Happy Monday Betting family! Hope everyone enjoyed the awesome Wild Card games this past weekend, well at least 4 of the 5 were awesome and down to the wire. I chose to watch a Netflix show instead of the Herbert-Maye snoozefest. Herbert loses playoff games and Patriots win them. Seen that show. And we have one more game tonight, with the last Monday Night Football game of the year.
On the betting side, we are off to a good start, with a 5-2 weekend and a few more to choose from tonight.
We also have 6 NBA games and 9 NHL games to choose from on this Monday between holidays.
But let’s get you some winning bets to cash.
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Also make sure you listen to the weekly Betting with Bearman podcast. Last week, we had Chris “The Bear” Fallica on to break down the CFP semifinals.
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Monday Night Playoff Football in Pittsburgh
NFL Main Side/Total Plays: 37-41-2 (47.5%)
- Sides: 20-19-2 (0-1 postseason)
- Totals: 17-22 (2-0 postseason)
Main Props (including primetime games): 95-61 (60.9%) (3-1 postseason)
Total: 132-102-2 (56.4%) (5-2 postseason)
Houston Texans (-3, 38.5) at Pittsburgh Steelers - Monday night
This Houston team is good enough to win it all and it starts tonight in Pittsburgh. The defense leads the league in yards and second to Seattle in scoring after allowing 30 in a meaningless Week 18 game. Taking that result out, the Texans haven’t allowed more than 21 points since Week 10 to the Jags.
The offense has been the question for Houston, but they been much improved of late, gaining 350+ yards in four of the last six games with postseason on the line. They’ve also scored 20+ in each of the last seven games after not doing so in four of the first six games.
You can have a priest in the end zone all you want, but the Steelers are just not a very good football team. The offense is 22nd or worse in every category, the defense is 26th in yards and 29th in passing and they have the 6th-worst yardage differential in the league, only ahead of five teams that all won less than 6 games.
Since their Week 5 bye, the Steelers have beaten one team with a winning record: the 9-8 Lions.
We lean towards laying the points with Houston, but we are going to the prop market for our top plays.
Kenneth Gainwell under 28.5 rush yards, over 30.5 receiving yards
A double dipper with Gainwell. On the rushing side, Texans have 4th-best rush defense, allowing 93.7 yards per game and shutdown zone rushing, which is where Gainwell feasts.
After being a bigger part of the running game late in the season, Gainwell only had 7 and 5 carries for 26 and 10 yards with their season on the line over the last two weeks. Jaylen Warren had 12 and 14 carries in those two games.
If the expectation that Houston is going to be ahead in this game, Pittsburgh will go to the pass… where Gainwell has been great. He’s had 45+ yards in three of the last four games, getting 7+ targets in four of last five games.
And while the Texans are dominate against the run, they have been leaky allowing RBs to catch passes. Here are last few weeks: Hampton 8-31, Jeanty 1-60, Carter 4-38, KC doesn’t throw to RBs, JT 3-36
Don’t go away! We have a Same Game Parlay for MNF and NBA and NHL games of the night
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SGP for Monday Night
We are going to find a couple of alt lines we like and boost it back with FanDuel’s 30% or DraftKings’s 30% SGPx boosts.
Gainwell 25+ receiving yards (-225): alt line of our main play
Texans ML (-155)
Collins 60+ receiving yards (-186): Steelers pass def is 29th (243.9 per game), Collins just missed this number in his last two games (59, 57) but hit it easily in previous 6 of previous 7 games (85, 121, 98, 92, 136, 75) with a 55 in there.
Rodgers 20+ completions (-187): hit this in 5 straight games and they should be trailing and we already talked about the Houston rush defense.
+345 boosted to +449 (DK 30 pct)
NBA on the Court
Los Angeles Lakers (-9.5, 227.5) at Sacramento Kings
The Kings are coming off of a shocking 111-98 upset win over the Rockets, their first win of the month and just their sixth since early November.
They ran into a good game as every NBA team does, but I'm having a hard time seeing them competitive against a Lakers team coming off consecutive losses and having the past two days off.
In comparing Sacramento's last 12 games to their first 27, their pace is down 4% and if we are going to assume some heavy legs, not to mention a general lack of consistency, any decline in the possession count is working very much in our favor.
Los Angeles isn't exactly an elite defense, but over their past dozen games, their pace is also down (as is to be expected with Austin Reaves sidelined) and their opponent turnover rate is up 8.3%. With the Kings ranking bottom-10 in percentage of points that come from the stripe, I'm having a hard time envisioning them getting easy points at any point and that makes averaging over 27 points a quarter an uphill battle at best.
These teams met back on December 28, a game in which Sacramento shot 59.3% from inside the arc, won the FTA battle and were competitive in key spots like the paint, the glass, and in transition. ... they lost by 24, didn't score 30 points in a quarter once, and finished with 101 points.
In that contest, they shot 28% from 3 and turned the ball over 19 times. This roster is constructed in a clunky way and more often than not, we are reminded of that for an extended stretch of time.
Maybe there's some risk of the backdoor coming in, but I'm not in the business of fading a bet simply because garbage time might potentially impact this angle a little.
I'll say that triple digits is no guarantee tonight and that we a crippling quarter at some point (they had a 19-point in their most recent back-to-back and if that happens, we are sitting pretty).
Kings team total under 109.5
NHL on the Ice
Courtesy of Kevin Rogers
Seattle Kraken (+120) at New York Rangers (-144), Total 5.5
Both New York and Seattle own lousy first period home/road splits, so we'll concentrate on the first period total here.
