Tampa Bay Buccaneers (3-4) at Oakland Raiders (3-4)
After unimpressive wins over the Jaguars and Chiefs, the Raiders now sit at 3-4 and are somehow in the AFC playoff mix. However, they still aren’t very good. They have a point differential of -42. They got blown out in Oakland and in Miami and they weren’t impressive in either of their last 2 wins against crappy teams. They beat the Steelers in Oakland, but the Titans beat them in Tennessee. They also lost at home to San Diego and while they played the Falcons tough in Atlanta, so did the Panthers.
The Buccaneers, meanwhile, are at 3-4 as well, but they come from a tougher conference (the NFC is 20-12 against the AFC) and they’ve had more impressive wins. They also have a +31 points differential and they have yet to lose by more than a touchdown all year. Josh Freeman is 82 of 143 (57.3%) for 1309 yards (9.2 YPA), 10 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions in his last 4 games.
He’s a natural deep ball thrower who was afraid to throw deep last season, throwing longer than 20 yards through the air on just 6.5% of his throws, by far least in the league, despite being accurate of 52.8% of them, 3rd best in the NFL. This year, thanks to new found chemistry with free agent acquisition Vincent Jackson, he is going deep 6th most in the league, 13.5% and, more importantly, has the 3rd highest accuracy percentage, 56.7%, completing 16 of 30 for 669 yards and 3 touchdowns, with 1 drop. I believe this is here to stay.
In spite of this, Oakland is favorites here, even if only by 1 point. The yards per play method actually suggests they should be 5.5 point favorites, but the rate of sustaining drives method suggests this should be a pick em. Tampa Bay has the momentum right now, so I don’t think there’s line value either way. Tampa Bay is also in a good spot as dogs before being favorites. Teams are 86-49 ATS in this spot since 2011. They host San Diego next week.
Meanwhile, Oakland is in a bunch of bad spots here as favorites. Bad teams in general struggle as favorites and I think they are a bad team. Demonstrating this, the Raiders are actually 9-27 ATS as favorites since 2003, going back to the year after their last winning season. Furthermore, home favorites are 146-225 ATS before being dogs in 3+ straight since 1989, which makes sense since those teams to be bad teams. Oakland’s next 3 games send them to Baltimore, home for New Orleans, and to Cincinnati.
Speaking of that Baltimore game, they could be 10 point dogs there. Teams are 25-48 ATS as favorites before being 10+ dogs since 2002. Again, bad teams are bad as favorites. When they are coming off another game in which they were dogs, that record is 17-34 ATS. This goes well with the sandwich game trend. Favorites are 81-117 ATS before and after being dogs since 2008.
Teams are also just 2-10 ATS as favorites before being 10+ dogs after a win as dogs since 2002. That expands to 8-21 ATS since 1989. They could also be just 7+ dogs next week, but it wouldn’t make much difference. Since 1989, teams are 29-57 ATS as favorites after being dogs before being 7+ dogs, 13-31 ATS after a win as dogs.
These are all variations of the sandwich game trend and they demonstrate the fact that bad teams struggle as favorites. We’re getting points with the better team here, I believe. All of the trends are against Oakland. Meanwhile, Tampa Bay is rested off Thursday Night football. Teams are 114-93 ATS on Sunday Night after Thursday Night. They’re also in their 2nd straight road game. This tends to be a good spot. Teams are 191-138 ATS in their 2nd straight road game since 2008, including 94-61 ATS in their 2nd straight as road dogs and 30-19 ATS off a win as road dogs. It’s strongest with road dogs off a road loss, but there’s a trend in this situation here too.
This would be a bigger pick if we were getting line value. This line shifted 2 points in the last week because of Tampa Bay’s strong showing on Thursday Night Football and Tampa Bay is a public dog this week. However, I still like the Buccaneers. Instead of putting 3 units on the spread and 1 on the money line, I’m putting all 4 on the money line. It’s not worth the extra 15 cents to get protection from a one point loss.
Public lean: Tampa Bay (new thing I’m adding, siding with the odds makers on bets is not a bad thing to do since they make so much money, so I’m listing this here to allow readers to “fade” the public, if they so choose, in this example, the odds makers win if Oakland covers)
Sharps lean: TB 14 OAK 4
Final update: Another sharps lean lining up with one of my big picks. Good to see. I think I’ll add a unit. I feel really good about this week.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 27 Oakland Raiders 20 Upset Pick +105 5 units
Pick against spread: Tampa Bay +1 (-110) 0 units
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