Ravens better of the birds
By DAVE TULEY
Dave Tuley, senior reporter at VSiN, joins the Post’ s Bet tor’ s Guide for the 2018 NFL season. His handicap ping pieces appear in VSiN’ son line magazine, Point Spread Weekly.
Ravens (+1¹/₂) over FALCONS:
This game opened Ravens -3 and now the Falcons are short home favorites, but I feel the oddsmakers had it right to begin with. The Ravens have the league’s No 1 defense and have won two straight behind rookie QB Lamar Jackson — and if you want to denigrate those results by saying they were against the Bengals and Raiders, it’s not as if the Falcons’ No. 22 defense is going to slow his development. Besides, Joe Flacco still might return. But whoever’s taking the snaps, the Ravens are the better team and are live road underdogs.
LIONS (+10) over Rams:
The Rams keep rolling along at 10-1 while the Lions have underachieved at 4-7, but in a fact worthy of Ripley’s , the Lions have been the better bet at 6-5 ATS while the Rams are 4-6-1 ATS (1-6-1 ATS in their past eight games — Believe It Or Not!). The Rams’ overrated defense keeps allowing opponents to stick around and the Lions, who beat the Panthers two weeks ago and should have covered against the Bears on Thanksgiving, are good enough to stay within two scores.
LAST WEEK: 0-2. SEASON: 9-14-1.