Indianapolis Colts (3-3) at Tennessee Titans (3-4)

The winner of this game between the Colts and Titans will either be over .500 or at .500 and well in contention for a playoff spot in the AFC. I told you the AFC sucks. The Titans, however, will be hurt in this quest to do so this week by an injury that isn’t getting a lot of attention. Titans’ left tackle Michael Roos had an appendectomy this week and is very unlikely to play.

The casual bettor doesn’t know who he is most likely, which is why this line hasn’t accounted for that loss, but his absence will be huge. Roos is one of the best left tackles in the league. He has been for years and he’s once again playing like it this year, allowing just 2 sacks, 3 quarterback hit, and 10 quarterback hurries, while committing 4 penalties. He’s ProFootballFocus’ 9^th ranked offensive tackle. On an offensive line that is generally playing poorly this season, his absence is going to be huge.

Indianapolis, meanwhile, is moving in the opposite direction injury wise, finally. They’ve already had the most defensive injuries in the league this year, aside from the Redskins and maybe the Jets. Dwight Freeney went down early week 1. He’s back and playing well. Pat Angerer missed the first 5 games of the season and was a rotational player last week. He’ll start this week. Vontae Davis, who missed several games, is back. Cory Redding, whose missed the last game and a half, will play this week.

Robert Mathis has yet to practice, but they haven’t ruled him out and in his absence, 2010 1^st round pick Jerry Hughes has been quietly playing very well. On a defense that is generally devoid of talent, they’ve had pretty much every single one of their solid players miss time this year, except for Antoine Bethea and maybe Jerraud Powers.

They won’t be a good defense or anything now that they’re all healthy, but they’ll be much more respectable. Right now, they rank 20^th against the pass, 28^th against the run, and 24^th in scoring, while forcing just 3 takeaways, by far worst in the league. That number should increase now that everyone is healthy. It normally evens out over time anyway. They are -9 in turnover differential right now, but all teams team to average the same turnover differential on a weekly basis regardless of what their previous turnover differential was. For more on that, click here.

Tennessee also can’t stop anyone and it’s not because of injuries. They rank 26^th against the pass, 22^nd against the run, allow a league worst 34.0 points per game, and just made Ryan Fitzpatrick look like a franchise quarterback. They’re horrendous. They may be 3-4, but those 3 wins have come by a combined 7 points against a Pittsburgh team that sucks on the road and who lost to Oakland, the Bills, and the Lions (doesn’t look as good now as it did then).

Meanwhile, their 4 losses have come by a combined 96 points, leading to them having the league’s worst points differential at -89, worse than Jacksonville, worse than Cleveland, worse than Kansas City, worse than Carolina, worse than Oakland, you name it. The Colts aren’t going so well in that department either, at -41 despite their 3-3 record, but that’s not as bad and injuries can be to blame. There’s no way Tennessee deserves to be more than a field goal favorites here, especially given these two team’s injury situations.

These two teams are even in yards per play differential, which translates to a real line of -3 (3 points for home field advantage) using that method. However, Indianapolis ranks 18^th in rate of sustaining drives differential, while Tennessee ranks 30^th. Indianapolis is at -1.4% and Tennessee is at -11.0%. If you take the difference and divide by 1.5 and add 3 points for home field, you get that this line should be Indianapolis -3.5. Either way, getting more than a field goal with the Colts in this game is ridiculous.

The trends also work against Tennessee. Indianapolis is in a good spot as dogs before being favorites as teams are 84-46 ATS in this spot since 2011. They host the Dolphins next week. Meanwhile, Tennessee is favorites off of back-to-back wins as dogs by a touchdown or less. Teams are 15-23 ATS in this spot since 1989. It makes sense. Favorites tend to be overconfident and overvalued and maybe even exhausted off of two straight close wins as dogs. Meanwhile, home favorites off a win of 1-3 as road dogs are 24-46 ATS since 2002. Tennessee won by 1 in Buffalo last week.

I’ve said in past picks this week that I’d be reckless to pick a public dog this week, with one exception, because the odds makers will want the gap between favorites and dogs to close (dogs are 63-39 ATS this year and neither dogs or favorites have finished 10 games or more above .500 in at least the last 10 years), but they’ll also want to win money, as usual. Favorites that are not publicly backed kill two birds with one stone for the odds makers and given how rich these guys always end up, you don’t want to be one of those birds. I said the only exception was Washington, for a small play, because I loved them in that spot.

That being said, I lied, sort of. When I first made this pick, there wasn’t a significant lean either way (the odds makers always win when there’s no significant lean because of the juice). Right now, there’s a slight lean on Indianapolis. It’s really slight and I still really like Indianapolis this week for a significant play, but I do final updates on Saturday and if the lean still remains or becomes more significant, I might drop down to 2 units. For now though, I really like Indianapolis this week as the better, healthier team in the better spot.

