How to Tease and a Thursday Pick

My fellow gamblers, good evening. Not a good week, going 2-3 and losing out of the survivor pools week 2 is nowhere close to what I wanted. The big swing game was Detroit giving up that late touchdown to lose to Tennessee. If you told me ahead of time though that the game would come down to a 4th and 5 in which Mariota would have to complete a pass under pressure into double coverage, I'd still take the bet. Such is gambling.

​​I mentioned I'd go over a few good guidelines for teaser bets, and since I'm planning on doing another teaser bet today, now seems like a good time.

There are good and bad numbers to tease. If you've watched the NFL for long, you know there are certain final score differentials that are common. You frequently will see games end at 3, 4, 6, and 7. So if we're going to tease a spread, we want to pass those numbers because then we're getting the most value. Taking a number from -8 to -2 or from +2 to +8 is the ideal because then you cover all of those numbers.

We don't want to tease really high spreads. We don't see them as much in the NFL, but in college taking a line from -35 to -29 doesn't have nearly as much value. Similarly we don't want to tease across zero. Taking a team that is -4 and getting them at +2 has some dead numbers as well. In general teaser bets are bad bets, that's why the casino offers them, but just like our normal bets, if we look for the right opportunities, they can be profitable.
 
Season Record: Overall (7-3) Spread (5-1) Total (1-1) Teaser (1-1)
 
Tonight we have a 2-0 Houston team traveling to a 2-0 New England team. Of course the big news here is that not only is Brady, now Jimmy Garoppolo is out too. Houston looked good beating Kansas City last week and is healthy coming into this matchup and surely Watt will play havoc with a third string QB getting his first start in the NFL.

On the other hand, this is Bill Belichick as a home underdog. On the other other hand, New England's defense also struggled late getting outscored 21-7 in the second half against Miami. So when we have a line of HOU(-1.5), which way to we go? We tease it with a Sunday game. I'll take NWE(+7.5)/DAL(-1). The Patriots could definitely lose this game, but the patriots aren't going to lose by two scores at home.
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After watching the Bears get picked apart at home by a rookie QB on MNF, I'm ready to say they'll lose on the road against another rookie QB on Sunday Night Football. Yes we'll have to wait until Sunday to get paid if we're right, but it's the only way I'm touching tonight's game.