Tuley's Takes Today 10/30: Sunday Best Bets, including updates on NFL Week 8 card

Saturday was a very long and exciting day in the Tuley’s Takes home office with wall-to-wall college football, a World Series game, big cards in the NBA and NHL, plus most soccer, golf, MMA and boxing thrown in.

We won our Best Bet on Notre Dame + 1.5 as the Irish beat Syracuse 41-24 and went 2-1 ATS overall with our CFB plays as we also won with Middle Tennessee – which upset UTEP 24-13 as a 2.5-point dog – but lost badly with Oklahoma State + 1.5 in a 48-0 loss at Kansas State. But, hey, it still just counted as one loss and we’ll take 2-1 ATS any day of the week.

We did, however, lose our MLB 1st 5 wagers on the Phillies against the Astros as they trailed 5-0 through the first 5 innings on the way to a 5-2 loss, but all in all a fun day as we all posted our “Circa contest update” as we do every Saturday night after the selections and Top 5 plays in the Circa Sports Million and Circa Survivor are released. You can find that HERE, and we’ll update the results in these columns throughout the rest of the weekend.

Let’s recap the rest of Saturday’ betting action, and then, as we have a travel day in the World Series, turn our full attention to the NFL with the list of our “takes” as of early Sunday morning. As has become our custom here this season, we’ll rerun our Wednesday column, including updates based on how the lines have been moving.

Saturday’s Recaps

MLB: Astros (-140 home favorites) beat the Phillies 5-2 Saturday night to even the World Series at 1-1. The game pushed on the Over/Under of 7 runs). Faves/dogs and home/road teams are both 1-1 so far in the series while Overs lead 1-0-1. Dogs still lead 18-17 overall in the playoffs with 1 game closing pick-'em. Home teams improved to 21-15 overall. Over/Unders remain at .500 with the push at 17-17-2 overall.

CFB: No. 2 Ohio State escaped with a wild 44-31 victory over No. 13 Penn State in Happy Valley, but the Buckeyes did NOT cover as 16-point road favorites as PSU scored a TD with 1:12 left for the back-door cover after OSU had scored 2 TDs inside the 3-minute mark to get over the spread. Upsets were few and far between in the Top 25, though No. 10 Wake Forest (-3) did lose 48-21 at Louisville and No. 16 Syracuse (pick-’em after being short fave all week) lost 41-24 vs. Notre Dame.

NBA: Underdogs went 5-2 ATS on Saturday with 5 outright upsets by the Pacers (+ 11 at Nets), Thunder (+ 10.5 at Mavericks), Hornets (+ 10 vs. Warriors), Kings (+ 4 vs. Heat) and Jazz (+ 3.5 vs. Grizzlies). Home teams went 4-3 SU and ATS. Overs dominated 6-1.

More NBA: Faves still lead 54-31 SU on the regular season with 2 pick-’ems, while dogs improved to 42-38-5 ATS (52.5%). Home teams lead 52-35 SU and 44-38-5 ATS (53.7%). Overs improved to 47-37-3 (56%) lead.

NHL: Dogs went 7-5 with biggest upsets by Canadiens (+ 200 at Blues), Red Wings (+ 135 at Wild) and Oilers (+ 135 at Flames). Home/road teams split 6-6. Overs led 7-5. On the season, faves still lead 78-54 with 6 pick-'ems. Home teams lead 76-60 with 2 neutral-site games. Unders dipped to 70-67-1.

Sunday’s Takes

Here are our top play as of early Sunday with details in the column below:

Packers + 11 at Bills: We’re still calling this our Best Bet that we gave out on “The Greg Peterson Experience” last Sunday night and have been posting here and in the VSiN daily updates all week.

Broncos + 8/Saints + 7.5 (6-point teaser)

Giants + 3 at Seahawks: DraftKings has this game at 3.5 early Sunday and it looks like some other books are trending that way, too.

Welcome to our weekly Wednesday column where we give our “takes” on the full NFL schedule.

