This Week in Sports Betting 9-4-24
By Spread Astaire (@spreadastaire)
Welcome to my inaugural “This Week in Sports Betting” column. It will be an opportunity to get you some quick thoughts on what’s going on in the world of gambling and some observations I have about certain trends and talking points.
I also posted a free NFL bet at the bottom of the article.
Without further ado, let’s dive right in!
College Football is Back!
Although we have the “Week Zero”, Week 1 is the real start of the college football season with most major programs in action.
The great thing about college football is that the early season games matter more than any other sport.
Will the new playoff format change these things? Obviously the 12 team playoff is better for college football but it’ll be easier for teams to rebound from early season losses. However, the results from this weekend felt momentous and it was fun to see certain programs get big upsets.
Notre Dame looked great against Texas A&M. Watching that game however, one thing that I could not keep my eyes off of was how full that stadium was! College football is by far the second most popular sport in America. Also, at Texas A&M, where is the parking lot? How do they get all those people in there??!
USC got a much-needed win against LSU, although how much does that mean since Brian Kelly never gets LSU off to a hot start? I’m sure LSU will rebound but they’re going to need to figure out how to start a season.
Miami looked good and Cam Ward is looking like he’s going to be a top quarterback in this year’s draft. Can’t wait to see how the season unfolds for them.
I know Clemson disappointed as I was one of the people on them as well, but are they that bad or is Georgia that good? Watching the game I kind of felt that Georgia was just that good. Clemson might not be as bad as we think.
NFL Week 1
With the NFL starting you will see plenty of trends across your Twitter/X timeline. Let’s look at these trends. For example, in Week 1 of the NFL season the last two years unders are a combined 23-9.
I do like these trends, especially if I’m leaning a certain way. But we have to remember to take them with a grain of salt. For example, people post these but there’s not a lot of relevant information however. Are they 23-9 against the opening spread or against the closing spread? Is it against the spread from a sharp book like Bookmaker or more public book like DraftKings?
These nuggets can be useful, especially if you need a nudge to hit submit on a bet you really like. Just be careful just taking them as your only handicap as I feel like there is some incomplete data involved in posting these.
Take Advantage of a Fantasy Crazed Community
As bettors, we need to take advantage of the growing popularity of fantasy football. It seems that more casual bettors are just judging teams off their skill position players, and their ability to score fantasy points.
A lot of times these handicaps leave out the most important part of football: the offensive line and defensive line.
Here at Nuke the House, Keg does a great job of quantifying those positions as well. A good O-line and D-line is much more important than a stud wide receiver. Don’t fall into the trap of basing your handicaps off fantasy performance and make sure you’re quantifying the most important part of football, the line of scrimmage.
This Week in Sports Betting: Best Bet
I love the Lions over the Rams this week. Going back to my last point, the Rams are going to struggle on the line of scrimmage in this game. The loss of Aaron Donald is going to mean more than people realize and going against the toughest offensive line in football is going to be a wake up call for the Rams missing their legendary defensive lineman.
Also, the Rams have had too many injuries on the offensive line during the offseason to carry continuity into training camp into the Week 1 game.
The Lions also have a ferocious defensive line and dominate the line of scrimmage. While I do think the Rams will grow together and are not a team to be counted out, this is a terrible Week 1 matchup for them. There’s so much turnover on their line of scrimmage. Therefore I’m going to lay the 3.5 and take the Detroit Lions on Sunday night to get an easy victory over the rebuilding Rams.
You might say, “Spread, the Rams aren’t rebuilding they bring back most of their key players.” Once again football is won at the line of scrimmage and the Rams have serious work to do at the line.
The Play: Lions -3.5 (-104 at Caesars)
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