Public lean: Indianapolis (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 Tennessee covers)

Sharps lean: IND 15 TEN 8

Final update: Another big play matching up with a sharps lean. Good sign. Still a slight public lean on Indianapolis, but I’m not going to be dropping any units. The public lean didn’t increase.

Indianapolis Colts 31 Tennessee Titans 24 Upset Pick +165

Pick against spread: Indianapolis +3.5 (-110) 3 units

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Washington Redskins (3-4) at Pittsburgh Steelers (3-3)

In a couple other of my picks this week, I said it would be reckless to pick a heavily public backed dog this week with one exception. Dogs are 63-39 ATS on the season. You might think, that’s a reason to take the dog, but eventually that’s going to even out. Dating back over the last decade, dogs or favorites have not finished more than 10 games over .500 over the course of an entire year. It’s smart to ride the correction going forward and take more favorites than dogs, particularly favorites that are not publicly backed because those teams covering would have a double benefit for odds makers. It would allow the dogs/favorites disparity to even out and also they’d make money.

I tried to pick as many favorites as I could last week. I just didn’t like a lot of them. This week, I do like a lot more, so I’ll pick more favorites this week. Last week, favorites were 7-6 ATS, which looks like the start of a correction. It might not look like it totally, but remember, favorites were 12-1 SU. 5 of those covers were backdoor, including two ridiculous ones: Jim Harbaugh declining a safety on Thursday Night and the Lions driving for a backdoor cover with 30 seconds left on Monday Night against a 6.5 point spread when they hadn’t scored all night (both went against me on two instances I actually did pick favorites).

Well, this game is that one exception and it’s only because there is so much working for Washington in this one. For starters, they’ve been awfully unlucky this season. All 4 of their losses have come by a touchdown or less and 3 in three of them the Redskins had a significant contributor go down with injury who is now healthy. Against St. Louis, they lost top cornerback Josh Wilson. Against Washington, they lost top offensive lineman Trent Williams. Against Atlanta, they lost quarterback Robert Griffin.

All 3 of those guys are healthy now. They’re also missing several other players with injury like Brian Orakpo, Adam Carriker, Fred Davis, Jammal Brown, and Pierre Garcon, but they’ve played pretty well without those 4 all season. This week, they could be without London Fletcher for the first time in forever, but their defense isn’t the reason they’re playing well. They’re already allowing 28.6 points per game.

They also are expected to finally get Brandon Meriweather back from injury, which will help their horrific safety corps. They should be able to keep this one close even if they lose. So I like that we’re getting more than 4 points with them, even though both measures of real line suggest there’s no real line value either way as both calculate a real line of Pittsburgh -5.

2 big trends are in Washington’s favor too. Road dogs off of a road loss are 93-58 ATS since 2007 and Washington lost in New York last week. Meanwhile, dogs before being favorites are 84-46 ATS since 2011. Washington hosts Carolina next week. On top of those two trends, the NFC is clearly the superior conference right now. They are 19-9 in head-to-head competition with the AFC, including 17-11 ATS and 7-0 ATS as dogs. Pittsburgh isn’t playing like their normal selves right now so they don’t deserve to be more than 3 point favorites over any average or better team from the NFC.

Speaking of the Steelers not playing like their normal selves right now, a lot of that has to do with Troy Polamalu’s absence. Since 2009, the Steelers are 8-9 in games without Troy Polamalu and allow 21.4 points per game. With him, they are 27-8, allowing 14.4 points per game. He’s already been ruled out for this week. Much is being made about the Steelers’ win over the Bengals in Cincinnati as a reason for why they are “back,” but I’m not very impressed with a 7 point win over a Bengals team that’s lost 3 straight, including to the Browns. The Bengals have never beaten a playoff team in the Andy Dalton era and this year, they’ve only beaten the Browns, Jaguars, and these Bengals (in that game that Williams got hurt).

They’ll still an average team, maybe slightly better until Polamalu returns. They’re also expected to be without right tackle Marcus Gilbert again, which hurts because replacement Mike Adams has really struggled. Both backs Rashard Mendenhall and Isaac Redman could be out again and replacement Jonathan Dwyer has been really up and down this year. I hate betting on a heavily public dog in general, especially this week, which is why it’s a small play, but I like the Redskins.

Public lean: Washington (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 Pittsburgh covers)

Sharps lean: WAS 14 PIT 8

Final update: No change.

Pittsburgh Steelers 27 Washington Redskins 24

Pick against spread: Washington +4.5 (-110) 2 units

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