SlateLines (Tally LLC) earns a commission when you sign up through our links. That never affects our analysis.
Indianapolis and the three and a half, as a lean. The Colts are the better team on our card and at home, and they are the ones taking points.
The Matchup
- Our card has the home team ahead, not behind. We published Indianapolis at nine and eight and Baltimore at eight and nine. One win of separation, to the side that also gets the building. The board went the other way and then added a field goal to it.
- This is a reputation price. Baltimore is the name people expect to see favoured and Indianapolis is not. A market that prices the badge rather than the season is a market you can take the other side of, and Week 1 is when that happens most.
- Baltimore comes in with two receivers to watch. Zay Flowers has been limited with a hamstring during the week. A hamstring on a speed receiver is the kind of thing that lingers into a game rather than resolving on Sunday morning.
- Alec Pierce is on track for Indianapolis. He has been working back from offseason surgery and has practised his way toward the opener. The Colts get their vertical threat for a game the board priced as if they might not.
The Number
Take the published win totals, give Indianapolis the two points a home stadium is worth, and this projects as the Colts by roughly four. The board is asking Indianapolis to take three and a half. The two numbers do not just differ in size, they differ in direction, and a disagreement about which team is better is worth more than a disagreement about how much better.
What the line has done is the reason this is a lean. We have recorded this game every day since July, and it has sat at Baltimore by three and a half the entire time. The moneyline has drifted a couple of points toward Indianapolis and that is all. A number that has not moved in two months is a number the market is comfortable with, and it has had every chance to agree with us and has not.
So the arithmetic says the market has this backwards, and the market has declined for sixty days to change its mind. That is worth respecting. Confidence four, half a unit. Three and a half still clears the most common margin in football, so a narrow defeat pays. The moneyline at around plus one fifty is the same read priced for an outright win, and it counts once rather than twice.
In-Game Bets
- If Zay Flowers is inactive. Hold both and stop worrying. The projection did not need him to be out, and the market number was set expecting him to play.
- If Baltimore leads by more than ten at the half. Release the moneyline and keep the points. A double digit hole in a game priced at three and a half means our read on which team is better is being tested in real time.
- If the game is level entering the fourth. Do not add. Three and a half has already done its work and a live price at that stage is worse than the ticket you are holding.
Bottom Line
Take Indianapolis and the three and a half at . The better team on our card, at home, taking points, in a number that has not moved all summer. A lean, half a unit.
21+ · Gambling problem? Call or text 1-800-GAMBLER