NFL Week 14 first-look betting preview.

By
Geoff Ulrich
-
0
92

The last two weeks have been some of the strangest NFL Football you’re likely to encounter in your lifetime. We had multiple games last Monday, a game on Tuesday, and one last Wednesday featuring a team without 5+ of their starters. But we survived and in Week 14 it looks like we’ll try and return to some normalcy. 

Week 13 still brought some drama on the field too. We had the Seahawks go down to the Giants 17-12 as -10.5 favorites in one of the biggest upsets of the year. New York moved into first place in the NFC East, although they are tied in record with Washington, who pulled off the second biggest upset of the week as +7 dogs (they were +10.5 when that line opened) against Pittsburgh. The loss by the Seahawks means that this Thursday’s game against the Patriots becomes uber-important for them as they try to stay in front of Seattle who plays the Jets this week (aka, an auto-win).

Speaking of the Jets, they nearly pulled off a huge upset of their own but decided to rush everyone on the last play of the game when only a TD could beat them. The results were as expected. 

Favorites again had issues covering as they went just 6-8 Against the Spread for the week with plenty of teams like the Seahawks, Chiefs, Raiders, and Vikings all failing to cover spreads that had them as -6 or more favorites. While the Hawks were the only team to lose outright, it could have easily been a three-man party with Minnesota (who needed OT over the Jags) and Vegas. 

Likely the biggest personnel move of the week comes out of Philly, where they are now committed to Jalen Hurts as their starting QB. Carson Wentz has already thrown 15 INTs on the year and is enduring the worst season of his career. Wentz had been sacked 50-times already–10 more than any other QB–so Hurts’ mobility and pocket awareness should come in handy. Hurts at least injected some life into the Eagles offense late in last week’s game. 

Check out our other NFL articles(coming soon)

Week 14 preview (lines and totals)

Biggest totals

Packers (-7.5) at Lions 55.5

The Lions scraped by with a late second win against the flailing Bears last week but they still gave up 30-points on defense to a bottom 5 offense in the Bears, and have now given up 71 points against in their last two games. They’ll need to really stiffen up here to keep this one close as Aaron Rodgers is playing some of the best football we’ve seen from him over the last five seasons. Rodgers 8.18 Yards per Attempt mark is the highest we’ve seen from him since 2014. The Lions have only lost by more than 7-once in their last nine games with Green Bay though (it came in Week 2 of this year). If this stays above -7, I’d probably take Detroit with the points. 

Lowest total

Cowboys (-3) at Bengals 43.5

The only thing notable about this game will be Andy Dalton’s return to Cincinnati. Dallas remains with a small shot of taking down the division but it’s a long shot and they have clearly been the worst team in the NFC East all season. The Bengals have been really scrappy in each of their last three games, holding their last three opponents under 21-points. Obviously their offense is struggling mightily without Joe Burrow too, but they have found a soulmate here in Dallas who has scored less than 20 points in five of their last six games. Expect an ugly game with the under here looking mighty appealing. 

Biggest spread

Jets at Seahawks (-14.5) 47.5

The Seahawks are coming off a loss which really set back their division title hopes. The 8-4 Hawks are now tied with the Rams and lost the first game of the head to head vs. them as well. They need a win here, badly, while the Jets should continue to do everything in their power to lose games. Seattle’s offense has sputtered a bit since a hot start to the season, averaging just 20 points scored the last two games. Look for Russell Wilson to get back on track here against a defense that has allowed an average of 336-yards passing per game over their last six starts. This is also a Jamal Adams revenge game so don’t be shocked if the Seattle defense gets in on the fun too. 

Smallest spreads

Falcons at Chargers (+2.5) 49.5

Colts (-2.5) at Raiders 51.5

Cardinals (-2.5) at Giants 45.5  

The Chargers are coming off one of the most embarrassing losses of the season, when they got shutout in a 45-0 loss to the Patriots. L.A. rode the hot start to the year by Justin Herbert on offense but a terrible defense has put the rookie in too many passing situations and he’s been getting hammered lately. The Falcons have given up the fourth most yards per completion in the league this year but they’ve actually looked competent on defense of late. It could be another tough spot for the Chargers offense and we could be closing in on Anthony Lynn’s last game as Chargers HC. 

The Raiders are coming off a “win” against the Jets, but they are truly lucky to have not blown that game, as only late defensive incompetence by New York allowed them to complete the comeback. The Raiders defense has been trounced over their last three games. Expect rookie Jonathan Taylor to get some more run here after a strong Week 14 and expect the Colts to grab another win.