Seattle is 14-7 to the Under in the opening period on the road, while not allowing a goal in 10 of the past 13 opportunities. Also, the Kraken have failed to score a first period goal on the road in nine of the last 12 tries.
The Rangers were routed by the Bruins on Saturday, 10-2, as New York will certainly look for a better result tonight. New York is 5-1 to the Under in the last six outings in the opening 20 minutes after a combined three goals in the first period.
Let's take the Under in the first period at the Garden between the Kraken and Rangers.
Under 1.5 goals (-100)
NFL Early Look
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.
We did pretty well with our First Look thoughts on Wild Card Weekend, let’s do it again with early Divisional Round odds. One matchup is not set
What we like/monitoring today
San Francisco 49ers at Seattle Seahawks (-7.5, 45.5) - Saturday
I said this to my Eagles neighbor before the game yesterday: “The Niners are the most impossible team to handicap.” There are times they look like Super Bowl contenders (yesterday, vs. Bears in Week 17) and there are time the ridiculous amount of injuries catch up with them and they look terrible (Week 18 vs. Seattle).
The good news is we’ve seen this matchup already.. twice. The teams opened the season and finished the season against each other. SF won Week 1 on the road, 17-13 and Seattle returned the favor two weeks ago, 13-3. You see what both have in common? Exactly.
And their 2nd matchup last year? 20-17. So the last three meetings between these two teams were 37, 30, 16.
Seattle has one of the top defenses in the NFL, first in scoring (17.2), 3rd in rushing (91.9), 2nd in yards per play (4.56) and 2nd in pass yards per play (5.5).
San Fran’s defense depends on who they play. They shutdown the Eagles yesterday, but also gave up 38 to the Bears in Week 17.
Seattle with a bye and history of these two teams playing low scoring games.
Under 45.5
Buffalo Bills (-1.5, 46.5) at Denver Broncos - Saturday
This would be only the 4th time in the last 40 years a team off a bye isn’t a favorite in the Divisional Rd.
And understandable so as yesterday, the Bills looked like the Bills most expected to see this season, with Josh Allen doing superhuman stuff and people not yet buying the Broncos.
The Bills Achilles heel this season has been rush defense (28th in league), but Broncos are not a great rushing offense (16th in NFL). The pass defense, other than allowing Parker Washington to go nuts, shut down the rest of the Jags passing game as Lawrence was 9-18 for 100 yards not throwing to Washington.
Broncos have proven they can win low-scoring game and high-scoring games. Can win at home and on road, can beat good teams and bad. But is facing Buffalo in the postseason an even bigger task?
It’s early, but my lean is Buffalo -1.5, making up for fading them last week
Los Angeles Rams (-3.5, 51.5) at Chicago Bears - Sunday
Fascinating matchup between the presumptive SB favorites and the team that won’t die.
Give the Bears credit, the game is never over. But I’ll say it bluntly: McVay and the Rams are not the Packers. If they are up 2 TDs in the 4th quarter, they aren’t allowing the Bears to win.
Now, the question is, will the Rams be winning late? I think so, as I still believe this is the best team in the NFL and every great team always has to deal with tough games and adversity to win it all. Rams, while not playing great over the last 7 weeks, are still right there.
Chicago, especially the offense, has surprised me maybe more than any other team, but here is why LA will win: The Bears defense is 29th in total yards, 23rd in scoring, 26th against the run and 22nd against the pass. The Rams have one of the best offenses in football.
That’s the difference to me and why I am looking to back the Rams. That and what I said about Rams not allowing Bears to come back.
If Chicago is to win, they need to force Stafford into early TOs and be up early. If this is Rams up 27-14 in 4th, Rams will hold on.
Rams -3.5, looking for -3.
More to come later in the week.
Recapping the Weekend
How Did We Do?
It was a great start to the NFL Playoffs, as we went 5-2 on Saturday and Sunday and almost went 6-1 if Jags had held on. All 4 of our props were not close with 3 easy wins and 1 not close loss. All in all, the reads were good.
Here is a quick recap of how this newsletter did on the weekend (Friday’s newsletter).
NFL
Went 2-1 in our game/side/total picks, with the Jags blowing it late. Our two totals won with the Chargers/Pats not even a sweat. The Niners/Eagles made us sweat a little there in the 4th quarter with a few TDs and Eagles threatening, but it was under pace all game.
We hit 3 of 4 props, with Cook and Brian Thomas Jr. both way under their totals and Puka getting 6 of his 10 catches in the first half, so 7+ was easy. Christian Watson was our lone miss as he wasn’t the focus, with Doubs having the big game. Packers WRs are a tough bet, so we gambled a little there.
CFB
My pick of Indiana -4 was over before I turned the games on.
Fallica went 3-2 with his CFP picks on the podcast.
NBA
Pelicans -2 won easily with a 21-point win over the Wizards.
Betting Tip of the Week
Shop Shop Shop
If you take anything out of any betting advice, let it be this one … Shop, shop, and shop some more. If you’re only using one book, they have you, and you already lost.
To be a successful bettor in the long term, you need to have the best price. Most legal states have numerous books for you to choose from, and you need to gain every advantage you can. Spend the extra time to shop your price across all books and promos and settle on the best one … always.
Thoughts and Picks on Wednesday’s main action
Divisional Round line movements and preview of Patriots game (once we know opponent)
Sony Open Preview!!
CFP Championship Thoughts
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