Week 9 NFL Best Bets with Andy Molitor | Free Picks, Predictions & MORE! (Ep. 235)

of my favorite sports betting listens. Andy, your wife and kids recently went out of town. The red meat and whiskey that you consumed, all of it that you consumed all they were gone. That didn't kill you. So somehow you must be invincible. How's it going pretty good?

We have all four sports going, but football's in full blast right now.

It's it's wild to you can't even imagine how quick he reached for a quarter, Like he just looked at me just he's like, well, flip at forty or sixty. And I didn't even have time to I just call heads, heads, I don't know what to do. And he flipped it. It was tails. He gave me the forty bucks. Yeah, like I mentioned it in the thread too. He's like he might have just been trying to make me feel better, but he's like, yeah, I was zero to two on

the day. That was my first win. So imagine this junker guy has been doing this all day, which I kind of want to party with this guy now.

And this is seven and a half at bet mgm again, where you can get a risk free bet up to a thousand dollars with the promo code betting Pros with their first deposit. I mean, this is a really interesting game to me. And right now I'm just you know, pausing for time as I'm trying to get back to my article remembering what i wrote.

Panthers pass defense. Now they've rebuilt their offensive line, but even with that, the Bengals they're not good running the ball this year, and the Panthers have a top ten run defense, So it would be unwise for the Bengals to lean heavily into the ground game, even though I think they might want to do that because they don't have Jamar Chase. But even without Chase, I still think

they need to attack the Panthers via the air. So for the season, the Bengals solidly above average in the passing game you know number five and drop back EPA number eight and success rate fourteen and DVA, and the Panthers defense has been subpar against the pass number twenty in EPA, fifteen in success rate twenty seven in past DBOA of course they won't be as explosive without Chase, but they still got strong pass catchers T Higgins and Tyler Boyd. Hayden Hurst at tight end, Joe Mixon is

a good pass catching back. And then the Panthers are dealing with a number of injuries in their secondary. Quarnerback Dante Jackson, he missed practice on Wednesday with an ankle injury, Justin Boris concussion. They both exited Week eight early. You have j C Horn at cornerback who's playing through multiple injuries, and then you have safety Jeremy Chen who's on IR

and is out. This line was nine and a half last week in the look ahead market early Sunday night, before the Bengals played on Monday night, it was eight and a half. Now it's seven and a half. That just feels too low. It feels like we've seen too much market movement based on I would say, not enough information. Andy, do you have any thoughts on this game?

lineman it's practice. You had a couple of the offensive linemen, who is still a group that's still getting to know each other and trying to figure it out, apparently at this midpoint of the season missing some practice. But yeah, both sides have injuries in the secondary, and it's been almost a really simple formula for the for the Bengals this year. It's like, if Joe Burrow is unbothered by a pass rush, this offense moves and it moves nicely through the air. If they go against the pass rush,

it's getting after it. They're just coma. It's dead. Like every every drive is going to have at least one negative play, whether it's you know, one of the I can't imagine how many sacks he took in the first two weeks. It was like sixteen, you know, whether it's a sack or some tackles for losses, just because mixing is you know, an absolute dead horse. And when they run him. Those are just wasted plays a lot of the time. So I ended up on a little plus

seven and a half. I hated that I got, you know, like you mentioned that part was bugging me. I'm like, God, I looked at this last week. I should have just taken this earlier. But I think, honestly, if I were betting it right now, forty two and a half might be a little low, just because we have seen a little life out of PJA Tucker and that's not something

I want to ever get excited about. But if Burns doesn't get home, if they're able to neutralize him a little and keep things moving on the offense like this, this might get into the fifties. Man, there's so many secondary injuries. Chin trending maybe in but again we're still sitting here on Thursday. We got the afternoon practice reports yet and Friday injury reports to get through.

right at the deadline here. But the thing that sticks out to this for this team to me is just like how bad some of these you know, some of these defensive metrics are for Miami right now, and like, that's not what you want to have happen when you have a team that's kind of trending the other way on offense, Like I really, I guess one of my biggest surprises isn't Seattle related, is how much the Bears offense looks different compared to how it looked at the

beginning of the season. You know they did. It was a complete rollover from coaching staff. We had Getsie coming down, you have abra Flus coming in from It wasn't like two guys that came in from the same system. So you have a head coach and offensive coordinator, you have no investment into the offensive line or the receiving corps, and a super young quarterback coming off a pretty bad year. So it's really hard to get excited about anything offensively.

