Thursday Night Football Odds: Can Baker Mayfield Slow Cook Vegas?
Thursday Night Football Odds: Can Baker Mayfield Slow Cook Vegas?
The Los Angeles Rams are looking to turn around a five-game losing streak against their latest home turf challengers, the Las Vegas Raiders. Inversely, Vegas is on the come-up with a three-game winning streak, and aren’t looking to have their own streak broken. With one side looking to make a four-game winning streak, and another looking to break a five-game losing streak, who will ultimately be able to come out on top?
While the fundamentals here might look obvious on paper, on the chalk, and on the books, the potential reintroduction of a power player might complicate things. Star quarterback Baker Mayfield is expected to return to the field after recovering from a rough ankle sprain injury.
Much of the LA Rams roster has been plagued by injuries this season, not just Mayfield, who is a relatively recent addition following a trade from the Carolina Panthers. Could Mayfield’s return to the field give LA a fighting chance to EZ Bake LV, or will their five-game L streak extend to a six-game L streak?
Let’s examine what our friends at FanDuel Sportsbook have to say about this week’s Thursday Night Football matchup!
Thursday Night Football Moneyline + TNF Spread
Right now, Vegas currently has Vegas set as solid -295 moneyline favorites on FanDuel Sportsbook. When you have one team headed into tonight off a three-game winning streak, and another team coming off a five-game losing streak, it’s a no-brainer who the oddsmakers will see as the decisive favorite.
But while those odds bode well for Vegas (Dimers’ predictive algorithm suggests they give the Raiders a 74% implied probability of winning outright), they don’t bode well for the betting public. At those odds, you would need to lay down a cold $300 to return $101.69 in net profit. Oof!
On the other side, we have +240 moneyline odds on the Los Angeles Rams, who clearly DO NOT have the discernible home field advantage. Putting $100 on them would return $240 in net profit if the Rams win outright, but we can’t pretend that isn’t a risky proposition.
Sure, one could argue that a team over a five-game losing streak is “due” to win, but a five game losing streak doesn’t inspire much optimism, nor does a 3-9 season record overall. The Raiders don’t have the best overall record either, at five wins and seven losses, but 5-7 is still better than being far down at the lowest bottom dreg of the NFC West’s Division Standings.
(You can find the most up-to-date NFL division standings on the league’s website.)
With one low-risk moneyline bet offering low value and a higher-risk moneyline bet offering higher value, YOUR best bet will most likely be found on the spread. Currently, FanDuel has the Los Angeles Rams set at +6.5 points for -104 odds, and the Las Vegas Raiders set as -6.5 spread favorites with -118 odds.
That means the Raiders would need to win by more than a touchdown to cover the spread. Las Vegas has had about a 50-50 record with that this season, covering for six games and failing to cover for another six. Like their overall season record, it’s not the best, but compared to the absolute worst, dealing with the worst possible scourge of injuries, it’s pretty solid.
So far this season, the Los Angeles Rams have only covered the spread in 3 out of 12 games. While it’s not out of the realm of impossibility that Baker Mayfield’s potential comeback could shepherd the Rams to a potential Hail Mary comeback, the overall team’s prior numbers don’t inspire too much present confidence.
The fundamentals seem to paint a clear picture of how tonight could most likely shake out, but who’s to say Mayfield couldn’t maybe change the equation? Carolina, where Baker Mayfield previously played, is also going for six spread wins and six losses right now, just like Vegas. Make of that information what you will, but if you’d prefer not to take a risk on either team here, then let’s take a look at tonight’s total.
TNF Over/Under Total
Right now, FanDuel has the over/under total set at 42.5 points, with -105 odds on the over, and -115 odds on the under. Conventional wisdom around Thursday Night Football betting trends might lead you to believe that the under is the clear play here, but the statistics from both teams suggest more of a tossup.
According to TeamRankings’ aggregated statistics, the under has hit for the Rams nearly 60% of the time (58.3% of the time, to be a little more exact), but the over has hit for the Raiders over half the time, approximately 54.6% of the time to be precise.
Even Dimers’ computer algorithm sees the over/under as a tossup, implying a 50% probability for both sides. Carolina, where Baker Mayfield previously played, has had roughly two-thirds (66.7%) of its games go under in 2022, so it’s hard to say if his return to the field could push things over.
Whether you’re leaning under or over, we’d recommend studying up on both teams’ injury reports and mitigating your risk with FanDuel’s no-sweat offers ahead of tonight’s 8:15 EST kick-off.
FanDuel Thursday Night Football
If you’re a new FanDuel user, they have a pretty generous no-sweat offer, refunding lost wagers in the form of non-transferable site credit. You can find out more about what this welcome bonus entails in our full in-depth review of the online sportsbook.
Also, if you’re able to find a couple of player props you’d like to cook up and cobble together into a nice SGP, new and existing users can currently take advantage of FanDuel’s Thursday Night No Sweat Same Game Parlay bonus.
Read our review to learn more, and if you like what they have to offer, you can claim their sign-up offer here.
