“Johnny The Greek’s NFL Week 3 Best Bets will maximize your winning potential every time!”
Greetings and welcome to the Week 3 edition of “best bets”, a new article series for this season where we’ll discuss what I believe to be some of the best bets we can make each week of this NFL season.
My Week 2 edition was absolutely perfect as we went 3 for 3 last week. I was also 7-4 overall on the IDP Plus Moneyline Podcast with @TheIDPTipster for Week 2 where we made calls on many different games across the league. Catch us weekly on YouTube, link at the bottom of the article!
The Steelers won against Denver, the Jets beat the Titans, and the Chargers crushed the Panthers totally and easily covered the spread. I am now 4-2 on the season after going 100% last week. Let’s keep that momentum going!
REMINDER! These aren’t even suggestions, they’re just thoughts I’m putting on “paper”. Set a limit and stick to it, for help with problem gambling please call 1-800-GAMBLER.
All NFL Week 3 Best Bets, game lines, moneyline prices, and spreads are accurate as of 9/18/24.
Baltimore Ravens @ Dallas Cowboys
The bet: Derrick Henry over 66.5 rushing yards (-114)
How to improve those numbers (riskier but better payout): Use an “alt line” to push it to over 70 or 80 rushing yards, better payout but it’s less likely to happen. Prices for alt lines are not available yet. Or you could parlay this with an anytime TD, together that price would be +164.
The rationale: This is my favorite bet this week and feels the most likely to happen by far (barring injury). The Cowboys rushing defense has been Swiss cheese since about halfway through last season when they were embarrassed on national television by the Bills who ran for 266 rushing yards and exposed this “vaunted Dallas defense” as solid against the pass but vulnerable against the run. Since then we’ve seen more of the same, when teams run the ball against the Cowboys they typically do well.
Just last week the Saints ran for 190 yards averaging 4.9 yards per carry and sliced up Dallas on the ground from start to finish. In Week 1 the Browns never had this opportunity as they fell behind early and had to abandon their run game before it even had the chance to do damage. The Dallas defense is front-loaded in terms of pass defense, they have excellent corners and pass rush but their linebackers aren’t great against the run and their safeties aren’t household names. The Saints running back corps had an 80 overall PFF grade against this Cowboys’ rush defense.
Baltimore isn’t known for its passing attack, they pound the rock.
Game script still needs to line up for us for this to happen, if Dallas can jump out to an early lead and force Baltimore to become one dimensional then this may not occur. Still, it’s Derrick Henry, and he beat this number just last week against the Raiders as he rushed for 84 yards and a touchdown on 18 attempts. The Ravens are not a team that wants to pass the ball 40-plus times a game, they aren’t built for it and coach Harbaugh has always constructed his teams around the ability to win in the playoffs (where you need to be able to run and play defense, that style travels and doesn’t care about weather or being away, finesse passing offense doesn’t do any of that well).
Beyond all this, the Ravens need this win to avoid going 0-3 to start the season as a team that was just in the AFC title game a few months back. And let’s not forget, they’re up against the Cowboys, not the Chiefs, Dallas folds under pressure routinely, home or away. If I had more guts I’d be recommending the Ravens moneyline as well, but I don’t, and while that bet is anyone’s guess, this one (Henry to put up 65 rushing yards) feels pretty darned good.
Same Derrick Henry, Better Situation.
Henry cleared this line 9 times last season and that was on a one-dimensional Tennessee team where opposing defenses knew that if they could shut down the run and force Will Levis to pass the game was as good as won. He’ll face far fewer “loaded boxes” in Baltimore, where the opposing defense needs to not only worry about him but also Lamar taking off, their excellent tight ends, and Zay Flowers too.
This is the best situation he’s ever been in, and with their backs against the wall, I believe in Week 3 we’ll see the Ravens return to their true form and run the football right down the Cowboy’s throat.
Green Bay Packers @ Tennessee Titans
The bet: Packers moneyline (+116)
How to improve those numbers (riskier but better payout): Use an “alt-line”, Packers -2.5 (price not available yet).
The rationale: Not only is Jordan Love back at practice this week, and if he were fully healthy I can damned sure guarantee you this line wouldn’t be Packers +2.5, away or otherwise, we just saw Malik Willis and this Green Bay team destroy the Colts by adjusting to their current reality and completely changing their offensive identity to fit their circumstances. While Love was “noncommittal” about his chances to play this week, I truly believe that this Packers team is talented enough and coached well enough to win this game with or without him.
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Without Love last week the Packers decided to play to their remaining strengths and dialed back their offense, focusing on the run game and leaning on their defense which is loaded with playmakers. They are currently the number one overall rushing offense in the game averaging an incredible 212 rushing yards per game at 5.7 yards per carry! Green Bay has 424 rushing yards through two games and while I’m about to comment on small sample sizes, that’s a ridiculous amount of rushing yards to start the season. For reference, the Rams with fantasy football running back superstar Kyren Williams only have 136 rushing yards through the first two games.