But they've they've found something. They've found ways to make it work even through the air with this very limited receiving corps. We've heard that Claypool will be used in some packages. I'm not sure what that means or how much they'll be using him. I doubt it's a ton I'm not really letting that sway this, but the Bears can absolutely take advantage of this matchup against a pretty

bad pass defense. And honestly, on the other side, I really really like do it and these two receivers and it's not even a you know, let's beat him over the top and go deep with the speed. Tyreek with the ball in his hands anywhere in the field makes me happy. If I'm betting on the Dolphins, I'm betting on the Dolphins to score points. He's a playmaker. Just get him the ball as fast as you can. If you're worried about a pass rush, which shouldn't be this week.

I mean they've traded their defensive players away. That's a you know, another part of this Bears defense. It should start to regress. We saw pretty lackluster performance by the Bears defense, even against you know, a team they were supposed to lose to. Just like once you start trading away players locker room guys like that, sometimes you see some bad performances and not only that, you're missing some of your best players. So Bears defense for sure is

a down grade obviously. And yeah, this this total is quite a bit too low for me. This is one of the totals I've head off the most and usually I'm not off by this much at this point in the season. So I like this over a lot.

Justin Fields. And to your point, what we saw out of this offense in weeks one through three is not what we've seen in weeks four through three.

And I mean, I bet this on the look ahead of plus three and a half, and I'm not feeling great about it now that it's it's gone to five. Not as if there's a massive difference between three and a half and five. But you know, when you do have a defense that's trading away it's best pieces at that point, you know, if I could, if I could do it over again, not sure that I would be betting on Chicago in that spot, but I can certainly see the case for for the over there a game

that has caught my attention. This is probably one of my favorite bets of the week. Seahawks plus two at Cardinals. I grab this on the look ahead at plus three and a half and by the way, I tracked it in the Betting Pros app, you can sync up with sports books. You can see what bets other people are making in the app, So check out the Betting prospicktracker at bettingpros dot com slash pick Dash tracking.

Cliff Kingsbury. This is the classic spot in which I will always be willing to lose money betting against Cliff Kingsbury as a home favorite. If I lose this bet, I don't even care. I'm just almost always going to be fine blindly taking this position at home Kingsbury eleven and seventeen against the spread as a favorite, nine and fifteen against the spread as a home favorite, five and eleven against the spread. And I feel like there is something on the field actually to back up what it

is that we see. When Kingsbury is favored. He plays a different style of game. He calls games differently. When they're underdogs and they're trailing, it's Kyler Murray, go save me, and that is often enough to make up for the difference. But when they are in a more favorable situation, they don't pivot to I think a looser, more aggressive, and more advantageous.

top eight and most pass efficiency metrics. The Cardinals defense is bottom ten in those pass efficiency metrics. And obviously it helps that he has, you know, those wide receivers DK Metcalf and Tyler Lockett. The DK Metcalf you know, miracle of recovering from the knee injury. Yeah, I mean that that was that was highly unexpected. It makes you question really how serious that injury was in the first place.

