NFL betting trends are meant to broken, and the Ravens, Patriots, and Ryan Tannehill all had theirs snapped in Week 15. Tennessee Titan’s quarterback Tannehill’s was, maybe, the most impressive as he and the Titans failed to hit over for the first time in their last eight games.
It started small when Tannehill replaced longtime starting quarterback, Marcus Mariota, in Week 7 against the Los Angeles Chargers. Tennessee won, 23-20, and covered the over by a half-point. The next week, Tannehill and the Titans cleared the over by 5.5 points.
In the next five games, Tannehill helped his team to cover the over by 7, 18, 20, 6, and 16 points. No sweat involved for gamblers, but if they plunked down money for the over in Sunday’s game against the Texans, they got burned by following the NFL betting trend.
Oddsmakers probably noticed the betting trend, and put the first 50-point over/under line on the Titans this season. Predictably, Tennessee failed to hit the number, losing 24-21.
William Hill reported that 81 percent of the money bet on the over/under for the game was on the over. BetOnline reported that 70 percent of the tickets written were on the over.
Ravens Disappoint Bettors
Baltimore’s game against the New York Jets was expected to be a blowout, and it was.
The Ravens were a 17-point favorite at game time in the last Thursday night game of the season. That thinking, however, challenged an NFL betting trend.
Under coach Jim Harbaugh, the Ravens have a losing record when they are picked as a double-digit favorite, going 10-13 against the spread in that situation. Quarterback Lamar Jackson was 2-2 with double-digit spreads. Jackson was also 6-9 ATS in his career, in addition to a 2-8 record ATS at home.
The Ravens were facing the LOLJets, however, so going against this NFL betting trend was probably not a a bad call. The Ravens covered the 17 points, winning 42-21.
Patriots Buck the Trend
New England defied two NFL betting trends on Sunday when they easily defeated Cincinnati, 34-13.
Before this game, teams picked as double-digit road favorites had gone 38-50 ATS, according to Bet Labs. Someone didn’t mention this to the Pats, however, who came into Cincy as 10.5-point favorites.
Similarly, no one seems to have told the Patriots that when playing in December or later, double-digit teams on the road were only 9-27 ATS. To be fair, however, Tom Brady doesn’t seem to have paid any attention to his own personal record in this scenario, as he was just 1-7 ATS as a double-digit road favorite before Sunday’s game.
If a gambler went against this NFL betting trend, they had an easy win. The Patriots broke a three game losing streak ATS. If they hadn’t covered, the Pats might have started a new trend, as it would have been the first time they lost four straight games ATS since 2002.
Bad Beats of the Week
There were two unbelievable bad beats on Sunday. The first occurred in the Atlanta-San Francisco game where the Falcons scored the go-ahead touchdown with just two seconds remaining. With a score of 23-22, Atlanta moneyline backers saw there +400 tickets about to cash, as well as those that had the under at 49.5.
Things didn’t work out for the under bettors, however. On the ensuing kickoff, San Francisco tried a series of desperation laterals to try and score. The last lateral rolled into the end zone, and Atlanta’s Olamide Zaccheaus picked it up for six points to put the game over.
The second bad beat was even crueler. Washington was an underdog of anywhere from 4.5 to 7 points in its game against Philadelphia. Eagles’ quarterback Carson Wentz threw a touchdown pass with 26 seconds remaining to put the Birds ahead, 31-27.
No problem for Redskins backers.
Twenty-one seconds later, however, Washington fans ran into a big problem when QB Dwayne Haskins tried a late lateral that turned in to a fumble. Philadelphia’s Nigel Bradham picked it up and went 47 yards to the end zone, giving the visitors a 10-point victory and crushing those holding Redskins betting slips.
Stat of the Week
Jameis Winston is the fifth player in NFL history with multiple career games of 450 pass yards, and four passing touchdowns. He’s also now the first player in NFL history to throw for 450 yards in consecutive games.
