News Every Day | 03 January 2025, 18:24

NFL Week 18 picks — Team Total Projections, New Year's Betting Resolutions

Happy New Year to my Betting family!

Every ball drop marks a fresh chance to audit our all-important processes. I’ve always found getting my goals and aspirations down on paper galvanizes them in a way that merely speaking about them cannot.

Here’s my favorite rules to follow if you actually plan on sustaining in this incredibly challenging marketplace.

New Year’s Betting Resolutions:

Capitalize: It takes money to make money. You cannot open a small business in this economy with any reasonable expectation for success with two bucks. Sorry, but truths hurt sometimes. Decide what you need to achieve your goal. Save first and establish a proper bankroll. In the meantime …
Practice Makes Perfect: Before depositing any amount of cash into your account after a loss, stop first. Challenge your system. Self-audit. Run your bets in real-time without live cash and work on your approach to prove profitability. Achieved 60 days in the black? You’re ready to rock.
Define Betting Units: In today’s social media-driven betting landscape, it’s important to equip yourself with the tools to cut through the fog of war. Best way to do that? Demand units are objectively defined. Some handicappers will tout a several-hundred-unit profit without any mention of return on investment (ROI). Tie units wagered the percentage of account risked. This way, one unit equals one percent of stack and removes any ability to misframe or deceive. But that’s not all …
Daily Risk Allotment: Knowing how much you’re betting in relation to account value matters. Define units to allow for a quantifiable (and obviously responsible) daily allotment. Now you can work backward from the amount of plays you have and never fall for the all-too-common trap—getting over-leveraged on high-volume days.
Believe In Yourself: Life’s all about peaks and valleys. You’re not some brilliant quant wizard amidst a hot streak and the same works in reverse. Do your work confidently, knowing capital is accounted for and being executed upon properly. The instant that feeling wanes whatsoever, go back to the top of the list. Rinse, repeat, and sustain profitability.

Make sure to check out our NFL Odds Pages.

You can also use our NFL Game Betting Model to identify the biggest edges on game totals, spreads, and moneylines!

Watercooler

The latest analysis and insights from our merry band of sports betting nerds:

Notre Dame-Georgia was moved to today to close out the College Football Playoff Quarterfinals.

What players have a little “extra” incentive to play for in Week 18? Geoff Ulrich has them all and some milestones to reach.

If you like Jared Goff and Sam Darnold to go over their pass TD totals, try building a parlay.

Week 18 Rankings are here, and it’s Mike Evans to the moon!

Week 18 NFL Team Totals

Success is all about prep work. Give me five hours to chop down an NFL slate and I’ll spend the first four sharpening my axe. And my favorite place to start that grind comes directly from the books themselves. Remember, the house can’t help but tip its hand by posting live team totals.

For whatever reason, these implied team totals can be unusually hard to wrangle. So, of course, in my never-ending quest to make this newsletter an irreplaceable part of your daily routine, I charted all of this week’s baseline (-110) totals to highlight outliers.

Allow us to do the dirty work so you won’t have to.

Takeaways: My first instinct is that anyone too certain of anything this weekend needs a monumental reality check. After that it’s just an endless temptation to chase the unknown. Look at Cleveland’s season-low 10.5-point team total! Yes, it’s correct. In fact, some sportsbooks pulled it down out of principle. It’s all a guessing game at this point.

The vast majority of postseason destinies can’t be changed and it was only a matter of time before the usage news started rolling in. For my Bengal fans out there, I’m sorry in case you were wondering why the Chiefs would list at only 14.5 points. After that amazing Cincinnati win last week against Denver, Kansas City countered by raising the white flag and resting everyone.

Sad to say news hit the same for anyone holding a Saquon Barkley To Break The All-Time Rush Record ticket—he’s sitting just 100 yards shy of the milestone. Even a team like Pittsburgh, which is currently still in contention for the AFC North will have its seeding locked if Baltimore wins Saturday afternoon as an 18-point favorite at home. So, by my calculation, all seven teams playing with consequences imply at least 25 points. They also take up seven of the top eight spots—which is making me wonder if the only outlier, Green Bay, is too high.

Trying to keep remind myself just how dysfunctional most of these offenses will look being run by second and third-stringers. Tread carefully.

Bengals Still Hunting

THE BET: Bengals Team Total O23.5 (-125) DraftKings

Think I let the striped cat out of the bag on this one already while talking through meaningful team totals. Everyone knows the Bengals need to win Saturday night in Steel City for a chance to survive. However, there appears to be a gap in expectations from Pittsburgh.

Baltimore kicks off first on Saturday as a three-score (-2100) favorite. For reference, that’s an implied probability of victory over 95%. Assuming the Ravens destroy the Dorian Thompson-Robinson-led Browns, the Steelers suddenly could and should feel no need to further risk an already-battered squad. Mike Tomlin’s too pragmatic to take on such unnecessary liabilities.

Frankly, I’m not sure PIT’s first stringers could keep Joe Burrow under 24 points, anyway. For starters, it’s been eight straight games since anyone accomplished it in the first place. During that run, the Bengals offense, in particular the passing game, can’t be stopped—you can only hope to contain it.

32.3 Points Scored Per Game: 3rd

412.3 Yards Per Game: 2nd

52.7% Offensive Success Rate: 2nd

2.3 First Downs Per Drive: T-2nd

+0.39 EPA/Attempt: 3rd

313.8 Passing Yards Per Game: 1st

27 Passing TD: 1st

Expect this line to creep up slowly toward kickoff, then all at once as reality sets in. Bottom line is a motivated Cincinnati against [name your favorite historical defense] makes a strong case to hang 28 regardless.