Underdogs Rule Holiday Weekend; Giants-Patriots Battle on Monday Night

Happy Monday Betting family! Hope everyone had a nice, winning weekend. Yesterday marked the fifth straight Sunday without a Dolphins loss, completing an undefeated November. And the Gators have a new coach, but you didn’t come here to hear any of that.

Anyhow, we finish Week 13 with a Monday Night Football game with the Giants and Patriots, two very popular teams in the region in which I reside. One of them has to win.

We also have 9 NBA games and 5 NHL games to choose from.

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NFL Main Side/Total Plays (including primetime games): 24-27-1 (47.1%)
- Sides: 10-15-1
- Totals: 14-12
Main Props (including primetime games): 72-44 (62.1%)
Total: 96-71-1 (57.4%)

I guess it’s about time to believe in this Patriots team that has pulled a tremendous turnaround from last year’s 4-win team. The growth of Drake Maye, addition of rookie TreVeyon Henderson, and an offseason spending spree for the OL and defense have worked out under new coach Mike Vrabel.

I don’t buy the “easy schedule” logic as you can only beat who is on your schedule and their schedule is only 3 games different than the Bills, Dolphins, and Jets. They have beaten the Bills and gone into Tampa and won. The team is right there and should have no trouble with the Giants tonight. The Patriots offense is top 10 in total yards and pass yards and 7th in the league in scoring offense (26.5). Just as impressive, the defense is 7th in yards, 2nd against the rush and 6th in scoring defense (18.8). Those numbers don’t lie.

If playing a side or total in this game, I would lay the points, but buy the half point down to 7. Not everyone is a fan of doing that and I get it. But 7 is a key number for a reason. During the current 9-game win streak, the Patriots have covered 7.5 in four of the 9 wins, with three of them coming against similarly bad teams like the Giants in the Jets, Browns and Titans.

The Giants, meanwhile, have kept things close with one-score losses in each of their last three games, the last two by 7 points (hence my point on buying it down if you play it).

The defense is awful, which is where we will start in the prop market!

TreVeyon Henderson over 63.5 rush yards (FanDuel)

The Giants have the worst rush defense in NFL, allowing 157.2 yards per games and 5.93 yards per rush. During their current 6-game losing streak:

Meanwhile, since taking over as lead back, Henderson’s last 5 games: 85, 55, 147, 52, 66; 14+ rushes in each of last four games.

Make sure to shop as DraftKings has this at 65.5.

Tyron Tracy Jr. under 49.5 rushing yards (DraftKings)

On the other side, the Patriots have the Patriots have 2nd-best rush defense in league, only allowing 87.2 yards per game. Singletary continues to take carries from Tracy with 16 and 14 in last two games. Yes, Tracy has averaged 73.7 yards per games over the last 3 games, but that included games against the Bears (28th in rush yards allowed), and Lions (11th).

Make sure to shop as FanDuel has this at 46.5.

Don’t go away! We have our Same Game Parlay and NBA and NHL picks below

We are going to use an alt line on our Henderson pick above and add three more legs to use the FanDuel 30% SGP boost. We won’t be using our Tracy play since the books don’t offer alt-line unders.

DraftKings has a 30% boost to use on anything in the game (single, parlay, SGP) and we will use it on our Henderson pick

They also have the King of End Zone $2M promo, which is for the longest TD of the night. For this, we will use it on Henderson as well. He has HR power, so why not?! (-110 ATD).

This slate very quietly has some interesting spots. The Pistons hosting the Hawks is a nice little data point to open December, Cooper Flagg vs Nikola Jokic isn't a one-vs-one game, but there's intrigue, and the Lakers are the nightcap with the surprise Suns coming to town.

I'm like you, I like watching quality basketball and will be tuned into those games. My betting ticket, however, doesn't have eyes and can sometimes land on some ugly contests.

Enter Hornets/Nets. A typical “hold your nose” game.

To go over this total, hoping for both teams to reach 110 points, and I'm not sure either team gets there. Both of these talent deficient teams rank in the bottom quarter of the league, a nice place to start when promoting an under play.

That said, this is 2025 and points can be put on the board in an absurdly efficient manner, so possession count alone isn't enough.

If you're rooting for an under, you're essentially rooting for clean basketball. You don't want turnovers to fuel transition opportunities, you don't want fouls to give create high percentage scoring chances with the clock stopped, and you certainly don't want a team to catch fire from distance.

Michael Porter Jr. is expected back from a back injury (consecutive DNPs) and while that adds some scoring punch, it also adds a ball stopping wing who traditionally isn't a high free throw rate player that has three seasons with more turnovers than assists.

On paper, I understand why Porter's return increases the point expectation, but I don't think it does much for their scoring floor and one poor quarter could get us home. The Nets lost 116-99 to the Bucks on Saturday and while I don't think we get a 17-point difference in this spot, a total in that range is closer to what I'm expecting tonight.

Under 227.5

Amen Thompson over 12.5 Rebounds/Assists

Courtesy of Kevin Rogers

Anaheim has been one of the worst first period teams on the road this season, posting an ugly 1-2-10 mark. The Ducks actually led after the first period away from home for the first time against the Blackhawks on Sunday, scoring three goals in a 5-3 loss.

The Blues welcome in the unrested Ducks tonight, as St. Louis has stepped up in the opening period recently, going 8-1-3 in the last 12 games.

St. Louis hasn't allowed a first period goal in five of the last six games, while Anaheim has given up a first period goal in seven of the past 10 road contests.

Let's back St. Louis on the puck line (+140) in the first period (for a nice plus money return against Anaheim.

In this section, we like to take a first look at the next week’s action and hope to jump on some games before the line moves. These are not official plays unless noted that I took it today. It’s good to get ahead of the market and look for edges.

A perfect example: In NFL’s Week 1, we mentioned Broncos -7.5. If you took it Monday, it was a win. If you waited unless Sunday, when it moved to -8.5, you lost. In Friday’s column, it was still -8, so that was a push.

What we like/monitoring today

Cincinnati Bengals at Buffalo Bills (-6, 51.5)

Chicago Bears at Green Bay Packers (-6.5, 44.5)

Los Angeles Rams (-7.5, 48.5) at Arizona Cardinals

Others I am monitoring:

How Did We Do?

Well, we did great in the side/total markets, going 3-0 with wins on Bears (Friday), and both totals on Sunday (Saints TT and Colts/Texans). This helps as we had struggled there of late.

Prop market wasn’t as nice to us, going 1-4. But we have two more tonight to rebound on.

Here is a quick recap of how this newsletter did on the weekend (Friday’s newsletter) with full NFL and CFB slates, MLB postseason and NHL underway.

NFL

CFB

NBA/NHL

In football, “3” and “7” are the two biggest key numbers since field goals are worth three points and a touchdown with the PAT is worth seven points. In terms of final scores, 14-15% of NFL games end in a three-point margin of victory and 9-10% of games are decided by seven points, the highest of any two numbers.

Shopping lines, as mentioned above, to ensure you get those key numbers is a crucial part of the process. If the price is correct (and this varies from book to book and person to person), you could buy a half point (called the hook) to get there.

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