Thursday Night Football has been widely ripped since becoming a weekly feature of the NFL schedule in 2014, and rightfully so. Too many times, the league’s prime-time offering on Thursday nights has either featured two horrible teams or a lopsided mismatch. Throw in the facts that players are rarely at their best playing on three days rest and that coaches have to go with vanilla game plans with limited preparation time, and we’ve seen some really ugly football.
But maybe this year will be different. That’s my hope at least, based on the great matchup that we’re getting in the first edition of Thursday Night Football (last week’s opener between the Eagles and Falcons wasn’t technically part of the TNF series). Not only are we going to be treated to a clash of 1-0 teams in the Ravens and Bengals, the stakes are also high as the winner can take an early lead in the AFC North.
Oddsmakers are certainly projecting a competitive battle. Baltimore and Cincinnati have taken turns being listed as slight favorites in the days leading up to kickoff, and many books had this game lined as a pick ’em at the time of writing. Personally, I’m leaning towards the Bengals to defend their home turf, thinking the Ravens might come in a bit overrated (and even overconfident) after beating up the horrible Buffalo Bills in Week 1.
But we’re still talking about Thursday Night Football, so there’s always the possibility that this game turns into a snoozer pretty quickly. Just in case that happens (and even if it doesn’t), I’ve come up with a list of prop bets that not only will keep the game interesting but might also line our pockets with a few winners as well.
All odds that are referenced in this article were taken from BetOnline.ag at 1 p.m. eastern on September 13, 2018. These odds may have changed since the time of this writing.
When you boil it all down, betting is essentially math. Determine the likelihood that an event is going to take place, then decide whether the odds on a wager are off enough to open value on either side. So whenever we can rely on good ol’ hard data to make our betting decisions, I’m always interested, especially when the sample size is large enough to rely on.
That’s the case with this prop. When I saw the odds for this prop, I was immediately intrigued, knowing that NFL coaches tend to lose challenges more than they win them. Going back over past statistics and articles, I’ve read that coaches’ challenges have had roughly a 45% success rate since the rule was introduced. Yet, BetOnline is offering us a better return on the “Unsuccessful” than the “Successful” on this wager.
So what gives? Do the Ravens’ John Harbaugh or Bengals’ Marvin Lewis have a sparkling (or at least winning) record in their career when it comes to their challenges? After all, that would really be the only reason to favor the “Successful” on this prop. But when I looked up these coaches’ records in this department, both of them had losing marks. Lewis may be 20-12 over his last 32 challenges, but he’s still just 43-48 in his career when throwing the red flag. And Harbaugh’s been worse, going 42-50.
The only reason I can think of that the “Successful” is a favorite here is because people tend to like cheering for something to happen, rather than for it not to happen (in this case, a successful challenge). That’s not enough to negate the simple math on this prop, and with both of these coaches having losing career records with their challenges, the even-money return here makes “Unsuccessful” worth a small wager.
These AFC North rivals tend to play low-scoring ball games. Throw out Cincinnati’s 31-27 victory in last year’s regular-season finale (a score inflated by a long interception return for a TD and a final-minute touchdown bomb by Andy Dalton), and the Bengals and Ravens had gone Under the total in their five previous meetings. On a short week early in the season, I’m expecting another low-scoring affair. The bookies aren’t projecting offensive fireworks either, setting the total at 45.
That’s one reason I’m liking the likelihood of a field goal/safety being the first score of the game, rather than a touchdown. One of the big keys that determines whether a game has lots of points or is low-scoring is whether teams convert their drives into touchdowns or end up settling for field goals. Last year, the Bengals (fourth) and Ravens (ninth) were both among the NFL’s top red-zone defenses (lowest percentage of touchdowns allowed on drives inside their 20-yard-line). If these two offenses don’t strike for big plays on their opening drives, they’re going to have a tough time punching it in from close range and quite easily could end up settling for 3.
I know the chances of a safety occurring as the first play of the game is extremely unlikely, and that we’re basically asking for a field goal to be kicked instead of a touchdown being scored for the first points of the game. But with +135 odds being offered on something that I think should be priced like a coin flip, I’ll roll with the value of Field Goal/Safety here.
There’s a bit of juice attached to the Under on this wager, but I think it’s more than justified. It’s quite possible that Dalton’s pass attempts end up in the 20s tonight, based on each club’s strengths and weaknesses as well as Dalton’s recent history.
Let’s start with the latter when breaking down this prop. The Red Rifle dropped back to pass just 28 times last week in a 34-23 victory at Indianapolis, marking the eighth time in his last 12 games that he’s attempted 30 passes or fewer. Even though Cincinnati has one of the league’s top wideouts in Andy Green, Marvin Lewis is an old-school, defensive-minded head coach who would prefer to control the ball with a heavy dose of the running game. You wouldn’t necessarily know that by how many times the Bengals threw the ball in 2017 (on 57.5% of their plays), but that’s because Cincinnati was often playing from behind last year and had to conserve as much clock as possible. I expect the Bengals to be leading or within one score throughout most of this contest, so they’ll be able to commit to the running game that much more.
That leads me into my second point – if the Bengals do stick with the run, they’ll enjoy some success. I know everyone thinks of the Baltimore defense as this run-stuffing machine, but those days are in the past. The Ravens were middle-of-the-league last season in rushing yards allowed per game and per attempt. Baltimore’s strength is against the pass, where it allowed the sixth-fewest net yards per attempt in 2017.
The more running plays there are in this game – and I expect there to be a lot of them – the more time continues to tick off the clock. That means less offensive plays that are run, and less plays means less pass attempts. That probably also makes the Under on Joe Flacco 35.5 pass attempts (-110) a prop worth considering as well, but Flacco has thrown the ball with more regularity over recent games than Dalton has. Since I’m leaning towards Cincinnati to get the job done tonight in a low-scoring affair, I’ll drink a bit of juice and play the Under on how many throws Dalton attempts.
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