Week 13 sides and totals
Plus talking through my biggest process mistake of the year
I don’t mind missing bets — even if my read of the game is way off — but it’s the process mistakes that get to me.
I’ve talked a few different times about my approach to hitting the same game two ways, with a side and a total. I like to play those when I see a pretty low probability of the game going in a way where both bets would lose, and there’s still room for both to hit. Maybe I think it’s something like 55% to split, but then the other 45% breaks out where I have it as a 35% chance to go 2-0 and only a 10% chance to go 0-2. Those numbers might not be accurate, but that’s sort of the goal of what I’m looking for.
I took eight bets last Sunday and did this double tap three times. We split two of them, which was a bit of a bummer, but we went 0-2 in the other. That’s the one that’s under my skin. I felt the 36 over/under in Denver at Carolina was too low, but then I got a little hung up on Denver -1 in a game with points. You can see how those bets could both win, and I even referenced Denver’s victory over Jacksonville in London by a scoreline of 21-17 as one path.
But the problem is there’s no way that tandem of bets was only 10% to go 0-2. It was two pretty correlated bets on the Broncos not being the exact thing they have been all season on offense. There was a pretty simple path that put both bets in jeopardy — Russell Wilson was still shaky, and Nathaniel Hackett still didn’t have answers, and the Broncos just kept being the same below average offense they’ve been all year. And that happened, and while the over was briefly in play, it ultimately sunk both bets.
I would say “lesson learned,” but I knew better. Sometimes we need it to be reinforced. I still think there’s value in playing things this way sometimes, where you can come out on top in the long haul. In Week 11, my double dip into the Rams’ trip to New Orleans came out with two wins, for example.
Week 12 was mostly uneventful other than that horrendous play, splitting on Thanksgiving and going 3-5 Sunday with that debacle pushing us to the negative. We’re up to 34-28-1 on sides and totals for the year.
I’m a little sick so abbreviated writeups (as opposed to my typically way-too-long explanations) for the five plays this week. Let’s get to the Week 13 picks.
Washington Commanders at New York Giants
Pick: Over 40, -107 (PointsBet)
Also playable at more widely available 40.5
I wrote last week about wanting to find spots to bet on the league-wide scoring decline this season to regress a little bit. Here we have a matchup between two pretty run-first teams, who are divisional opponents (which can suppress scoring), and who frankly don’t have great offenses. But 40 (or 40.5) is too light.
The Giants are on a two-game losing streak to fall from 7-2 to 7-4. Saquon Barkley has posted back-to-back games where he didn’t make a major impact. Brian Daboll is a good coach who understands the magnitude of this spot. He’ll have his team ready and he’ll have creative ways to get Barkley going.
Meanwhile, Taylor Heinicke is a chaos agent. The dude throws more YOLO balls than anyone in the league, but he’s the perfect kind of QB to help push a game with a close line over this total.