NFL expert Tom Selwyn (@Tom_Selwyn) shares his expert opinion on the best bets available from Monday Night Football in New Orleans and Oakland.
Houston Texans @ New Orleans Saints | Tuesday 10th September 2019, 00:10 | Sky Sports
You never know what Week 1 can turn up in terms of the schedule, but this should be a great game between two very good teams that should be in and around the playoffs come the end of the season. The Texans are clearly the weaker of the two rosters, with some obvious holes along the OL and the secondary, but you can never count out QB Deshaun Watson.
Watson, along with Hopkins and Fuller, going up against Brees, Kamara and Thomas promises fireworks and I think we’ll get them to start off the MNF double-bill. It’s a big points line at 51.5 but these two teams are more than capable of eclipsing that. Indeed, their Week 1 games last year averaged 67.5 points.
There’s been a lot of talk about teams who haven’t played their starters during pre-season lacking cohesion early on in the season, but these two units have been together for a number of seasons and I don’t expect to see too much in the way of rust from either of them.
You won’t get too many better match-ups to kick off MNF and I’ll be looking forward to two stellar offenses going at it.
Denver Broncos @ Oakland Raiders | Tuesday 10th September 2019, 03:20 | Sky Sports
The late game on this opening week comes from the AFC West. The host Raiders have been permanently in the news this off-season thanks to “Hard Knocks” and the frankly wild Antonio Brown saga.
All the drama aside, I think Oakland will have one of the poorer rosters in the league once again and I don’t think they’ll match up well against Denver who have a new head coach in Vic Fangio.
Fangio comes over to Denver after coaching Chicago’s defence to the third best record in the league last year. He’ll inherit players like Von Miller and Bradley Chubb on the DL and with this kind of talent I think he’ll be able to create a lot of pressure against Oakland’s OL that despite giving former Patriots OT Trent Brown a lot of money, doesn’t look to be much stronger on paper.
With that in mind, I think I’ll be backing the Raiders to have Under 22.5 points in this game. I think that’s a very high total for a team that just lost its most talented offensive player and only averaged just over 18 points a game last season.
From Denver’s point of view, I really like their second year RB Phillip Lindsay going up against Oakland’s rush defence. The Raiders added two first round picks to their defence this year, but having finished 30th against the run last year, there’s a long way to go to become even an average run defence.
Lindsay’s line is very makeable too, sitting at just 56.5 – a total he surpassed in 10 of his 15 games last year. I’ll be taking the over.
Best Bets
Houston Texans @ New Orleans Saints – Over 51.5 Points (19/20 Marathon)
Denver Broncos @ Oakland Raiders – Oakland Raiders to have Under 22.5 Points (10/11 Betway)
Denver Broncos @ Oakland Raiders – Phillip Lindsay to have Over 56.5 Rushing Yards (10/11 Paddy Power)
