The best NFL Championship Sunday bets and other top picks of the weekend

I’m not trying to discourage you, but this is the last weekend with multiple NFL games until the fall. Sure, we still have March Madness and the NBA and Stanley Cup playoffs, but the NFL is still king here.

There’s a reason why this newsletter features Football Friday but not Basketball Friday. Well, the fact that most basketball lines aren’t posted until game day plays a pretty big part too, but it doesn’t matter! It means that it will be gone. Let’s cherish the time we have left.

Let’s go to the winner.

Always Eastern, all odds via Caesars Sportsbook

🔥 Hot Ticket

Bucks at Pacers, 7pm | TV: NBA League Pass

Latest odds:

Indiana Pacers +8

• main trends: The Pacers are 11-5 ATS as home dogs this season.
• Pick: Pacers +8.5 (-110)

The Pacers will be out tonight as Tyrese Halliburton will be sidelined for at least another week with a knee injury. It’s a big loss, but the Pacers have been without Halliburton for over two weeks and are finally making adjustments. They started 0-5 without him, but have been much better in his last three games.

Sure, they’ve only won one of them (a 6-point win over Chicago), but their road losses to Phoenix and Orlando were close. It’s going to be a tough matchup tonight, but the line gives Milwaukee a little too much credit. Bobby Portis has suffered a knee injury that will keep him out for at least a week, and Giannis is dealing with his own knee problems while he plays.

Also, the Pacers are good against spreads. The Pacers are 16-9 ATS at home this season, including his 11-5 ATS as a home dog. The Bucks had another good ATS this year, but their dominance is at home, 16-8 ATS. On the road, there are only 9-12-3 ATS. Finally, Milwaukee has a big win over Denver and has a big game at home to New Orleans on Sunday. The Bucks aren’t the first team to be caught overlooking a road game against the bottom team in the league.

SportsLine said of the game: Projection Model and I disagree a bit on the spread, but either way, it’s a bigger fan of total play.

🏈 NFL Championship Sunday Pick

49ers at Eagles, 3pm Sunday | TV: Fox

Latest odds:

Philadelphia Eagles -2.5

Pick: Eagles -2.5 (-120) — I keep betting on Brock Purdy and losing. what do you want from me? I’m stubborn That’s why I’m doing it again. Purdy now faces a team with an elite defense and an offense that doesn’t fail again and again. Seriously, Purdy and the Niners didn’t play so aggressively last week.Dak Prescott and the Cowboys let the game go.

The Eagles don’t. Philadelphia has been the most complete team in the NFC all season long and may be the best team in the NFL. There’s nothing they can’t do offensively and when it’s not clicked they have the defense to keep the game going. It would take too many breaks to leave Philadelphia with a win.

Bengals at Chiefs, Sunday, 6:30 PM | TV: CBS

Latest odds:

Cincinnati Bengals +100

Pick: Bengals (+100) — i didn’t buy it Show me a video of Patrick Mahomes stretching at practice. We can say that he was a complete participant. After the press conference, he can smoothly walk away from the podium. Some people like to believe that Dumar Hamlin is a body double. I like to believe that Mahomes’ ankles are in much worse shape than advertised.

I don’t think he will be the Mahomes of Mobile. Which one stinks because this is a matchup between the two I believe to be the best quarterbacks in the NFL. So not only do I think Cincinnati has a better, healthier QB on Sunday, but I also think the Bengals have a better skill player for his position than the Chiefs. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Bengals have had so much success against the Chiefs, and that success continued on Sunday.

💰 Other recommendations

🏀 college basketball

Oakland, Youngstown State, 9:00 PM | TV: ESPN2
The Pick: Auckland +9 (-110) — I’m not a television executive or conference commissioner, but I like playing that role in this newsletter. The Friday night college basketball slate is pretty thin. He has only 10 games scheduled tonight and none involving the “major” leagues. I know you want to save games on Saturday and Sunday, but wouldn’t it make sense that at least one of the major conferences would play some games on Friday night? It’s a feeling.

Anyway, when it comes to this incredible Horizon League game we’re betting on, this spread, by my calculations, is a little too optimistic about Youngstown State’s chances. The best team in the league, but defensively a mess. They were very good offensively, so it didn’t matter, although the Grizzlies were 7-3 and pretty solid defensively, so his play in the conference was very good for Oakland. It was a target. The Penguins beat the Grizzlies two weeks before him by 16 margins, but in that game he shot 14/26 from 3. I don’t think they’ll do it again and the Grizzlies will get this closer.

⚽Football

Hoffenheim v Borussia Mönchengladbach, Saturday, 9:30 am | TV: ESPN+
The Pick: Over 3.5 (+120) — A few years ago, I started the habit of buying my favorite shirt each season from a team I didn’t support. Bought his PSG replacement last year in black, white and pink. Bought his home kit for Mönchengladbach this season. This has nothing to do with my game. Just a nice shirt and I love it. I’m betting here, so I hope there’s a goal.

We won’t bet on the Bundesliga much in this newsletter, but it’s a fun league if you like goals. The average number of goals in the Bundesliga this season is 3.27, 0.33 goals more than he has the second highest among the top five European leagues (France’s Ligue 1 has 2.94 goals). This match could add to that average. Hoffenheim are winning 13-14 at home, but their xG at home is 16.1-10.8. I was unlucky. Mönchengladbach’s defense, on the other hand, falls off a cliff when it hits the road. You can average from 1.32 xG per game at home to 1.6 away. Given the possibility of a Goalfest breaking out, this line is too juicy to pass up.

Napoli v Rome, Sunday, 2:45 PM | TV: Paramount+
Pick: Less than 2.5 (-115) — Please understand how condescending what I am trying to say sounds. As a Napoli fan, I am thrilled with how the team is doing this season. Napoli dominate Serie A and have a 12-point lead in the league at halfway point. We are on track to reach 100 points. Even in the Champions League, it boasts an overwhelming strength. That’s excellent. At the same time, I wish the race for Napoli’s first Seria A title since 1990 was a little more dramatic. It’s not funny. I also believe another reason why I wish the race was tighter is the fact that it says less about the rest of Serie A than Napoli, but that’s for another time at all That’s another story.

This match is important now. In this column, we bet Roma against the bad team, and Roma against the good team, and made a lot of money, but this week we’re changing the script a bit. Roma have been playing better lately, finding themselves in the middle of the race for Champions League qualification thanks to Juventus’ 15-point penalty. Similarly, the driving force for improvement was in defense. Roma have allowed an average of 0.6 Expected Goals (xG) over their last 11 Serie A matches. In any of them he was only allowed to exceed 1.0 xG. This included his 0–1 loss to Napoli in late October. Roma were the first to upset Napoli before finding a breakthrough goal. I don’t think this weekend’s match will be much different from the first.

🔒 Today’s sports line picks: The projection model’s favorite night of play is the game between the Golden State Warriors and the Toronto Raptors.