Sportsbooks are labeling the final game of Week 5 as a coin flip, and those are the types of games that give us the most freedom when trying to build out same game parlay picks! What direction do the betting numbers suggest we go?
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Green Bay Packers vs. Las Vegas Raiders Odds
- Spread
Raiders -2.5 - Moneyline
Packers +114, Raiders -135 - Total
45.5
We here at Soppe HQ like to encourage responsible gaming, and in that vein, I’ll always offer you a trivia question off the top of these articles. Pose this question to a buddy you are watching the game with: answer correctly, and you pay for the SGP; misfire, and he/she is on the hook.
Trivia Question: True or false — Davante Adams had more seasons with the Packers with double-digit TD catches than seasons with single-digit TD catches?
I wanted to look at how Thursday night teams perform the next week early in the season.
As time goes on, more fatigue sets in and could skew the data, so I dove into these spots for the first half of last season and thus far this season (excluding teams that played in Week 1 or Week 2 on TNF, understanding that there is no real rest advantage had that early in the season with everyone fresh).
In that sample, I looked at nine games (18 teams). Here are the findings:
- Opponent under their implied total: 61.1% of the time
- Team under their implied total: 66.7% of the time
Let’s pair down the data a touch and sort it by result the following week:
- TNF teams who won the next week, opponent under implied total: 75%
- Of that sample, 81.1% went under implied total by 6+ points
- TNF teams who won the next week, over the implied total: 62.5%
- Of that sample, 80% went over the implied total by 6+ points
- TNF teams who lost the next week, under the implied total: 90%
- On average, they went under the total by 6.4 PPG
If we are going to follow this logic and tell a pro-Packers story, all signs point to this potentially being a Christian Watson coming-out party. Since Aaron Jones (OUT for tonight) first was injured in Week 1, the top target in the Pack attack has seen 32.4% of the targets.
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The rub, of course, is that it has been a moving target up to this point, but that could well change after Watson made his debut last week and had the mini-bye to get ready for this with the bye next week. Why not see if he can be a full-go?
If he is a full-go, we have an opportunity to cash in, as the books have to hedge his health until it is proven. Opposing WR1s have caught 78.3% of their targets against the Raiders this season, a massive number when you consider that they’ve played teams with a clear WR1 that demands extra attention.
That’s not the case here, so the efficiency could be even greater. If you’re buying the premise of Watson being the WR1 and the 32-attempt projection that sportsbooks have for Jordan Love tonight, that could mean 10-11 targets. That’s probably optimistic, but even six targets put this explosive playmaker in a good spot. His averages when seeing 6+ targets:
- Catches: 4.2
- Yards: 68.0
- Touchdowns: 1.2
With a sub-50 yardage expectation, this allows us to get aggressive and chase whatever level of upside you’d like. I went more conservative, but if you’re feeling frisky, a triple-digit day for Watson in this SGP more than triples the payout!
- Trivia Answer: True (Adams had 10+ TD catches in five of eight seasons with the Packers)
- Same Game Parlay Pick: Christian Watson 60+ receiving yards, Packers over 21.5 points, Raiders under 23.5 points
- Odds: +850 (at DraftKings)
