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Thank God that’s over.
Don’t get me wrong, I love football season. But as a guy who has to pick three NFL underdogs each Sunday for his weekly column, the 2017 NFL regular season was as nice to NFL pups as movie critics were to DC’s superhero mashup Justice League.
“The action is insane and impossible to follow, geographically. After a while you just give up trying to understand anything…”
That quote could be a review of the belly-flop film or of my weekly NFL Underdogs picks, which closed Week 17 on a 0-3 sour note for a 21-29 ATS final regular season record.
But times weren’t always so tough on NFL teams getting the points. Remember Week 6, when underdogs finished 10-4 against the spread, improving NFL dogs to 53-36-1 ATS through the first six weeks of action? That included a 9-3 ATS run for road dogs in Week 6 and a 37-22-1 ATS (63 percent) mark for visitors getting the points through to October 16.
That was before Week 7. To steal a line from OG Jedi master Obi-Wan Kenobi, “Before the dark times.”
From Week 7 on, NFL underdogs fell like yellow flags on a “roughing the passer” penalty. NFL betting favorites, which had covered just over 40 percent of the time in first six weeks, closed the season on a 96-56-7 ATS run – a 63 percent winning clip for the chalk. And those road underdogs who were once so bountiful, they dropped to 30-60-3 ATS (33 percent) to close out the 2017 campaign.
“Once in awhile, there comes along something so egregiously bad that trying to find something good to say about it is its own kind of cruelty…”
Again, Justice League review or a breakdown of NFL underdogs in the final 10 weeks of the schedule?
Thankfully, the suffering is over and the NFL playoffs bring underdogs with some teeth. And no Wild Card pup has a bigger, sharper set of jaws than the defending NFC champion Atlanta Falcons.
I love the way this Wild Card Weekend is shaping up for the Falcons. Atlanta not only enters the postseason with a full head of momentum, having won three of its last four to sneak into the tournament, but this experienced and playoff-hardened squad faces a wet-behind-the-ears Rams team, that could crumble under the pressure of the playoff stage.
This line opened Los Angeles -4.5 and quickly bounded past the key number to as high as -7 before buyback on the underdog snapped the spread down to -6.5. I don’t agree with that early move, especially considering how the Falcons looked down the stretch.
Atlanta’s offense has been inconsistent all season but the defense has surprisingly been the backbone of this team, and looked great in those final four games. The Falcons limited foes to a total of just 71 points (just under 18 ppg) in that span – despite facing the Saints’ fourth-ranked scoring attack twice.
I really like the Falcons +3.5 in the first half (as well as the first-half Under 24), as I expect L.A. to be a little tight for its first playoff game. But since this column isn’t “First-Half NFL Underdogs”, I’m on the +6.5 full-game spread.
Pick: Falcons +6.5
Carolina Panthers at New Orleans Saints (-7, 48.5)
To me, the hardest team to handicap this NFL season has been the Carolina Panthers. I got involved with Panthers games six times in my column this year, finishing with a 2-4 ATS mark in those contests: three times against Carolina and three times on Carolina.
Perhaps I was overthinking it when it came to Cam & Co. The Panthers were, in fact, the best underdog bet in the NFL, going 5-2 ATS when getting the points. And looking back to Newton’s time under center for Carolina, the Panthers are 30-20 ATS as betting underdogs since 2011. That’s a blind 60 percent ATS winner.
So, with that in mind, I’m not going to overthink this play on the Panthers +7.
Yes, New Orleans already beat Carolina twice this season, winning those two games by a combined score of 65-33 and covering the spread in each outing. And yessssssssss, I’m also aware the Panthers have whiffed against the spread in six straight meetings with the Saints.
But it’s tough to beat a team three times in one season, especially a divisional rival – and one that makes the most of those extra points from the oddsmakers. In that same seven-season span, the Panthers are 12-6 ATS when pegged as pups of six points or more.
Pick: Panthers +7
Bonus Under note (this is after all, NFL “Under” dogs): Since 1994-95, divisional rivals have produced a 13-21-1 Over/Under count (62 percent Unders) when meeting in the postseason, the last example of this trend coming in the 2015-16 Wild Card Round when the Steelers beat the Bengals 18-12 and played well Under the 46-point total. Sunday’s total between the Panthers and Saints is set at 48.5 points. These NFC South rivals have gone 6-1 Over/Under in their last seven meetings. Sooooo....
Last week: 0-3 ATS
Season: 21-29 ATS
