Reliable system says take the points with the Jacksonville Jaguars, New York Giants & Houston Texans

In the best start since 2006-07, underdogs are 122-97-5 (56%) versus the number before week 16 commences. Further, generally speaking, point-takers have proven profitable in week 16 (142-123-7 ATS since 2005-06). Consistent with these trends, a long-term profitable system on our BetLabs dashboard, predicated on exploiting some specific biases among the betting public, highlights three underdogs worth considering for the coming week. As such, we are siding with the Jags, Giants and Texans for road covers.

In regular season NFL action, away teams taking less than a touchdown, after winning no more than six games last season, have proven good for a 12% return on investment since 2004-05...

As justification for the enduring

success of this angle, consider that Golec and Tamarkin (1991) documented that bettors' propensity to back favorites versus the number has increased over time. We speculate that casual bettors' draw toward better teams to beat the number is exacerbated when the underdog has a near-term history of struggle. Consistent with this thesis, Krieger, Davis & Strode (2021) and Durand, Patterson & Shank (2021) document the tendency for bettors to overweight more recent outcomes.

An expected reaction to bettor herding around favorites is for linemakers to shade spreads, in their own effort to take advantage of bettor predispositions--Levitt (2004), for instance, found that bookmakers indeed set prices to capitalize on market biases, rather than to balance their books. This setup typically creates value with underdogs in these instances.

As such, we are siding the road dogs in each of the three situations indicated below:

Jaguars +1 @ New York Jets

NY Giants +4 -120 @ Vikings

Texans +4 -135 @ Titans

Happy betting!!