Patriots are the Most Popular Monday Night Bet This Season
The Patriots playing in primetime guarantees at least one thing: lopsided ticket counts.
As it stands now, tonight’s AFC East battle in Miami is the most one-sided MNF game of the season so far, with the Dolphins receiving just 27% of bets as double-digit home underdogs.
Yes, the public is backing Tom Brady over Jay Cutler. Crazy, right?
This makes Miami the least-popular bet on a Monday night since last October, when the Bears received just 22% of bets as home dogs against Minnesota. For those curious about such things, the Bears not only covered, but won that game outright. In fact, in the past six years, teams receiving less than 30% of bets on Monday nights are an impressive 17-7 against the spread.
Despite the ticket count, and perhaps due to such trends, there’s been considerable reverse line movement toward Miami in this game. After opening +12 at Pinnacle, the Dolphins are now listed at +10.5, and even reached the key number of 10 for a short time. Of course, the Patriots will be playing without Rob Gronkowski, but his absence should have only accounted for a half point of that movement.
As for the total, there’s not much to report based on percentages and line movement alone. After it opened at 48.5, the total took a slight hit and fell to 47 — perhaps knee jerk reaction to the Gronk news — but has since been bet back up to its original number with 59% of bettors taking the over.
The under has been a profitable bet in similar late-season divisional matchups, hitting at more than a 60% rate when the total falls between 43 and 58.5.
If we narrow it down to look at only primetime games, the under improves to 40-24 (63%). If we narrow it down further to MNF games, the under is 12-5 (71%).
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Football Pitfalls
12/11/2017 at 11:29 pmI love seeing these kind of stats for NFL games. Only 27% of the public bites on a double digit dog at home. This is a division game. I’m not saying the Dolphins will win, but should beat this spread.
New England has been on fire, I can’t deny that. They’ve covered their last five games without trouble. Miami has looked brutal this season, especially on the Thursday night game versus Baltimore. I don’t blame the public for throwing down on the Pats tonight, but the real NFL bet maker saw opportunity.
Reasons to roll with the ‘Fins:
New England has performed poorly in Miami over the past five seasons losing 4 of 5.
Only in recent history during the Brady/Belichick era (last 2 seasons) has New England covered big spreads. I am always weary when the Pats are anything more than 6.5 point favs. 8 out of 10 times they don’t cover. They just do what they have to to win. It’s the games where they are 3.5 point favs, or even in the rare instances when they are underdogs, that they blow teams out.
Sidenote: take New England in Pittsburgh week 15. They will show up and win.
It seems every season New England has one game where they are big favs and Don’t show up. This is that game. I’ve seen them as 21 point and 20 point favourites up against terrible Colts and Redskins teams and only win by 7. I’ve seen a terrible four win, double-digit dog in the Eagles come into Foxborough and level the Pats on every side of the ball. Who can forget 14.5 point dogs in Kevin Kolb and a terrible Arizona Cardinals stun the Patriots at home back in 2012. They have a history of being this team.
The Patriots have been too strong on the road. They’re due for a downer.
I’m not picking on the New England Patriots. We all know the pedigree there. What I will say is it always seems to motivate them when they have poor games in which they are supposed to dominate. After this close match in Miami, look for the Pats to go on a tear into the playoffs and most likely into Minnesota for the Super Bowl. I laugh tonight in December, but Pats fans will be dancing in February.