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The madness has begun with our NFL Week 2 picks

Andre Simone Avatar
September 14, 2017
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We’re back at it again, after the first taste of NFL football that most called boring but we found truly fascinating at BSN ATS.

Week 1 went predictably mad for our numbers with EW going 5-and-8 overall and 1-and-2 in the few differentials over three points while ER ended up going 4-and-9 overall and 3-5 in differentials of over three points. Not good. Which was to be expected.

What’s interesting this week though is while our spreads were right on top of the Vegas lines Week 1, as predicted, the overreactions to opening week have driven the lines completely off. Which we like. As we wait for our go-to metric in YPP to be reliable – we’ll start having those numbers for you by Week 3 and use that as our predominant metric from Week 4 on – we’re using both EW and ER here to make our picks.

With that, we’re giving you all the lines for both metrics, which you’ll find here below, and our picks for both games.

With several large differential margins, there’re plenty of games to choose from, but we’re sticking to the ones that look best. For those of you who are itching to make a bet tonight on the Houston Texans at the Cincinnati Bengals, with the Bengals as -6 favorites both numbers like Cincy.

The numbers also like the New Orleans Saints at home who are getting pretty severely disrespected by the bookmakers as -7 point home dogs to the New England Patriots. We’ve decided to go another way.

Our EW picks of the week

Baltimore Ravens -9 versus the Cleveland Browns

The Ravens looked like the Ravens of old, who play nasty defense and will run you to death. In a mauling of the Cincinnati Bengals, at least for one week, they looked like they were back in a big way.

The Cleveland Browns on their end had a serviceable showing against the Pittsburgh Steelers and covering the -9 points. With this Ravens team at home and EW predicting the Browns to only win 3.5 games this year, the line for our metric is all the way to -13 in favor of Baltimore.

After a convincing 20-to-zip win in Cincinnati that doesn’t seem far-fetched as this team is well suited to play the Browns and matches up well. You also have to love the Ravens are going to play well with a lead, as they’ll run out the clock on offense and that defense can hurt you with tons of talent in their back seven.

There’s always a risk in a spread that large but we like our chances.

Buffalo Bills +7 at the Carolina Panthers 

Per EW, these teams are pretty evenly matched even though Buffalo is the slightly better team being projected to win 8.5 games as opposed to Carolina’s 7.

With that, the touchdown spread here is just too much as EW has this as an even game. Look, it’s easy to dismiss the Bills after a very odd offseason in which they seem to be already working toward the 2018 offseason. But as they showed a year ago when they scored more points than they allowed and in Week 1, they’re not scrubs like the Indianapolis Colts or others.

The Bills have a good run game and have invested heavily in their offensive line, they also have a very competent defensive mind behind them in head coach Sean McDermott and plenty of talent on their front seven.

Carolina, on the other hand, looked unconvincing on offense against the San Francisco 49ers a week ago. Fixing those issues won’t be so easy against a Bills team that’s playing with house money this season.

Our ER picks of the week

Jacksonville Jaguars +2 versus the Tennessee Titans

No one loves a good home dog bet like we do at BSN ATS, especially when it’s the Jaguars who ER predicted to win 9.5 games and the AFC South division. That prediction looks a lot less crazy today than it did only a week ago, and now the Jags can bring their dominant defense back home where they should be even better.

After seeing them destroy the helpless Texans to the tune of 10 sacks and 13 quarterback hits they take on another divisional rival. The Titans are a good team but they did look a bit rusty last week against the Oakland Raiders and Marshawn Lynch was able to deliver quite the pounding on their defense. This week they’ll get a first look at Leonard Fournette who’s big on delivering the hurt as well.

Playing a new brand of smash mouth football, we like Jacksonville here to pull off the upset at home.

Los Angeles Chargers -4.5 versus the Miami Dolphins

The Chargers suffered a tough loss to the Denver Broncos after almost coming all the way back from 17 points down and forcing overtime – and covering the +3.5 point spread for a betting win I’d add. But make no mistake, this team is very talented. They have Keenan Allen back and their young duo of pass rushers, Joey Bosa and Melvin Ingram, is going to be hard to deal with this year.

The Dolphins on their end haven’t even played a regular season game yet and have had a hellish week as far as logistics go, with an impromptu bye week and having to travel to California.

With all that going on and a motivated Chargers team playing in their “new” stadium for the first time ready to avenge a tough loss it’s easy to see LA breaking away in this one.

Our ER metric is very high on the Bolts having them winning 10.5 games in 2017, Miami only has 5 and our projected line is -9.5 in favor of the Chargers. We’ll take our chances.

There are many more games to pick from here below, go wild.

BSN ATS’ EW Week 2 lines

Teams Current Spread Expected Wins 2017  Advantage Home Field Suggested Spread Differntial
HOU 6.5
@CIN -6 8.5 4 3 -7 1
CLE 3.5
@BAL -9 8.5 10 3 -13 4
BUF 8.5 3 Even 7
@CAR -7 7 3 Even
AZ -7 9.5 2
@IND 8.5 3 -1 8
TEN -2 8 4 -1
@JAX 6 3 1
PHI 9
@KC -5.5 10 2 3.5 -5.5 0
NE -7 12.5 8 -4.5
@NO 8.5 3.5 2.5
MIN 8.5
@PIT -5.5 10 3 3.5 -6.5 1
CHI 5
@TB -7 7.5 5 3 -8 1
DAL -2 11 4 -0.5
@DEN 9 3.5 1.5
MIA 7.5 0.5
@LAC -4.5 8 1 3 -4
NYJ 4.5 6
@OAK -13.5 9 4.5 3 -7.5
WSH 8.5 10 -7 9.5
@LAR -2.5 3.5 3
SF 4
@SEA -14 10 12 3.5 15.5 1.5
GB 9
@ATL -3 9.5 1 3 -4 1
DET 7.5
@NYG -3 9 3 3 -6 3

BSN ATS’ ER Week 2 lines

Teams Current Spread Expected Wins 2017 Advantage Home Field BSN Suggested Spread Differential
HOU 6
@CIN -6 11 10 3 -13 7
CLE 7 2
@BAL -9 9 4 3 -7
BUF 8
@CAR -7 10 4 3 -7 0
AZ -7 11 6 -3
@IND 8 3 4
TEN -2 7.5
@JAX 9.5 4 3 -7 9
PHI 10.5 7 -3.5 9
@KC -5.5 7 3.5
NE -7 11 2
@NO 10 3.5 -1.5 8.5
MIN 9 1
@PIT -5.5 9.5 1 3.5 -4.5
CHI 7.5 1 5
@TB -7 7 3 -2
DAL -2 7.5
@DEN 8.5 2 3.5 -5.5 7.5
MIA 5
@LAC -4.5 10.5 11 3 -14 9.5
NYJ 3 3.5
@OAK -13.5 6.5 7 3 -10
WSH 8 6 -3 5.5
@LAR -2.5 5 3
SF 6.5 2.5
@SEA -14 10.5 8 3.5 -11.5
GB 9.5 1 1
@ATL -3 9 3 -2
DET 6
@NYG -3 6.5 1 3 -4 1

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