But you know, I think with those wide receivers there's a massive unit versus unit edge of the wide receivers. The pass catchers for Seattle against the secondary for Arizona. You know, I'm thinking about like Week one where I would have had Smith power ranked among all the starting quarterbacks.

or something. But he kind of examined spreads once you get under three, so he said, he said, basically, just take the money line like getting the plus two isn't isn't going to help you out. And to be fair, he had a big sample size, And I mean, what are we doing maybe two or three times all year? You're going to bet a game like this where it's a plus two, So take a long time for it to work out for you. But I've been stubborn enough

where I'm always just betting it straight up. We'll see if it bites me here it has in the past. But yeah, plus one fifteen, like you just said, it's pretty simple handicap. I guess the Arizona pass past defense Dvoa's bottom ten. A couple other metrics I've looked at. They're bottom ten or worse. I mean bottom five. Even were starting to dwell into and yeah, I had Gino as well. It's maybe one of the worst starting quarterbacks

in the league. I didn't really know how we'd feel about the situation in Atlanta, or honestly the situation in Carolina, but I was forced to have Gino as probably i'd have to go. Look, I'm sure I had him thirty second. I made fun of that quarterback competition all preseason, like the fact that we have Drew Locke in a competition with you isn't good. That speaks poorly on how you've

been playing. And I'd never want to compare anyone to Josh Allen, but I mean you're forced to reckon with Sometimes a guy is going to take a huge step forward and you can't be so stubborn to just fight it. Like I was very anti Josh Allen, Like, yes, he's athletic, he was fun. He was so inaccurate, especially on intermediate to deep throws when he was young. I'm like, I

don't know, you hadn't seen guys fix that. And then I don't know, some combination of coaching and his will to work through that, he's become he's your favorite him for doin the MVP right now. So guys are able to work through these things. I don't know if coaching has just come that far over the years. So Gino Smith is right now a top ten quarterback in the league, and that is wild for us to say. So, yeah, I'm fully on board backing this offense to take down

a team they've already beaten against. And I'm not a big Pete Carroll guy, but he's the better coach in this matchup too, right now.

always something to keep in mind. There Andy. Next game here that I'm looking at, and I'm glad that you put this in the outline, is one you wanted to talk about because I've been conflicted on this one. You like, Titans plus twelve and a half on the road in Kansas City against the Chiefs. Talk to me about what you are seeing with this game.

a backdoor garbage touchdown through at the end. Like, they're not a great team, but they're not a horrible team. And right now, and I've talked about this a little with through and the deep dive, I was glad to hear he agreed. When I asked about his power rankings, I said, the difference between you know, the range, the difference between the best team and the worst team in the league in your power rankings. I said, is that

a little compressed this season? And he said, yeah, Like it's you know, the Bills are great, but they're not the Chiefs of two years ago. They're not Tampa or three years ago. They're not Tampa from two years ago. It's like, you just there isn't this huge difference. It's a really, really really like if the distribution of teams is so heavy from like four through sixteen, those teams are all the same, Like there's just no differentiating factor.

And unless you're looking at a game like tonight on Thursday Night, where we have Proud Leave easily the best team in the NFC versus the thirty second best team, like these double digit spreads shouldn't be happening this often. It's wild how often we've had him. So I'm yeah, I'm basically I have this at like ten. You know, it shouldn't be I shouldn't be getting more than ten points here, and I'm fine taking at twelve and a half thirteen and looking at a team to stay with

the Kansas City Chiefs. We've seen the Chiefs play some really nice games against some competition where they just ratchet it up, like the Cardinals, like the Niners, and it just doesn't seem like one of those games where they're going to need to do that. This is a This is a spot where you're gonna see a really heavy reliance on Derek Henry. And I know he's on the

injury report, but that guy's playing. Yeah, Like the injury report for Tennessee hasn't been hasn't been great all week, and that's made me super nervous about holding this bet. But Derek Henry's gonna play. They're gonna they're gonna lean on him, they're gonna play some ball control, and they're gonna try to keep this respect the ble. I don't think. I don't think anybody should be going on a limb and like you know, betting, what is the money line

almost five to one here. That's not bad, it's not upset alert. It's just, hey, this team probably loses like the Packers did to the Bills, where you know that I described it one way. I never said this before, and it was perfect. I can't remember how it was, but it was like a game where it's never it's never close, but it's never outside the spread kind of thing, where it's just it's just a ten point lead for

the entire game that feels insurmountable. One of those. Yeah, it's like the Chiefs clearly kicked their ass and they were you know, but they never covered the game. You know, it might bounce around fourteen point leads, but I think I think ten is where this should be.

