NFL Week 7 Picks: Best Bets vs. the Spread

Hi! Do you enjoy football? How about winning money? If you answered yes to either or both of those questions, the following is in your wheelhouse. Here are the Smarter picks for Week 7 of the NFL season. These are against the spread, and the spreads and percentages are courtesy of Pregame.com.

Season Record: 9-9

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS (+1) over Oakland Raiders

There are several “80/20” games this week, so at least one is getting picked. For the uninitiated, an 80/20 game is when at least 80 percent of the betting action is on one side; when you see that, run to the 20 percent, because that’s where the sharks are hunting. Right now, 86 percent of the action is on the Raiders, a West Coast team travelling east for a 1:00 p.m. game.

Jacksonville has been wholly uninsipiring this year, but both of these teams sport horrendous defenses, and lethal talent in the passing game. Expect this to devolve into a wild shootout, in which there’s no reason to feel badly about taking a home team in what amounts to basically a pick’em. This is a bit of a contrarian pick, and a bit of “hey, let Oakland prove they can consistently win these types of road tilts.”

PHILADELPHIA EAGLES (+3) over Minnesota Vikings

Picking against the Vikings might make you nauseous, but the trap is well laid here. The Vikings are 5-0 and coming off a bye, while the Eagles are the hot start team that’s lost its luster with two straight losses and a rookie QB. It doesn’t make sense to like Philly, but the numbers and situation don’t lie.

Philadelphia is desperate, they’re a home underdog, and the overwhelming majority of the public loves Minny. Many, many times the public is wrong. 85 percent of the action being on the Vikings dictates you should take a hard look at the birds.

If you need a little actual football reasoning, don’t forget the Iggles have a Top 10 defense per Football Outsiders, and a Top 5 D vs. the pass. If the Eagles can avoid turning the ball over this will be a battle.

DENVER BRONCOS (-7) over Houston Texans

Seven points may be a lot for a Broncos team that doesn’t scare you with its offense, but this is betting on that Super Bowl caliber defense to terrorize Brock Osweiler, who has been awful this season. I’m ignoring the “revenge” angle for the most part and focusing on facts; the Broncos are hell on QBs, and so far Osweiler hasn’t been great even vs. soft defenses. The Broncos are also hell on No. 1 receivers, so don’t expect much out of DeAndre Hopkins.

The lack of J.J. Watt is also huge in this one, because that not only hurts the Texans’ ability to force the relatively young Trevor Siemian into mistakes, it hinders their ability to stop RB C.J.  Anderson.