Ultimate Monday night menu
We have quite a night ahead of us with two NFL games and an ALCS Game 7.
VSiN.com senior editor Zach Cohen previews the MNF games . . .
Bucs (+6) at Lions (7 ET, ABC/ESPN): The Bucs beat the Lions at Ford Field last season, winning 20-16 as 7.5-point underdogs. That, combined with the stellar play of Baker Mayfield this season, could be enough to inspire some bets on Tampa. However, the Lions went 1 for 7 in the red zone in that meeting last September. They had a real opportunity to win comfortably, but they couldn’t finish drives — and Jared Goff threw two interceptions. You probably shouldn’t weigh that result too heavily when looking at this matchup — especially with the Bucs seriously banged up.
>>Best Bet and a prop from Zach.
Texans (+3) at Seahawks (10 ET, ESPN): This should be a game in which Houston finds it difficult to score, putting less pressure on Sam Darnold and the Seattle offense to score against a very good defense. But it’s hard to worry too much about Darnold. The 28-year-old is thriving with the Seahawks, as he has thrown for 1,541 yards with 11 TDs and only three picks. He’s also PFF’s highest-graded quarterback. Darnold also happened to torch this Texans team last year, throwing for 181 yards with four touchdowns and no picks with the Vikings.
Steve Makinen has a position on the Total (53.5) in the Texans-Seahawks game:
Finally, the DK betting splits for this game show that 74% of bets were backing the Over. In many cases, that is a concern, but in games where the Totals reached 46.5 or higher and oddsmakers thus expected them to be a more explosive, majority number of bettors have gauged these games incredibly well the last two years, going 96-72 ATS (60.8%)! This one looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it must be a duck. Replace the word duck with Over.
>Josh Appelbaum will post his MNF Sharp Report later this morning.
Prop advice and tools
>Opta AI projections for Bucs-Lions
>Opta AI projections for Texans-Seahawks
>Fantasy Points WR/CB Matchup Tool
Other MNF resources
>DraftKings/Circa Betting Splits.
VSiN Pro subscribers have access to the plays from hosts and guests on our NFL picks page.
Consolation prize: Giants cover
The Broncos scored all of their points in the fourth quarter and needed all of them, rallying to beat the Giants 33-32 on a walk-off field goal. At least the Giants covered the +7.5. Favorites led 9-2 SU and 7-4 ATS with 1 pick-’em (CAR-NYJ); Overs went 7-5. >>Season stats from Dave Tuley.
The biggest Week 7 injury: Commanders QB Jayden Daniels suffered a hamstring injury in a 44-22 loss to the Cowboys. Washington plays the Chiefs next (on MNF).
Moving on to Week 8, Adam Burke has his analysis of the lines based on results and injuries here. including Bears (+6.5) at Ravens:
Obviously this line implies that Lamar Jackson will return after the bye for Baltimore, otherwise we’d see a much tighter number here. Chicago did what they needed to do against New Orleans to score a 12-point win, as Caleb Williams didn’t play very well at all, but the Bears ran the rock well and capitalized on three Spencer Rattler interceptions. With Jackson’s impending return and Chicago essentially playing to expectations, this line didn’t move off the lookahead number at all.
Patrick Meagher and Mike Somich do an NFL review/preview on the Sharp Money podcast.
Quiet Sunday in Survivor
>Circa Survivor: Only 19 entries were eliminated on Sunday, although 440 certainly had a sweat on the Broncos. There are 4,214 live entries with 51 pending on Seattle and 34 on Detroit.
>Circa Grandissimo: All 15 entries made it through to Week 8.
>Circa Million: Top 5 Most-Selected Teams are 2-1 with the Lions -5.5 and Seahawks -3 pending; wins by Browns -2.5 & Eagles -1.5; loss by Chargers -1.5. Per Tuley, the top 5 is 11-33 this season.
>Circa Friday Football Invitational: Fox Sports betting analyst Chris Fallica went 5-2 to take a 2.5-point lead over Las Vegas pro bettor Frank Carulli. >>Standings.
>EdgeBoost Average Joe Contest: Four contestants are already in the clubhouse with perfect records and nine more are pending with MNF. >>Leaderboard.
Check out our contest hub for complete consensus picks and individual selections.
ALCS Game 7 tonight
The Blue Jays (-123) defeated the Mariners 6-2 on Sunday night to send the ALCS to a seventh game.
Seattle will start George Kirby while Toronto will go with Shane Bieber for a berth in the World Series against the Dodgers.
The Blue Jays were -110 favorites at Circa vs. the Mariners’ -102.
Adam Burke will file his Best Bets and Steve Makinen will have his Analytics Report later this morning.
(Get an alert when they file by signing up for VSiN’s push notifications.)
Quick Hits
College Football: Adam Burke adjusts his power ratings based on Week 8 results and highlights some of the early line moves.
FYI: Florida fired coach Billy Napier.
NHL: VSiN hockey analyst Jonathan Davis will post his Best Bets around mid-day.
NBA: The VSiN NBA Betting Guide is ready for download. The season starts Tuesday.