The Giants are coming in off a huge win over Seattle so this could be a bit of a letdown spot. Arizona has won and lost a lot of close games this year–six of their games have been decided by four points or less–so just avoiding this one, or taking the +3 with the Giants if it gets that high, could be the move. 

Line Movement’s Bets Against The Spread Show

Week 14 early conviction play

Week 13 results 

  • Washington +10.5  O 
  • Season record 6-3 ATS (Totals 1-2)

Bet: Tampa Bay Buccaneers -6.5 (possibly wait to go lower)

The Buccaneers are coming off a bye and should be good and seething after Tyreek Hill absolutely put their secondary to sleep in Week 12. While their coverage will again be tested this week with Adam Theilen and Justin Jefferson coming to town there’s a much different QB involved here and that should tip the ball into Tampa’s favour. Kirk Cousins has never been that good a road QB, posting drastically negative splits on the road in each of his past two seasons. That’s good news for Tampa who rank 6th in sacks per game and should be in a good matchup here against Minnesota’s O-Line who rank just league average in terms of sacks allowed. 

The Bucs offense is in a solid matchup here too against a defense that ranks just 22nd in sacks per game and has given up the most TDs to opposing WRs on the year. This should be a good bounceback spot for Tom Brady and his triple threat crew (Brown, Godwin, Evans) who did get on track late in the game against KC. Minnesota has skated by with close, very unconvincing wins against Carolina and Jacksonville the last two weeks (prior to losing to Dallas) and feel like they’re going up against a team more talented than they are at almost every level (outside of RB). Tampa is good at winning big and have won by 7 or more points in 6 of their 7 wins on the season. This feels like another blowout spot so while you can certainly pay down to be safe with a -6 line, if it doesn’t move past -6.5 that should suffice here. 

Week 14 NFL game props

Week 13 results: 1-2

  • Houston over 23.5 pts X
  • Falcons/Saints over 3.5 FGs (+129) X
  • Seahawks under 29.5 Team Total O

Chiefs over 27.5 pts (-115)

The Chiefs are coming off a disappointing win where a lot of the public likely expected them to win by a huge margin. That’s led to a bit of depressed numbers on the Chiefs betting lines this week and I like taking advantage in the team total department. The KC defense, which sits seventh in Turnovers, is taking on a rookie QB in Tua Tagovailoa who could contribute with a fumble or pick-6 and Miami’s defense has mostly been beating up on bottom feeders. They allowed 30+ points to Buffalo, Seattle and Arizona and I expect KC to put up points here too.

Colts/Raiders over 3.5 FGs (+129) 

Another FG match made in heaven. While we just missed extending our win streak on this bet to five weeks last week, when ATL and NO went slightly under, there’s no reason to stop here as we are again getting plus-money. Indy and Las Vegas both rank inside the top-6 in FGs made per game and Indy also ranks 6th in FGs allowed on defense. We have two solid kickers and a game with a close point spread too. This one screams kicks!

Titans under 30.5 pts (-109)

The Titans should certainly bounce back vs. the Jags this week, but their team total seems a little too inflated for my taste. The Jags have done well at slowing down games and keeping them close, with four of their last five losses now coming by 4-points or less. The Jags have been OKish against the run too–they sit 17th in YPC against–and have a solid RB of their own in James Robinson. It wouldn’t take much here for this to stay under 30 and with Jags games being more muted affairs of late the under here looks promising. 

Week 14 NFL players props

Week player props 13 = 2-1

Kirk Cousins over 33.5 passing attempts (-115)

This one is undoubtedly my favorite prop of the week . Tampa is allowing an average of 38-pass attempts per game by opposing passers this year with seven of their last eight opponents hitting 34 or more pass attempts. Teams are having major issues running the ball vs. Tampa’s elite front which leads the league in yards per attempt allowed (3.3) while Minnesota’s shoddy defense has been causing them to pass more lately with Cousins throwing 36 or more times in three of his last four games. It all leads to a great over spot for Cousins this week. 

Jonathan Taylor over 53.5 rush yards

Taylor had a monster game last week, producing 7.0 YPC and 135-total yards on just 16-touches. The game script worked out well for him last week against a depleted Houston team as many of his carries came late in the game while icing out the win for Indy. A similar script should follow here against a Raiders team who has really regressed hard the last two weeks and let Ty Johnson go for 104-yards. I like attacking this low rush total and staying on Taylor props for another week. 

Jalen Hurts over 7.5 rush attempts

If you watched Hurts last week you saw that every time the pocket broke down he was looking to create something with his feet. The Eagles O-Line isn’t good so there should be a lot of moving around by Hurts in this game and last week it led to five rush attempts in less than a half’s worth of action. I’ll take the over on this number with him from here on out for 2020 if he’s gonna be the starter.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR