Betting the Jaguars: Week 5
Week 4 Recap
- Travis Etienne: o91.5 rushing + receiving yards (-115) ❌
- Evan Engram: o46.5 receiving yards (-110)✅
- Christian Kirk: o4.5 receptions (-115)✅
- Jerome Ford: o65.5 rushing + receiving yards (-110)❌
- Courtland Sutton: o55.5 receiving yards (-115)❌
Overall Record 11-10 +6.74 units
A 2-3 record this past weekend brought the record down a little bit but still positive overall. Evan Engram and Christian Kirk were the two hits as the passing game mainly flowed through them as expected. The run game couldn’t get anything going through Etienne as he just had nowhere to run. I knew the matchup wasn’t the most favorable vs. the Falcons but I thought the sheer volume would be enough to get him by. He’s liable to pop any play for a long gain and it just never happened Sunday.
I made a mistake with the Jerome Ford play. Deshaun Watson missed the game with a shoulder injury and I didn’t think he was at risk of missing the game when I wrote the article. The line was low enough that Ford could’ve pulled it out but the Cleveland offense was absolutely atrocious with Dorian Thompson-Robinson at the helm.
This year's Bears defense has the potential to be historically bad and the Broncos found themselves down big early needing to pass their way back into the game. Courtland Sutton finished with 27 yards on the day as the Broncos only had one receiver top 55 yards. They spread the ball around giving eleven different pass catchers a target. I played Adam Trautman in DFS after Greg Dulcich went down and he didn’t even catch a pass. Time to stop trying to predict Sean Payton.
Christian Kirk: o54.5 receiving yards (-115)
Trevor Lawrence: o16.5 rushing yards (-120)
Josh Allen: o1.5 passing touchdowns (-145)
I’m riding a hot Christian Kirk coming off a game where he saw 12 targets catching 8 of them for 84 yards. Hopefully the return of Cam Robinson helps the offensive line performance but I still expect Press Taylor to keep dialing up Kirk in the quick game where he can rack up yards after the catch in space. The chemistry between him and Trevor Lawrence hasn’t gone anywhere and the offense will need to score to top the Bills this weekend.
Speaking of Trevor, I was surprised to see his rushing line so low. At only 16.5 yards he has reached this mark in 3 out of 4 games. The game he missed it he still had 12 yards. On top of that, he has two single rushes longer than 16 yards this year with rushes of 18 and 22 yards. Like I mentioned with Kirk, the Jaguars offense will need to score this weekend which should give Trevor more opportunities to create some plays on the ground. While not totally there yet, he has shown improvement in deciding when to tuck and take off on the ground so I don’t think this one should be too hard for him.
Josh Allen o1.5 passing touchdowns is juiced down pretty hard to -145 but I feel very confident in him so I’m playing it. Since the start of the 2020 season, Allen has failed to throw two touchdowns in the regular season only 14 times. He has two this year so far, one in a strange week one game vs. the Jets and another in a blowout vs. the Commanders. The only scenarios where Allen doesn’t hit this prop are when the Bills are struggling or when the Bills are absolutely blowing someone out. I don’t see the latter happening bad enough to where they just run the ball all day and the Bills offense is rolling which leads me to think Josh gets this one done.
Other Bets
Travis Kelce: o77.5 receiving yards (-120)
Tank Dell: o41.5 receiving yards (-115)
The Chiefs won on Sunday Night Football but the offense looked, uhh, not great. Patrick Mahomes threw two interceptions that looked like Zach Wilson threw them. You can’t convince me this offense doesn’t have a huge bounce-back performance this Sunday vs the Vikings. The Vikings defense has given up some big performances through the air this year so look for Kelce to have himself a day. Taylor Swift.
Last week I mentioned I liked Christian Kirk to catch over 4.5 passes because I thought AJ Terrell guarding Calvin Ridley would shift some attention to Kirk. That proved to be true and I think we see a similar impact this weekend with the Texans offense. We already saw this play out in week 2 vs. the Jaguars when Nico Collins was primarily defended by Tyson Campbell. Campbell played Collins well and the Texans pivoted to throwing to Dell more. I know he benefitted from a few busted coverages but they still count and at 41.5 yards his line isn’t super high.
