NFL Week 8 best bets: Five top picks for against the spread pools and contests avoids weird Rams line
The line in Chargers-Rams is so far off power ratings projections that it becomes a pick to avoid in best bets
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The lookahead line for Chargers-Rams had the Rams as 7.5-point favorites, and despite one of their most comfortable wins of the season against the Raiders, the market has moved toward the Chargers, with the line at -6.5 by the time lines in many contests and ATS pools were set. That is a far cry from where I have the game lined.
My ratings still have the Rams as a well-above-average team, with only the 49ers, Chiefs and Seahawks above them in yards-per-play differential. The Chargers have the worst scoring offense in the league, and even with Joe Alt and Ladd McConkey healthy, there are a number of injuries of concern for the unit, particularly up front. I have a 10.5-point difference between the teams on a neutral field, and while I can concede I'm probably still too high on the Rams, I can't see how the market has enough conviction in the Chargers to put them within seven points in this matchup.
And yet, you won't find the Rams as part of my best bets. When a line is so drastically different from where I project it, I worry that I'm completely misreading the game's underlying conditions. So I've chosen to go a different direction with my five contest plays and see if the Chargers come out of their bye far better than how they entered it.
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