Wild Opportunities of (NFL) Week 18

Last week, top-ranked player prop bettor Calvin told us his betting edge spikes in the unique situations of NBA summer league, preseason, and Olympic basketball.

He wins in those scenarios by researching the atypical lineups, differing player motivation and correlated opportunities these less serious games create.

NFL week 18 presents the football equivalent of those same special situations. Star players sit out, lines experience huge swings, and those who do play spend “garbage time” minutes prioritizing their contractual incentives more explicitly than usual.

As the Robin Hood of sports betting, taking from the books and giving to the bettors, I’m excited to share my methods for capitalizing on Week 18 zigs and zags!

Today, we’ll talk through two categories in which to anticipate the curveball outcomes of week 18: team motivation and player incentives. We’ll review relevant historical trends and any correlated outcomes.

As always, we’ll use what we learn to make related NFL bets of the week.

Let’s get after it.

Understanding Team Motivation

By week 18, NFL teams can be sorted into one of three categories of motivation.

The first category, includes teams who stand to benefit greatly from winning. They are typically playing to secure a playoff spot, or improve their playoff seeding.

Coming into this week, four meaningful NFL playoff-related outcomes are yet to be locked in:

• The NFC South, and the last undecided NFL playoff spot, will be determined between Tampa Bay and Atlanta.

• The AFC North, and the #3 seed in the AFC, will be settled between Pittsburgh and Baltimore.

• The final AFC playoff spot is up for grabs with the Broncos favored to get in, but the Dolphins and Bengals still alive.

• The NFC North, and #1 seed, will be settled in the Sunday night game between Detroit and Minnesota.

All of those teams will be playing to win, with typical time allocated to their best players.

The second category includes playoff teams with nothing to gain via winning, and a lot to lose through potential injuries that could harm their post-season chances.

Kansas City, Buffalo and Philadelphia are good examples of such teams this season, and have confirmed they will be resting top players like Patrick Mahomes and Saquon Barkley.

The third category is made up of teams who are eliminated from playoff contention and know that week 18 will be their final game of the season regardless of the outcome.

While it might seem an obvious angle to bet on teams with something to gain (like a playoff spot) against those that have been eliminated, this has not historically been a profitable approach. Quite the opposite!

Counterintuitively, over the past 35 years, eliminated teams that are facing teams who benefit from a win have covered the spread more than 60% of the time.

This trend covers a sample size of more than 175 games, including last year’s example of Tennessee eliminating Jacksonville despite the Titans having nothing to gain beyond the pride of a win.

This season, the following eliminated teams fit this trend and are worthy of consideration. I included the best current line I found via Juice Reel:

• New Orleans (+13.5) vs Tampa Bay

• Carolina (+8.5) vs Atlanta

• New York Jets (+1.5) vs Miami

My hypothesis on this phenomenon is straightforward: I believe bettors are incorrectly ascribing value to the concept of timely motivation, creating value in betting lines.

NFL players on eliminated teams, like many of us, are motivated to do their best work, regardless of the stakes. Teams with a lot to gain don’t magically get better at football, and their performance may even suffer due to added pressure.

It’s like Greek poet Archilochus said: “We don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”

Who knew the foresight that quote would have when considering week 18 betting lines!

Player Incentives and Milestones

NFL teams frequently align incentives with their players by creating contractual cash bonuses based on achieving specific measures of success.

As a byproduct of this practice, players, and their teammates, may give extra weight to reaching an incentive milestone in otherwise meaningless week 18 games. If winning or losing matters less, we might as well try and get our guy paid, right?!

Let’s review some live examples, along with related betting lines, for potential week 18 opportunities:

• Mike Evans needs season totals of 70 receptions, 1,000 receiving yards, and 10 touchdowns for a $3 million bonus. He’ll need at least 5 catches for 85 yards in week 18 to achieve this.

  His receiving yards betting line sits at 96-98 yards, vs his season average of 70 yards per game, so this incentive is being heavily valued in his projection. Our job as smart bettors is to try and quantify how much Mike and his teammates will prioritize his personal outcome in a game that has meaningful playoff ramifications. I’ll give you my take below.

• Derrick Henry has already earned a number of contract incentives this year, including $500,000 for each of the following milestones: 1) 1,200 rushing yards, 2) 1,500 rushing yards, 3) 13 touchdowns. He will earn another half million dollars for reaching 15 touchdowns, by scoring one more TD in week 18. His “anytime touchdown” scorer prop is on BetMGM at -210, which is a pretty typical line for someone who has scored in 12 of 16 games this season. I believe the lack of value this line places on the incentive is a reflection of the “modest” dollar value to Henry at this milestone. I also believe Henry being benched in the second half once a win is locked up is a decently likely outcome.

Other players worthy of incentive betting research include Geno Smith, Tony Pollard, and DeAndre Hopkins. Get the full list of players and a primer on the details here.

Being aware of these incentives, paired with closely following news about who will see the field, is a great way to find an unfair advantage against the books. 

Bet(s) of the Week $$

Last week, powered by Calvin’s excellent research, we bet with a big edge and went 2-0, winning 2 units.

Jaden McDaniels cruised past his rebound prop of 7.5, finishing with 9, and Jusuf Nurkic obliterated his assist line of 1.5 when Devin Booker sat out, as predicted. Nurkic finished with 6 assists, a season high!

Since starting the newsletter, bets given out in this section are ahead 3.9 units, at a positive 14% ROI. We’ll continue to update this regularly.

I’m excited to play some week 18 angles, so based on the research discussed above, I am making the following bets this week:

• New Orleans +13.5 @-105 on ESPN Bet for 1 unit

• New York Jets +1.5 @-115 on FanDuel for 1 unit

• Derrick Henry Anytime TD @-210 on BetMGM for 1 unit

• Mike Evans Under 98.5 yards rec @-109 on Caesers for 1 unit

I am fading teams that “need to win” in the first two bets above based on the long-standing trend I discussed and the betting activity I see in Juice Reel’s Sharpmush.

I think Derrick Henry is likely to score his milestone touchdown as part of the game flow in a 10+ point Ravens victory. If you can find a first half TD prop before game time, consider placing that bet instead if listed at -130 or better. None were available at the time of writing.

Finally, I find it less likely that the Bucs can afford to force feed Mike Evans in a game where the Saints stay close. I considered an SGP that included both of those two events, but the best price I found was +161. That seemed to already price in any edge I’d find from those events being correlated.

Next week we’ll talk about NFL Playoff betting trends and angles.