The severe weather that is pounding large portions of our country is set to adversely affect three National Football League sites today. Rain and wind gusts will persist at three outdoor venues, Pittsburgh, New York and Washington. And yes, I know that the Jets stadium is in New Jersey and the Commanders home site in Landover, Maryland. But, for practical purposes, we will refer to those sites by their team city names while offering weather reports for the area in which their stadiums reside.
The severe weather in Washington is why the point spread has stayed lower than we would have expected for this game. The contest opened at 3½ points on Monday, up a point from the early season line on this matchup. It rose to 4 points and probably would have gone higher early in the week before the weather forecast began predicting what we are now expected to have at Northwest Stadium today.
We’ll take the spread as it is in this game, giving the 3½ points, recognizing the weather will affect both teams playing in the muck, and we still have the Commanders pinned as the winner from multiple angles.
The NFL is playing another game in London today; it is scheduled to kickoff at 6:30 a.m. Pacific Time. Today, the Jacksonville Jaguars are tangling with the Philadelphia Eagles. Five weeks ago, the Eagles would have been favored in this matchup, but given they have lost two straight games, and the Jaguars are playing as well as any team in the league the bettors have driven this line up to the Jaguars favored by 8 points.
Giving eight points on a neutral field is a huge number and eliminates any wager possibility on the favorite no matter how much they appear the choice in this one. From a motivational perspective, the Eagles get the edge over the more talented Jaguars … which fortunately, because I hate these early starts, leaves us with no play on this game.
The public has checked in with their three favorite plays of the day, and they are surprisingly backing the San Francisco 49ers (+3) over the Seattle Seahawks. The 49ers being the most bet game is surprising for two reasons: the public almost always bets the most on teams that are favored in their games and second, they are betting against the defending Super Bowl Champions.