The NFL schedule giveth and the NFL schedule taketh away.
That’s the name of the game when using situational handicapping — also known as spot bets — to find hidden value when betting on the NFL.
We dig into what the schedule is serving up with our best NFL spot bets for Week 4, pushing pause on the stats, standings, and power rankings to size up the psyche of teams and uncover hidden edges.
Letdown spot: Jacksonville Jaguars at Cincinnati Bengals (-7.5)
The Bengals won in Pittsburgh for just the fourth time since Mike Tomlin’s reign of terror over the AFC North began back in 2007, knocking off the Steelers 24-10 as 2.5-point pups. Cincinnati doesn’t have much time to shake the celebration of that divisional W before hosting Jacksonville on Thursday Night Football.
Bookies have set Cincy as a 7.5-point home favorite against the Jaguars — another rarity for the Bengals, who haven’t been favorites of a touchdown or more since Week 12 of the 2017 season (-7.5 vs Cleveland). In fact, this is the first time Cincinnati has been giving the points since Week 4 last year and is just the 10th time it has been installed as the chalk over the past four seasons.
To fold an extra layer into this potential letdown spot, the schedule sends Green Bay to Paul Brown Stadium in Week 5, setting up a potential lookahead past Jacksonville. There are a lot of storylines baked into this game — Joe Burrow vs. Trevor Lawrence, Urban Meyer’s return to Ohio — but the letdown is one angle bettors will want to pay attention to, especially if this spread climbs. And it will.
Lookahead spot: Houston Texans at Buffalo Bills (-17)
Early money on this monster spread has faded the heavily favored Bills, walking this line down half a point from -17.5 to -17 as of Monday afternoon. Perhaps those early bets are wary of the potential lookahead from Buffalo, which has a HUGE revenge game on deck in Week 5.
A Sunday Night Football fight at Kansas City awaits Bills Mafia beyond this mountain of chalk in Week 4. Houston is left with a rookie QB in Davis Mills, due to Tyrod Taylor’s injury and Deshaun Watson’s drama-soaked situation. But regardless of the situational edge, this is a lot of points for any team — no matter if that team has scored a total of 78 points the past two games. The Bills have come out swinging early in those last two outings, outscoring Miami and Washington by a combined 41-19 in the first half.
Buffalo could do the same against the Texans and then put the Winnebago on cruise control in the second half, as to not give the Chiefs any fresh game film. Point spread favorites of more than two touchdowns are just 24-22-1 ATS since 2010. That said, Houston has actually outscored opponents 15.7-9.3 in first halves before getting busted 6.7-16.0 in the final 30 minutes.
Schedule spot: Seattle Seahawks (+3) at San Francisco 49ers
I hinted at a possible rough start for Seattle in my Seahawks season betting preview this summer, pointing to the schedule and the fact that it plays three of its first four games on the road (and four of its first six by October 17).
If losses started stacking up, those unresolved feelings between star QB Russell Wilson and the front office could bubble back to the surface. Here we sit in Week 4 with the Seahawks reeling off back-to-back defeats, playing their second straight road game and third in four weeks as field-goal dogs in San Francisco.
The cat is out of the bag on the Seahawks defense, which has been horrific so far in 2021. Seattle has given up more than 26 points per game and ranks dead last in yards allowed at 440.3 per outing. Fingers are pointing at defensive coordinator Ken Norton Jr., asking if his schemes are too complicated.
Adding to this tough schedule spot is a potential lookahead to next Thursday's game against the big bad L.A. Rams, who will be waiting for Seattle in Lumen Field on a short week. If the Seahawks can’t stop the bleeding, Seattle could potentially be 1-4 SU heading to Pittsburgh in Week 6.
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