And while Tennessee has been solid against the run so far this season (on paper they’re the 10th overall rush defense), the game against the Bears only featured 22 whole rushing attempts by Chicago as they found themselves in a negative game script almost immediately. Five of those rushing attempts were actually just Caleb Williams scrambling for his life so it was more like 17 rushing attempts total they faced in Week 1, that’s not a realistic sample size.
Small sample size = skewed results.
In Week 2 the Titans only faced 24 rushing attempts with two of those being Aaron Rogers’ escape attempts, the Jets were able to rush for over 100 yards and Breece Hall averaged 4.5 yards per carry, which is perfectly acceptable. Early season stats can give the appearance of one thing (a 10th overall ranked Tennessee rushing defense for example) but the small sample size can skew those results big time. When we look closer we see that Chicago in Week 1 never really had a chance to run the ball as they were behind essentially the entire game and in Week 2 the Jets did perfectly fine on the ground against Tennessee. So this Titans run defense doesn’t move the needle for me.
The Packers without Jordan Love leaned into a more conservative style of offense last week and it worked against an opponent that’s in the same tier as Tennessee. If they don’t have Love this week I’m guessing we’ll see more of the same, and I’m predicting a similar result when it’s all said and done. We’ve already established that this Titans rush defense isn’t amazing, Malik Willis wasn’t asked to do anything risky last week, and the true advantage here is this Packers defense up against a struggling Will Levis.
The passing game in Tennessee isn’t there yet.
Through two games Levis has, despite the addition of Calvin Ridley and Tyler Boyd who joined the already present DeAndre Hopkins, only thrown two touchdown passes while being intercepted three times. He’s been sacked 7 times in those two games and has a QBR of about 35 and a passer rating of 67.3. None of that is ideal at all, not to mention the run game was dealt a serious blow with the ankle injury to Tyjae Spears last week, he did not practice today (Wednesday 9/18) and is looking iffy for this week. While I’m positive that Tennessee desperately doesn’t want to go 0-3 to start the season and they are at home this week, I like the plus money upset in this one.
Especially if we bet it now at plus money and find out later this week that Jordan Love can play, which is a legitimate possibility. If that were to occur then this line would instantly change and the Titans would no longer be favored. This is partly a bet because I think it will happen and partly because there’s a chance to bet on the Packers as underdogs when they may realistically not be underdogs if Jordan Love ends up being good to go for Week 3. It’s certainly a risk but there’s no reward without a little risk.
Denver Broncos @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers
The bet: Tampa Bay Moneyline (-335)
How to improve those numbers (riskier but better payout): Take the spread, Bucs -6.5 (-115), I feel good about this but not that good. What I’ll be doing instead is using a parlay round robin with these picks and others to gain the price benefits of a parlay without all of the risk normally associated with it. For reference, if you were to parlay round-robin these three bets from this article and choose “any two of these three” you’d get a price of +209 which isn’t bad at all for three bets that are fairly likely to occur (according to Vegas).
The rationale: This one’s pretty straightforward, the Bucs are looking like a playoff team and just beat the NFC title game participant Detroit Lions last week in their house while Denver has lost games to a Steelers team that can’t score points and a Seahawks team that just had trouble with the Patriots who are one-dimensional and shouldn’t be giving anyone a hard time.
Bo Nix has been horrendous to start the season, his 35.7 QBR is well below the average of 50 and his 51 passer rating is well below the target of 100 that professional quarterbacks use as a benchmark. He has not thrown a touchdown pass yet in his professional career and has been intercepted four times in two games. He will be playing away from home in a hostile environment and while the quality of defense he’s up against isn’t as dangerous as Pittsburgh was in Week 2, the quality of offense the Broncos face is another story entirely.
Tampa Bay is lighting up the scoreboard.
The Bucs have the number four overall offense in points per game and are loaded with star power at almost every offensive position. If this thing goes the way it’s supposed to the Bucs will eventually establish a lead and force Denver to become one-dimensional, without their run game they’ll be forced to rely on the rookie to “pass their way back” into the game, and as the above stats show that’s not a great bet for Denver at all.
The Broncos want to avoid going 0-3 just as badly as any other team in this situation so I can’t say I’m completely sure about this one, but on paper, it does appear fairly straightforward. As mentioned above, parlay round-robin this sucker or just bet it individually and don’t put the mortgage on it. The moneyline feels pretty good but obviously the price sucks. When the alt-lines come out I’d consider using a Bucs -2.5 alt line to “split the difference” between the Vegas spread and the crappy moneyline price. It looks good on paper, but as we’ve seen countless times already in this short season “any given Sunday” is alive and well. Good luck this week my friends and may the gambling Gods be in our favor.
Thank you for reading my favorite NFL Week 3 Best Bets! Please don’t forget to check out the IDP Plus Moneyline channel on YouTube for “The IDP Plus Moneyline” show with Gary Van Dyke (The IDP Tipster) and yours truly where we cover our favorite bets each week of the season in a short audio format. Make sure you’re visiting IDP Plus for all your IDP and “non-traditional” fantasy football needs, we’ve got you covered for all your leagues, DFS, best ball, and betting needs!
