Outkick Bets: Thursday Night is a Football Night
We are back at it after the MACtion and the eyes of the nation turn to an apparent blowout in the NFL and apparent shootout in the college world. There's value in them there hills and I looked into the numbers to try and find it.
This smells like a serious mismatch, must like we got last week on Thursday Night Football. We don't play the games on paper, but if we did the paper is unkind to Miami. Strictly statistically speaking, the Dolphins really stink. They are the worst rushing team in the NFL going for 75.1 yards per game. They are 30th (out of 32) in total yards and 28th in points scored per game. However, they are 30th in total yards allowed, 30th in passing yards allowed and 27th in points allowed per game. Ok, that made it worse. Taking the spread seems easy, and I will buy it to 7 because this is the largest spread in ANY Miami game this season. That seems hard to believe, but it's true and this is the 4th time that Baltimore has seen a spread of 7.5 and in the other three... they failed to cover, including games against Indianapolis and Detroit. I'm also looking at three players to score TD's for the Ravens: Lamar Jackson (-105), Marquise Brown (+105) and Mark Andrews (+145).
Do you like points? That's what we better see on a cool, cloudy Pittsburgh evening. On the schedule is two teams that are 1st and 12th in scoring, respectively and combined are 13-5 to the OVER. Take a look at the last 5 total games for these two (3 for UNC, 2 for PITT): 72, 83, 87, 88 and 113. Holy smokes. The total is 72.5 and it's a lot, but there's nothing about these two that says scoring won't be in-style. North Carolina's scoring defense is actually the best of the bunch, by a bunch, at it's 45th in the nation while Pitt comes in at 111th. I have zero clue who will win this game, but I feel really good about it ending with about 95 points total.