Late within the season, the NFL scheduling office flexes marquee games to the Saturday slates to extend viewership and a spotlight.
So it raises much more eyebrows when a team is favored by 20 points.
Lamar Jackson, Derrick Henry and the Ravens host the Browns with playoff implications.
Baltimore must win to clinch the AFC North title and lock up the AFC’s No. 3 seed.
Thus, the Ravens will play their starters within the regular-season finale, while Cleveland is choosing its fourth different starting quarterback this 12 months.
Bailey Zappe starting over Dorian Thompson-Robinson actually matters to me.
All week I used to be able to back Baltimore in large fashion.
DTR is arguably the worst quarterback I even have ever seen start a regular-season game, and that has proved true this 12 months with six interceptions in six games and not using a single touchdown pass.
Though he has yet to play a single snap this season and only joined the team in October, Zappe has looked competent in previous seasons. I’m not expecting much, but when a degree spread of this historical magnitude is involved, one must split hairs.
“We did take a bet from a man we respect on the Ravens -17.5 on Wednesday,” Las Vegas SuperBook VP and oddsmaker John Murray told Only Players, alluding to the purpose spread moving in a single direction to the present variety of 20. “We moved the road to 18.5, and from there, we just keep moving with the market.”
Week 18 is inevitably tricky. Teams already eliminated from playoff contention often play backups, and games sometimes unfold like preseason NFL games or meaningless college bowl games.
“What you do is you progress the number up until you finally see some resistance. For now, we don’t see any resistance, so we keep moving it up,” Murray said. “Until we see a bet from a respected account, then we don’t think we’ve gone too high.”
When a game’s point spread is near three touchdowns, that enables garbage time to have an excessive amount of impact on the end result.
In spite of everything, sooner or later within the fourth quarter, Baltimore figures to have secured the win and sure may have shifted its focus to next weekend’s playoffs.
Betting on the NFL?
Nevertheless, I’m quite confident the Ravens are the dominant side the complete first half and thus feel there may be line value with backing Baltimore -11.5 in the primary half.
That’s what I’m betting on this game.
Why Trust Latest York Post Betting
Doug Kezirian is a Latest York Post contributor who currently serves because the Chief Content Officer for Only Players, a sports betting media company. Doug has over 20 years of experience within the betting space, including spending 11 years at ESPN as a number, columnist and betting analyst. He’s also the rare personality who has documented success — 14th place in 2023 Circa Million and Las Vegas SuperContest ($37K), two top-10 finishes in 2022 William Hill College Football Challenge ($58K) and likewise grabbed headlines with a $297K win on the 2021 NFL Draft.
