Week 3 NFL Picks: Fading Last Year’s Super Bowl Teams

We posted our second straight 2-1 week in Week 2 and are now 4-2 for +1.75 units this season on our weekly NFL betting picks.

We’re back with another trifecta in our Week 3 NFL betting picks.

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1. Bengals -3 (-120)


Denver’s 2-0, so all’s good with Trevor Siemian and the Broncos offence, right? Not exactly.

The Broncos put up 34 points on the Colts last week, which looks impressive on the surface. But two of Denver’s touchdowns were defensive scores, including a strip sack by Von Miller in the final minutes that enabled the Broncos to cover the spread.

Now Siemian goes on the road for the first time in his career, and it’s no gimme either. The Bengals are an excellent defensive team and they’re coming off a defeat last week in Pittsburgh. They could also be looking for payback for a loss last season in Denver.

Cincinnati has averaged nearly 400 yards of offence this season despite playing two tough defences (Jets and Steelers). It obviously won’t be easy to move the ball against the Broncos, but we see the Bengals getting enough points here to cover this short line at home.

We got this line at -120 odds.

2. Redskins +3.5 (-110)

It’s do-or-die time for Washington. At 0-2, the Redskins already have their work cut out for them to make the playoffs this season. Losing a third straight game here (and second within the division) would pretty much end their season.

New York is 2-0, but neither of the Giants’ wins have been by more than 3 points, which they’d need to cover this point spread. All the Giants have done is beaten a Cowboys team without Tony Romo and a Saints team that is horrible on the road. New York didn’t score an offensive TD last week, with its lone major coming on a blocked field goal return.

The Redskins have looked pretty bad in the first two weeks, but that’s just motivation to improve. Last year, Kirk Cousins and the offence looked pretty bad for the first several games. Then “YOU LIKE THAT” happened and they turned things around en route to a division title.

We’re not saying a NFC East crown is in the cards this year for Washington (in fact, we picked the Giants to win the East this year), but the Skins should be in this game throughout and keep it close, if not win it.

This line had moved from +4.5 to +3 at some sportsbooks, but we nabbed +3.5 -105 at Sports Interaction.

3. Vikings +7 (-110)


Poor Minnesota. First they lost QB Teddy Bridgewater to injury in the pre-season, and now they’ve lost All-Pro RB Adrian Peterson to a knee injury.

That’s why we can get the 2-0 Vikes as touchdown underdogs this week in Carolina. But we’re not convinced the Peterson injury doesn’t actually help the Vikings. They might not be as determined to hand the ball off and take advantage more of their downfield passing game, which looked pretty good last week in an upset win over the Packers. And it’s not like they won’t have a running back, either; Peterson’s replacements can benefit from the same strong offensive line.

We may also see an ‘us against the world’ mentality this week from the Vikings, similar to what the Patriots did Thursday night with their third-string QB. It seems like everything’s going wrong for Minnesota, yet the Vikings continue to power through it.

One other factor favouring Minnesota here is that this might not be a true home game for the Panthers. There have been riots this week in Charlotte and there was talk that the game could be moved to another stadium across the state. Whether the game’s in the North Carolina capital or not, there will likely be a lot of distracted spectators (and possibly Panthers players as well), and not the usual home-field advantage the Panthers might enjoy.

Bodog was one of the few sportsbooks that offered Minnesota +7 at -110 odds as of Friday night. If you wait, you might be able to get +7.5 on game day, but there’s also the risk this line goes down as well.