The most critical position in all of sports is the quarterback position in football. Week in and week out, we see plenty of teams succeed and fail merely due to their quarterback play, and it is near impossible to win in this league without a competent signal-caller. This week, I will focus on two games that highlight significant quarterback disparities and their influence on NFL point spread odds that present possible value before making my NFL point spreads and picks for Week 13. Make sure you keep up with all of the betting team’s Week 13 plays throughout the week.
NFL Odds & Point Spreads, Week 13 | New Orleans Saints (-3) at Atlanta Falcons, Over/Under 45.5
New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees is undoubtedly going into the NFL Hall of Fame when he retires, and if he were the starting quarterback for the New Orleans Saints this week, I would probably be leaning the other direction with this bet.
Brees is efficient, wise, and knows when and where to place the ball to move his team down the field with ease. His current replacement, Taysom Hill, is a dual-threat quarterback, which is just a euphemism for saying he uses his legs to make up for the lack of his passing skills.
The quarterback play
During last week’s game against the Denver Broncos, the Saints ran the ball 44 times for 229 yards – both season-high numbers for the organization this year. Of those 44 rushes, Hill ran it 10 times for 44 yards and two touchdowns. When you compare those numbers to his passing statistics, the entire picture becomes clear.
Hill attempted a mere 16 pass attempts last week and only completed nine of them – a 56% completion percentage. He also added one interception to those 16 pass attempts for a 43.2 passer rating. Hill is essentially a poor man’s Lamar Jackson or Kyler Murray – and that is not saying much.
Although the Atlanta Falcons and quarterback Matt Ryan have both under-performed this year, since ex-head coach Dan Quinn’s firing, they have turned the corner and played decent football. All of Ryan’s 2020 passing numbers line up with what he has done over his career, which has led to multiple 10+ win seasons.
Add the fact that his star wide receiver Julio Jones is on pace to miss more games this season than he has in the last five years combined. Then take an increasingly incompetent coaching staff, and you begin to understand why the Falcons have under-performed so dramatically this year as well as the past few years.
Coaching matters
Ex-head coach Quinn is primarily to blame for the recent downturn in performance by the Falcons. Since 2018, the Falcons have had at least one five-game losing streak each season. Losing throughout a season is to be expected in every sport, but the best coaches know when and how to get their team to snap out of it and bounce back to their expected potential. Under Quinn’s leadership, whenever the Falcons hit those roadblocks in performance throughout the season, he did nothing to navigate them out of it.
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Now enter Quinn’s replacement in Raheem Morris. He has Super Bowl experience from his time with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, as well as his innate ability to turn a poor to average defense into an elite one. In 2007, he turned a previously 19th overall pass defense into the league’s best secondary, and in 2010 he turned a 3-13 Buccaneers team into a 10-6 competitor that barely missed the playoffs the following year.
Rallying behind an interim head coach
Before Quinn’s firing, the Falcons were allowing 32.2 points per game to the opposition. Since Morris has assumed head coaching duties, the Falcons have improved to 20 points per game allowed. In addition to their near-two touchdown improvement on scoring defense, they have also improved from allowing 335+ pass yards per game down to 254.5 yards per game under Morris.
Not much needs to be said about Saints head coach Sean Payton, as his Super Bowl resumé and long-standing marriage with Brees has been covered thoroughly. The coaching aspect’s angle is that there is more game tape of Hill’s skill set and the fact that Morris is ready for Hill starting at quarterback. The last time these two teams faced, Brees was slated to be the starter until his rib injuries the week before sidelined him.
There are no surprises for Morris and company this time, and as long as Ryan can limit his mistakes, the Falcons should be able to keep this game close and potentially even win this game.
Jessica’s Week 13 NFL Odds & Points Spread Play: Falcons +3
Since Morris took over, the Falcons have gone 4-2 against the spread compared to Quinn’s 1-4 ATS record. The Falcons are an improved team, especially on defense, and the market has not quite caught up to that realization yet. This game will most likely be a low-scoring defensive battle that will come down to a field goal to decide the winner. Take the home dog here with the expectation that Morris will strategize against Hill enough to neutralize him and Ryan delivering just enough key passes to lead the Falcons to a victory on this Week 13 NFL spread.
NFL Odds & Point Spreads | Las Vegas Raiders (-7) at New York Jets, Over/Under 47
Every single sports bettor has bet against the Jets this season. The tank is for real, so the money-making opportunity does not get much easier than this. Imagine a coach with a 30-45 regular-season record as a head coach. Imagine that same coach with 34 of those 45 losses coming by double digits. This offensive guru has more double-digit losses on his resume than he does victories. I present to you, New York Jets head coach Adam Gase.
The Jets (again)
Now add an efficient and high-powered offensive opponent coming off of a horrendous beat down where they only scored six points. That offensive juggernaut belongs to the Las Vegas Raiders, and their quarterback Derek Carr just finished having his worst performance of 2020. They field the eighth-best running game at 125.6 yards per game while Carr boasts a gaudy 19 to four touchdown to interception ratio and a 104.9 quarterback rating – the best of his career.
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Raiders running back Josh Jacobs has been wildly inconsistent this year and could use a game versus a porous defense like the Jets to get back on track. He has been held to 108 total yards in his last two games combined against the Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs.
Although the Jets are decent against the run with a 3.8 yards per carry against average, Jacobs is also a decent receiver out of the backfield, and the Jets are one of the worst at defending the pass. They give up the third-most pass yards per game at 284 and have allowed the league’s fourth-most total points. Add in the threats of tight end Darren Waller with the receiver trio of Henry Ruggs, Nelson Agholor, and Hunter Renfrow, and you have a deadly combo that can maneuver up and down the field with ease.
Extra-curricular factors
Here is another case of a west coast team traveling to the east coast and playing at the 10 AM PST time slot. We saw it affect the Arizona Cardinals this past weekend against the New England Patriots, and we have seen it numerous times before. That is one consideration to keep in mind when laying the points here with the Raiders.
The Raiders also do not have a stout defense. They will definitely give up yards and points to the Jets; the question is how many? Las Vegas has a high probability of scoring 27-30 at the very minimum, and New York should not cap out higher than 23 points, most likely. Will the Raiders perform as we expect and bounce back correctly after last week’s abysmal loss to the Falcons?
Jessica’s Week 13 NFL Odds & Points Spread Lean: Raiders -7 (buy for -130 juice or less)
Just like with the Miami Dolphins last week, we are once again fading the Jets. As long as the market continues to give out bad lines with Jets opponents, they should be continued to be taken. The travel should not affect them dramatically against the worst team in the league, with the worst coach, and an organization with its eyes set on Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence’s incredible talent. If you are not one to be scared of juice, buying this line to -7 at any odds -130 or under would be my best recommendation to at least push if a potential touchdown victory were to occur.
Follow Jessica @GridironAndWine and Pro Football Network @PFN365 on Twitter for all the best betting advice for the 2020 NFL season.