I think he does make a pretty significant difference. Do you think that how do you think that his his presence or absence is being accounted for within the line that we are seeing of twelve and a half right now.

of money to move around. See, you might see this line bounce around a little with some injury reports over the next couple of days. Tannehill would help an awful lot. That would be great. I'm not sure if the game plan changes a lot with just what we've seen from Kansas City. They're middle of the back defense. The rush defense isn't that good. You saw in the Raiders game what they were able to do against this rush defense, Like you can run on this team, especially if you've

really committed to the run. And you know the Frank Clark suspension. I think that makes a difference here they play that's it's a different defense when he's not on the field. I don't this is a lot of this handicap just I don't think Kansas City has a very good defense. I guess it's it's fine, and that's that's what you have when you have to pay all these offensive players.

to twelve and a half. And I'm still not all that close, and like that was me really pulling it as far as I could. And so I do think that there's some inflation here, you know, thinking about how to play this with the Ryan Tannehill situation, I'm imagining that if he plays this, I mean, there's no way this line gets back down to ten and a half, which is where it was in the look ahead market.

do it with Tannehill. They can't do that with Malik Willis. It's a it's a very limited system if they have Willis. So if he's in, knowing that you know, the Chiefs, if they don't have the best offense in the league, it's certainly top three, knowing that they can put up thirty points. I think this spread would go past fourteen and a half. But do you have more thoughts on that?

And again, it was another game too where eventually it was kind of apparent, well Houston might not score, so like, do we need to air it out here? They didn't ask a lot out of him. They might have to ask a little more out of him this week. We might get a little more. He might stink out loud. I'd love I'm with you there, I'd love to see Tannehill. I think, yeah, fourteen is a definite possibility. If it's just announced Tanny's dead, we got to go with we

gotta go with Bleak again. So be interesting, be interesting. But yeah, it's it's more of a hopefully just a fade on Kansas City bringing the good place to a game like this.

But you know, Andy Dalton forty two thirty one and two against the spread for his career as an underdog. The Saints haven't been good this year again the spread, They've been livable against the spread with Dalton three and two against the spread with him as their starter. And you know, it's not like Andy Dalton is doing a whole lot of great things. He's just not doing Jameis Winston type of things, which seems like it's it's been the difference. But like he's been, you know, I don't know,

decidedly mediocre like he's been. He's been serviceable. But you know, he's number eight in composite EPA and completion percentage over expectation number eleven, an adjusted yards per attempt number thirteen in ESPN's QBR. So it's not as if he's you know, been elite, but he has been solidly average to above average, and that is enough, I think when combined with the Saints running offense. To me, this comes down to their

running offense against the Ravens run defense. Obviously, Michael Thomas, he's been out since Week four. Jarvis Landry has been out since Week five. Adam Troutman, for whatever he's worth, he's been out since the early stages of Week six. Even with all of that, the Saints have managed twenty nine point six points per game in Dalton's five starts. And you know the answer is to how they've done that is the running game, right. They have one of

the best running attacks in the league. Number eight in rush EPA, number three in rush success rate six and rush dvaight, number four in adjusted lineyards and the Ravens are outside defensively of the top twenty in all of those metrics. And they have especially struggled since they lost nose tackle Michael Pierce out for the year in Week three with a bicepsentury. In weeks one and two, they were number ten in rush success rate since then, number

twenty eight in rush success rate. So, you know, missing their big guy in the middle, in the interior of that defensive line that has certainly impacted them.

think that presents some value. Of course, there are larger injury questions Mark Andrews, you know, some offensive linemen for the Ravens, and then obviously for the Falcons you have Michael Thomas, Jarvis Landry, cornerback Marshall Lattimore. So big injury questions for this game. But even with all that taken into account, I still think there's value here on the Saints. Andy, for the love of God, do not say that you like the Ravens at this number.