Our “dog-or-pass” approach has worked well so far this season thanks to dogs going 59-44-3 ATS (57.3%). We went 3-3 ATS with our Best Bets in Week 7 with wins on the Giants + 3 at the Jaguars, Buccaneers + 13 vs. the Buccaneers and Seahawks + 5 at the Chargers as all three not only covered but pulled outright upsets. We lost on the Lions + 7 at the Cowboys, Falcons + 6.5 at the Bengals and Texans + 7 at the Raiders. The 3-3 ATS mark made sense as faves/dogs split 7-7 ATS overall on the weekend, though we were disappointed to miss the upsets by the Commanders over the Packers and Bears over the Patriots.

Without further ado, let’s go over the NFL Week 8 card. For those who don’t know, even if I don’t have an official Best Bet on a game, I still do my “pool play” strategy for those who are in contests where you have to pick every game.

Baltimore Ravens (-1.5) at Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The Thursday nighter gives us a matchup of co-division leaders, but both the Ravens (4-3) and Buccaneers (3-4) are seen as teams off to disappointing starts. Tom Brady is arguably at the low point of his career after the Bucs’ 21-3 loss to the Panthers as 13-point road favorites after managing just a field goal. That dropped Tampa Bay to No. 22 in the NFL in total offense at just 330.6 yards per game and No. 17 in scoring offense at just 17.7 points per game. The Ravens’ problems aren’t on the offensive side of the ball as Lamar Jackson is playing like the former MVP that he is, but the defense is ranked No. 23 and that doesn’t even tell the whole story as Baltimore has blown three double-digit leads in the fourth quarter. With that in mind, we expect this to be another close game, so we can’t pass up the Buccaneers in 2-team, 6-point teasers as we can move them through the key numbers of 3 and 7 to + 7.5. We’ll start a couple of teasers to game s on Sunday (Saints + 8 vs. Raiders, Jets + 7.5 vs. Patriots and Rams + 7.5 vs. 49ers are the top options as of this writing). For our purposes on Thursday night, let’s go with Buccaneers + 7.5/Over 39 similar to what we did last Thursday when we cashed in on Saints + 8.5/Over 38 when the Saints lost to the Cardinals in a 42-34 shootout but got in the back door to win our teaser.

Best Bet: Buccaneers + 7.5/Over 39, plus other 2-team, 6-point teasers (pool play: split pretty much 50/50 in my rare SU and ATS contest that use Thursday night games, slight lean to the Bucs).

Denver Broncos vs. Jacksonville Jaguars (-2.5) in London

Set your alarm to get up early Sunday as we have another game from London. As of Tuesday night, it wasn’t officially announced if Russell Wilson will return to the lineup. Considering this line was as high as Jaguars -4.5 and has been bet down to 2.5, I’m guessing someone knows (or is speculating heavily) that Wilson is going to play. Coach Nathaniel Hackett said that the decision could come on Wednesday. If Wilson does play (and Denver still remains a dog), I think the Broncos are teasable along with the Saints, Jets and Rams as mentioned above. Just like last week when I faded the Jaguars with the Giants, I’m not so sure Jacksonville should be favored at all, especially on a neutral field.

Best Bet: Broncos + 8.5/Saints + 8, plus other 2-team, 6-point teasers (pool play: Broncos 55/45 in both SU and ATS contests).

Chicago Bears at Dallas Cowboys (-9)

The Cowboys, who beat the Lions 24-6 in Dak Prescott’s return on Sunday, opened as 10-point home favorites in this game, though it was adjusted down to 9 at most books after the Bears’ shocking 33-14 upset of the Patriots on Monday Night Football. I was bummed that I didn’t back my hometown Bears as I was with most other bettors that didn’t think they would be able to beat the Patriots (or even cover as 8.5-point dogs). However, I also don’t think I’ll be pulling the trigger in this game either. While Justin Fields and the Bears offense performed better than expected against a strong Patriots defense (which shut out the Lions in Week 5 and held the Browns to 15 points in Week 6), the Cowboys’ defense is even better. 

Best Bet: Pass (pool play: Cowboys 55/45 in ATS contests and closer to 90/10 in SU pools).

  
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