Hot & Not Report – Week 3

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Straight Up - SU, Against the Spread - ATS

NFL Week 3 Betting Angles

Two weeks of the season has already come and gone, and before you know it we will be at Halloween, eight weeks will have gone by and you'll still be doing preseason prep for the Pac-12.

Week 3 is one of my favorite weeks of the NFL season though because the first impressions and subsequent follow ups have already been seen, and perspectives on teams are starting to take some sort of shape. Two games worth of box scores begin to form more data, and yet every season the same things seem to hold true in Week 3 every year.

So it's into the archives for an updated version of a popular piece last year as there is no reason to change. It performed well once again. It's all about the spread record for Week 3 road teams and if they've got a goose egg in one column, you'll want to take it to crack.

Who's Hot

Week 3 road teams that are 0-2 ATS to start the year are 15-4 ATS in Week 3 the past four seasons, including 6-1 ATS a year ago

Brought this one up at the right time a season ago with a nice 6-1 ATS mark this week, and the 2020 season brings us another strong list of candidates. Some of these teams are even up against some perfect 2-0 ATS teams as well.

Who do you Follow?

  • Cowboys
  • Jets
  • Texans
  • Titans
  • Panthers
  • Lions

This means that plays on Dallas (+4.5) at Seattle, the NY Jets (+10.5) at Indianapolis, Houston (+4) at Pittsburgh, Tennessee (-2.5) at Minnesota, Carolina (+7.5) at LA Chargers, and Detroit (+5.5) at Arizona all should be considered for the card.

A couple of those lines still can have the look of ones that are a little too steeped in a two-week snap judgement and different weighing injuries can be. Carolina's going to be missing McCaffrey which is behind that number getting over a TD as part of the latter, and the Jets may not be as bad as they seem if you believe Buffalo's a contender this year and the catching an angry 49ers team who just happened to be 0-1 SU after losing the Super Bowl.

At the same time, as someone who has the Vikings to make the Super Bowl an 0-2 SU start in the fashion it's gone down for the Vikings has not gone over well, and I'm not quite ready to write them off yet either. Tennessee's managed to let two teams hang around when they probably shouldn't have too, and laying points on the road with a team you know has kicking issues never feels comfortable.

The cases for taking the points in five of those six games where it applies is something that won't take much work to have me on board, but there probably isn't much of a hurry to rush to grab these ugly dogs either. Carolina and the Jets are likely to get very little support overall, and I don't know how much market sentiment is left to make many want to back the Lions and Texans led by Matt Patricia and Bill O'Brien respectively.

Dallas is always going to be a public darling regardless, but up against Russell Wilson and his MVP chatter already making the rounds, that overwhelming Dallas money is probably going to be more balanced. That spread isn't likely to be moving too far either way.

But after seven games fit this role a season ago and it produced at that 85% clip, it was time to go right back to it and see how the six games that qualify this year end up treating the bankrolls.

Who's Not

Week 3 road teams that are 2-0 ATS are 4-9 ATS the past four years; 1-0 ATS in 2019

This is not going to have the large volume of plays that the other run does, as of the nine teams that are 2-0 ATS, the majority of them are at home in Week 3.

Who do you Fade?

  • Packers
  • Rams
  • Raiders

But this would imply that fading the Packers (+4.5) vs New Orleans and the Los Angeles Rams (+2.5/3) at Buffalo should be other options to be considered, as should looking to go against the Raiders (+6) at New England after they defeated the Saints on Monday Night Football.

Monday's impressive win by the Raiders over the Saints in their Las Vegas home opener could open up the flood gates for plenty of generic Green Bay love as a downgrade on the Saints more then anything, but I'm sure the Raiders may come off that +6 number as well.

The loss for the Saints likely still brings plenty of Packers love, but Patriots backers are probably going to want to look to get that play down sooner rather then later with New England looking just fine through two games of the Cam Newton era.

Finally, playing against the Rams means you are playing on a strong Bills team that's remained undefeated and kept the backdoor open too long for the Dolphins to get the late ATS cover on Sunday. There are worse options every week then having a ticket that's got the Bills at home on it though.

However, it would only be backing the two AFC East teams of these three games that I think I'd end up putting on the card, as even with Packers love expected, I'm still not sure the Saints aren't being valued much higher than they should be.

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