receiver that's been on this team is miss time. And they have a bunch of good names, and still they've just taken a running back who everyone knows is going to get the ball, quarterback turned tight end and whatever is left on the roster and put up like twenty five points a game. It's it's maddening to try to figure out how this offense is still just chugging along

despite the injuries. And I mean you spoke a little to it, like Andy Dalton outside of two really ill fated passes in one game, has I mean, people focused in on that, but he hasn't done a lot of that. Outside of that, he has been a mediocre plus like he's been a little above average as far as mediocre quarterbacks. And they've they've stayed in games. They played tight against the Vikings team in London. They've they've stayed in games. They beat the tar out of home. It's called Oakland.

Las Vegas gets there. It's it's odd to figure out because I have the Ravens as like, I'm starting to develop a second tier. Like I said, I have this first tier. It is the Chiefs, the Bills, the Eagles, and then like I said, from like four to sixteen, it is awful full, but they're starting to be the second tier that's developing, and it's basically San Francisco and Baltimore, and I don't think they're going to be there yet. But when Baltimore gets healthy, they're probably the fourth best team.

It's just they're not healthy yet. And like you've said, yeah, this defense is really struggled. It's a bad matchup if if New Orleans decides they want to run it run it off and they can't stay with them. And I mean you're probably right that this, this being closer to a pick them is a is an adjustment I can I can get behind. I won't be betting it because I my numbers love Baltimore, but I've you know, just my eyeballs have seen New Orleans continually be able to

do things. Also in a state handle one spot, I usually defer to a better coaching staff, but I don't know if I can dog on this coaching staff right now just for being young. And it's not like he wasn't a head coach at one point before. It was a really really horrible situation that made him look really bad. But I mean, like Dennis Allen hasn't been around the block a couple of times. So I'm abstaining. On Monday Night, I bet first touchdown scores. But yeah, completely.

market at forty seven and a half. I still like it at forty nine and a half. Andy, what are you seeing in this game?

these passing offenses. That's just over the course of the last few years, too many teams events too much time spent on defending dynamic passing games, and some of these run defenses have really fallen behind. Cleveland And like you mentioned Baltimore, some of it's injury related, but this is another team too, that's that's going to get gashed a little on the round sometimes. And I guess if you want to say the Falcons are good at anything, they are good at that. Not only good at it, but

really really determined to run the ball constantly. It's another you know, it's a bottom ten run defense. I think the Falcons, whether they do it in a competitive game or they put themselves behind because they're clearly you know, a field goal or worse. I think there's definite case to be made for betting on the Chargers off The buy here too, is just against the spread. The way this offense might work out, you know, it doesn't matter the game state. Atlanta's offense is kind of the same,

which is nice. You know what you're getting, and I think they're going to have some level of efficiency on the ground and be able to get in the end zone. A couple of times the game may not be competitive, doesn't seem to matter. They're fine scoring and competitive games. They're fine scoring in non competitive environments when it's you know, garbage time touchdowns. Either way, I think we'll get some We'll get some help from the Falcons to get towards

this total. And then just I mean aj Torell is the best player on that side of the ball, and this is our safety. I can't think of the safety's name right now. He practiced fred. No, name's not coming to me. I don't know everybody in this Atlanta defense, and there's a reason for that. It's not a good defense. But Ajrell is the best player on that side of the ball. He is going to miss the game. It's really not looking good for this defensive matchup either against Justin Herbert

aff Abye. It's not a coach. I don't like either coach honestly in this one. And I was an Arthur Smith guy when he first went down there. But I don't know if there's a coaching mismatch here at all. But I do like the offensive versus defensive mismatches on both sides the ball. Yeah, I have this total up around fifty one.

