Basic Strategy Teasers: Best Week 2 NFL Betting Options

by Chris Vasile - 9/14/2018

Week 2 of the National Football League is upon us, and I like to refer to it as "overreaction week". This is a week where everyone and their mother has an opinion, whether it's extremely negative like "the Bills and Lions are going 0-16" (possible) or extremely positive like "Patrick Mahomes is the second coming up Christ" (calm down). No team is as bad (the Saints) as they looked in Week 1 and no team is as good (the Bucs, Chiefs, Ravens, Jets) as they looked.

I like to believe the reason for these severe overreactions is because we waited seven months to watch these teams play, and we form opinions on them based off of offseason personnel moves, injuries, story lines, and everything in between. Well, I'll tell you one thing, the Super Bowl isn't handed out in September, so teams that started 1-0 are still (almost) on even terms with those who started 0-1.

Football is a game of adjustments, and it'll be very interesting to see what adjustments are made by the teams that lost in order to get back on track. If the Bills and Lions get blown out once again this week, then maybe the overreactions are warranted. But until we see the Bucs score another 48 points, let's relax on the Ryan Fitzpatrick is a "good" QB narrative.

What is a Basic Strategy Teaser?

For the sake of this weekly piece, I will be focusing in on the "teaser". A teaser bet is similar to a parlay bet in which it is a bet the requires winning two or more games in order to get a payoff. However, the difference between the two is the actual point spread. A straight parlay bet allows you to play only the point spread offered, while a teaser bet allows you to adjust that number for whichever team you favor. There are different types of teasers available, but the most common one is a six-point teaser. For example, if a game has the point spread set at -10 with the total at 51 for the game, your six-point teaser would allow you to tease that spread and get the favorite at -4 or the underdog at +16. This method is also applied to the total as well. Should you like the underdog and the "under", you can add six points to the total, and now you have a readjusted total of 57 with an underdog of +16.

Over the next several months, I will be offering you a "Best Bet" six-point, two-team teaser (basic strategy teaser) as well as any alternative options to consider playing.

Best Six-Point Teaser for Week 1. Lines courtesy of Bovada

LA Chargers -1.5 & New York Giants +8.5 (-120)
Risk: $100 to win $83.33

Since it's only Week 2, let me take a second to explain these spreads. The Chargers are favored by 7.5 points over the Bills, and the Giants are getting 2.5 points against the Cowboys. By combing these two teams and utilizing a six-point teaser, the end result would be a ticket that looks like the above.

But enough about logistics, let's get down to the football business.

The Buffalo Bills are a bad football team. We saw that in Week 1 against the Ravens, and we should expect to see it again in this spot against the Chargers. The one thing I'm concerned about is laying more than a touchdown with a Chargers team that has no defense and has to travel across the country to play in one of the more difficult places to play. The Bills will be starting Josh Allen under center, and one has to believe he will be put in a position to succeed and that the offense and defense will do everything in their power to get the kid the win. However, the Chargers just have too many offensive weapons. If they don't drop eight balls last week against the Chiefs, they could very easily be 1-0. This is a must-win game for the Chargers as falling to 0-2 after starting the season as everyone's "sexy sleeper pick" would be devastating. The Bills, on the other hand, are playing for pride. They got embarrassed last week, so in front of their home crowd they should have a better effort. They will lose the game outright, but I could see the Chargers sneaking out a closer win than they would have preferred.

And the second part of the equation is the New York "football" Giants. I'm not sure what the linemakers see with Dallas and why they are the favorite in this matchup. They showed absolutely nothing against the Panthers last week, and the offense is still the same. The Giants played decent (for the most part) against the Jaguars, with a costly pick-six the difference in the ball game. The Giants have the weapons to put up points, and they should have no trouble doing so against a banged-up Dallas defense. Look, the Cowboys may very well sneak out a last-second win via field goal, but there is no way they win this game in blowout fashion, so teasing the Giants up to +8.5 is the smartest play of the week.

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Basic Strategy Teasers: Best Week 2 NFL Betting Options

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