seem to suggest betting the ML will be safer, but I am confident a Bucs team that needs a win to keep pace in the playoff hunt will pull this game out. On the other side is a bet that is so simple it can be explained in one sentence. The Chiefs show up when the lights are on. Big game, big spot, give me Mahomes and Reid. The public loves them to cover the 3, I’ll take the ML to try to insulate myself a bit from any shenanigans. Getting plus odds on these two teams just win could be an early Christmas present to myself. 

Yank’s Play: $4.77 on the Bucs/Chiefs to win (+132)

Tampa Bay Buccaneers-6.5 @ the Atlanta Falcons

Three Team 10-point Teaser:

Pittsburgh Steelers-3 (was-13) @ the Cinncinati Bengals

The New York Jets @ the Los Angeles Rams-7 (was -17)

The Jacksonville Jaguars @ the Baltimore Ravens-3 (was -13)

Sam: In the fist matchup this week, I have the Bucs going up against the Falcons. This game certainly makes me nervous because the Bucs are in Atlanta this week. I’ve not bet successfully on the Bucs much this year, and this could be just another one of my whiffs. However, it sounds like the Falcons are in pretty rough shape. Julio is banged up and out for this one, and the local media is talking about trading him and his partner Matt Ryan away during the offseason. The Falcons couldn’t beat the Chargers last week, who are basically the AFC West version of the Falcons, and don’t have much to play for the rest of the way this year. On the other hand, I’m betting on Tom Brady and the Bucs getting it together in the late stretch before the playoffs. They didn’t play particularly well against the Vikings last week, but did enough to put the game out of reach. I’d expect this game to look pretty similar. 

My final pick of the week features my first 10-point tease. I’m including all of the heavy favorites that I like to win big this week. Of the teams in this tease, the Steelers worry me the most. They have sustained a lot of injuries and haven’t looked as dynamic on offense as they did to start the year. That being said, the Steelers own the Bengals who are likely starting Ryan Finley this week. If I can’t like Tomlin and the Steelers coming off of back-to-back losses, what am I doing? Last week, I laid out all the reasons why the Seahawks would blow the doors off of the Jets. The Jets can’t score against good defense and offenses can score at will against the Jets. Well this week they’re traveling the length of the country to play one of the best defenses in the entire NFL. Darnold will be seeing ghosts this week. His name is Aaron Donald. Lastly, I am getting the Ravens at home against the Jaguars. The Jaguars suck. They’re decent at running the football, but are playing one of the best run defenses this season. Lamar looked great last week after taking a dump, so I hope Harbaugh feeds him a few more laxatives this week. 

Sam’s Play: $5.00 on the Buccaneers-6.5 (-110) and $10.00 on the ten-point Steelers/Rams/Ravens teaser (-130)

The Bank-Week 15

	Yank	Sam
Starting:	$0.00	$44.13
Risk:	$16.77	$27.00
Potential Earnings:	$16.07	$22.42
Record:	16-33-1	26-35-1
Record against the Spread:	13-22	17-21

Authors: Sam Mattson and Michael Yanckello