a pass defense that isn't all that good anyway. That's a pretty big thing there, So I am I'm with you there. And one thing that is just kind of shocking is that this this Falcons team, I mean, as as laughable as their their offense might seem to be, because they're not passing the ball nearly as much as

you think they should. You know, they are top ten and a lot of running and passing efficiency metrics, Like when they decide to pass the ball, they're doing it decently well, you know, because Mariota has been completing passes, uh and they are throwing it deep, so you know, that helps to make up for the fact that they're not doing it as often as most teams. So I think the Falcons, I'm with you. I think the Falcons

can on their end, uh put up enough points. And then you have the Chargers coming out of a buy out. Mike Williams is out, Keenan Allen is not the key with his hamstring issue, so that's not great. But I still think they've got enough weapons to be able to get their side of this because as you mentioned, that Falcons defense, I don't have a lot of respect for. I mean, they're they're dead last in the league. Uh

and a lot of defensive defensive efficiency metrics. So uh happy to go against the Falcons and and that spot too, So I'm with you and looking on the over.

Terrace Marshall eight four for eighty seven. This guy's had like one hundred and forty yards of yak like it is. It's a you know, it's a past defense that can be attacked even if you are missing some of your best weapons. So I don't know if it matters who's lining up out wide for the Chargers in this one.

and a half, but it's Lions versus the Packers. But I will say, if I hadn't already better, I don't know if this is one I would be betting now. I don't know, Andy, Do you do you have any thoughts on this game?

go up later. Like the fact that they're at the bottom of maybe this is where they should be in the market. Not this is like a by low spot. No, it's low for a reason because this offense is stunk. Like it was really really eye opening to see this, and I've brought this I brought this drive up like seven times this week, I think. But when they were down by like three scores and they opened a drive with six straight runs, it's like it's the third I

wouldn't check them, like my drunk, is it the fourth court? Like, no, it's third. What are we doing. There's a lot of time left we have we just given up. Or if they've just said we can't pass, we can't pass, they're gonna give us the run. We're gonna have to take the run. So if this Packers team gets behind, I might just start live betting whatever the spread is. Like, they are not set up to comfort behind right now, and this defense has taking a big step back from

what you know, maybe their median expectation. They had probably a wide distribution of where this offense or defense was gonna end up. But I think a lot of people had it as an above average defense, and that is that's not what we've gotten from this team. That said, and the reason that I did stay away from this game is the Lions have been a different team when they've had these injuries in the offense. Like the offense

was on. We saw some really fun shootouts with this team early in the year, and they even you know, a couple of weeks ago we had it. But they they have to be healthy to be squarely on offense. So I've seen this total drop, but I'm kind of getting it, like, you know, why would why would a total drop if both defenses are bad? Because both offenses might just stink too. Maybe this isn't a total that should have been in the fifties. Maybe this this is a total that should have been at like forty eight

to forty nine. So I, uh, yeah, I would lean towards I'd lean towards damn underdog here it would you know? If you made me bet this, I would take the point because I don't I don't trust the Packers to win a game by margin. I don't trust the Packers to win a game right now. And I'm not sure. I you know, I'm not sure. Even a bad offense you just traded away one of their weapons won't move the ball on this defense.

they what are they doing at tight end now? Because he was kind of the man that was the man. That's nice pickup for Minnesota to further help that offense. They needed it with the IRV Smith injury being worse. The IRV Smith injury is the opposite of the DK Metcalfe injury. He's like, ah, it's an ankle. A couple of weeks now it's like, oh, he's certain done for the year or whatever. And the DK metcalf was apparently

it was just a bruise or something. I have no idea how he was just catching a touchdown the next day.

YouTube channel, we go Live every halftime. We're gonna do that again tonight even if this game is bad, because we've been dealing with it all year, all the primetime games have been bad. We don't care. We're gonna go live at halftime as well. And then every day at eleven thirty Eastern, I'm on brown bag bets, just betting on stuff all day because that's what I do, getting my teeth kicked in today and Europa, but sometimes breaks and yeah, I do as well as golf content with betsprits.

Golf a little lighter right now because it is the swing season they call it. These aren't the best tournaments, certainly not the Masters. They're in Mexico right now. But I still bet golf every week. So Tuesday is myself and Ryan Noonan do a betting golf show at eleven am every single week, same YouTube channel.