Will's Past Picks
With their quarterback fresh off a left-hand surgery, the Chargers need to make sure and get the ball out of Justin Herbert's hands as fast as possible on Monday night. There's no better way to do that than to feed Ladd McConkey, whose reception-per-game numbers are a little down this year. That's affording us a really nice price on the over 4.5 here at plus money. If Ladd is involved early we could get here by halftime.
Usually Justin Herbert to not throw an interception is a pretty pricey endeavor, because the Chargers QB is so notoriously good at protecting the football. But because of Herbert having surgery last week (on his non-throwing hand) we're getting a really good price on him here to protect the football. I think he'll get minimal pass attempts because of the overall game environment and the Chargers gameplan and when he does they should be short hitters. The Chargers won't want to risk him holding the ball a ton or giving the Eagles chances to flip the field with a turnover.
The Chargers are bringing back Omarion Hampton from injured reserve and as a result, the market presented some nice value for Kimani Vidal. There's almost no chance Hampton is going to be a full-blown workhorse in his first game back -- the carry prop numbers indicate as much -- and Vidal could absolutely get high-value touches against a physical Eagles defense in short-yardage areas on Monday night. At 3-1 I'm willing to speculate it on it and don't mind his first touchdown scorer price either. If Hampton gets banged up or there are negative pregame reports about Hampton's usage, this will look like a steal of a price.
The Chargers aren't in a "must-win" spot here per se, but this is certainly a massive game for Jim Harbaugh's team. The fact Justin Herbert is playing a week after speaks volumes to the importance of this matchup. The total does too and the fact it's in the low 40's tells me we're going to see a lot of running the ball on both sides. If the Eagles come out trying to run with no Lane Johnson, I think they'll struggle against a strong Chargers defense. And I trust Harbs and Herbert to get the job done at home on Monday night.
Jamo went nuts when Amon-Ra St. Brown left the game on Thanksgiving against the Packers and if the star Lions wideout can't go on his ankle, then this number will end up at like -125 or so I would think, given the massive total and his usage with ARSB off the field. It's already moved almost 10 cents as of Tuesday morning, if St. Brown is ruled out or doesn't look like he'll play, even money will feel like a steal.
This is primarily a play on what we expect (see: above) to be a less enthusiastic passing game than what's being expected as well as Rice's injury status. The star receiver is playing with a banged-up hamstring and he was flexing/stretching on the field Sunday after going down before contact on multiple receptions. Kansas City might very well need him to produce if the game turns into a shootout and/or they're trailing and this thing could be done at half given how much work he does near the line of scrimmage. If the Chiefs are controlling this game at all, I'd expect them to limit the number of snaps Rice sees. And that means less opportunities for receptions.
The 49ers have Brock Purdy back and will be able to shred the Panthers early on offense. What will result is Carolina throwing it around on the 49ers injury-depleted defense. San Francisco might cover, but the Panthers are the most easily swayed tempo team in football. They want to run and if they don't do it early, they'll bail and let Bryce Young throw for 448 yards -- the most ever in a single game by a Panthers quarterback and somehow no one noticed. This has all the makings of a sneaky shootout.
We're going right back to the Adams well, even though the price is a little ridiculous. But the world is finally catching up to Adams res-zone prowess: he still leads the NFL in red-zone targets and he's in the middle of an incredibly positive touchdown regression run, having scored seven touchdowns in his last four games. The Buccaneers likely to bottle up the run, as they are wont to do, which means Matthew Stafford will need to do work against Tampa's secondary. Which means Adams targets, particularly the ones in high-leverage spots and down by the goal line.
The Seahawks are in a great bounceback after their loss to the Rams. They're massive 13.5-point favorites on the road against the woeful Titans and their defense should smother Cam Ward. I'd expect the Seahawks to run the ball effectively, which means Sam Darnold is going to have plenty of deep play-action looks. That sets up perfectly for Shaheed, who should have scored against the Rams except for a teensy bit of an underthrow by Darnold coupled with an excellent defensive play by Emmanual Forbes, Jr. Seattle would like to get Shaheed in the end zone sooner rather than later after acquiring him at the trade deadline. This week is the week.
Honestly I thought the Chiefs would be -4.5 here. That's no disrespect to the Colts at all, but Kansas City is 5-5 and has to win this game or else they legitimately might not make the playoffs. I'm willing to wager on Patrick Mahomes laying three points at home in a game against Daniel Jones in which, if Patrick Mahomes loses, he's staring down the likelihood of not only missing the AFC title game for the first time ever but also missing the playoffs for the first time ever. It's not a perfect matchup, but the Chiefs are coming off a bad road loss to the Broncos so the market is down. It's trying to move up and I want to get them a FG.
This is a great spot for Jamo because of the amount of single-high coverage the Giants play on defense. Even better: the Lions were suffered their greatest humiliation of the season on Sunday night against the Eagles. And when the Lions are embarrassed, they extract their revenge, going 13-0 SU and ATS in their last, uh, 13 games under Dan Campbell after a loss. That means Goff slinging it and with Sam LaPorta on IR, it should mean lots of looks for Williams, who is a threat to score every single time he touches the ball. Jamo's set up for an explosive close to the season and when he's indoors against a questionable back end of a defense I want to bet on him scoring.
Never get less than 12 hours of sleep, never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city, never date a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body and never blink when the Lions are double-digit favorites at home against a bad secondary off an embarrassing prime-time loss. This is an absolute smash spot for the Lions and this line will move up. The Giants could get Jaxson Dart back here, and if they do, the coaching staff will be under strict orders from ownership not to run him a ton. If they don't, it means a lot of Jameis Winston against a secondary that will flip aggressive throws into good field position and/or points.
The fact of the matter is Hollins just keeps getting on the field for the Patriots, seeing 85 percent of the snaps against the Jets in Week 11. His run blocking is so valuable to what the Pats want to do and he's been an extremely reliable target for fellow UNC alum Drake Maye this year, so I expect he'll be back out getting looks again this week against a porous Bengals unit that sits pretty easily as the worst defense football. Hollins has 15 targets in his last two games, is an outstanding deep threat and if we get Joe Burrow back for this one, it's just a bonus because it makes the game more of a shootout.
I liked the over in Bengals-Patriots anyway, because I think Cincy, even without Ja'Marr Chase out via his SpitGate 2.0 suspension, can move the ball and score with their passing offense. But with the news that Joe Burrow practiced fully on Wednesday and the market moves that are starting to follow, I'm jumping all over anything below 50. I would be pretty surprised if he played, but a full practice on Wednesday can be indicative of a surprise early return. And in that case I'd love to have this over under 50 in my pocket, which I do now.
Henry is averaging north of 20 carries per game over the last four games. The Ravens need to win, badly. They're facing a Jets team that is more than willing to give up explosive run plays. This is an obvious "Feed the Big Dog" spot and I fully expect, especially with Lamar Jackson a little banged up, to get a massive Henry game against New York. We've seen some good games from the King so far this year but nothing outrageous. We might be staring down the barrel of a 200-yard outing.









