Week 3 Best Bets: A Sunday Double
After a terrific start to the season, Michael Norbury brings you his Week 3 best bets from the afternoon slate on Sunday.
If you do like the ideas from this column and decide to use some of your hard earned cash to try and make some money, please remember that thetouchdown.co.uk takes no responsibility if you lose. Also please do gamble responsibly and when the fun stops, Stop.
The material contained on this site is intended to inform and educate the reader and in no way represents an inducement to gamble legally or illegally. This content is intended for adults 18 years old and above.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ Denver Broncos
This matchup sees two teams with plenty of talent on their rosters, unfortunately for Denver, a large chunk of theirs is in the treatment room.
The list of banged up Broncos contains three key offensive weapons; their quarterback, their number one receiver and their elusive running back Phillip Lindsay. Fortunately, they have a high-quality running back in Melvin Gordon and receiving weapons in the likes of Noah Fant and Jerry Jeudy. Unfortunately, they don’t have an exciting back-up quarterback. Tampa Bay have a run stuffing defense which won’t give up yards cheaply. While they can be vulnerable through the air, the Broncos don’t have a quarterback capable of taking advantage.
Denver’s high-profile injuries don’t stop with the offense, with the defense being rocked by injuries to top pass rusher Von Miller and cornerback A.J. Bouye. They face a resurgent Tom Brady, who has made some throws which show there is still plenty left in his 43-year-old arm. He is slinging it to arguably the best receiving duo in the NFL in Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. They’ll have plenty of opportunities to do damage off the back of their defense making plenty of stops.
It’s a shame that injuries have taken the edge off what appeared to be a fixture to look forward to when the schedules were revealed. The Broncos have too much talent on the sideline to worry Tampa Bay, take the Buccaneers to cover the -5.5 spread, widely available at 10/11.
Dallas Cowboys @ Seattle Seahawks
Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson has staked an early claim for MVP and leads an offense that can be mentioned in the same breath as Kansas City and Baltimore from what we’ve seen so far. The receiving duo of Tyler Lockett and D.K. Metcalf is frightening and is backed up by a significant running threat in Chris Carson and Carlos Hyde. Dallas has super talented quarterback Dak Prescott under centre. He is surrounded by a trio of wide receivers that can give any secondary sleepless nights in Amari Cooper, CeeDee Lamb and Michael Gallup. Ezekiel Elliott heads up the ground game to round off an embarrassment of riches on offense.
No defense has conceded more yards this season than Seattle’s, giving up 485 yards per game over the first two weeks. Meanwhile, the Cowboys rank 25th after giving up 401 yards per game themselves. It’s difficult to make a case for either of these units having much success in this fixture.
The obvious market in this one is the total points but the bookmakers have understandably cottoned on to this and it’s not a market I want to be involved in. The spread comes with concerns as either of these offenses can get hot and blow the other out of the water.
This leads me to the player props market, D.K. Metcalf has shown no signs of slowing down off the back of his breakout rookie season, going for 95 and 92 yards respectively, his receiving yards line is set at 60.5 (5/6 multiple sites) and this looks generous against a Cowboys defense which has given up plenty of passing yards (25th in the NFL).
TAMPA BAY – 5.5 (10/11 MULTIPLE SITES)
DK METCALF OVER 60.5 RECEIVING YARDS (5/6 MULTIPLE SITES)
DOUBLE PAYS 5/2.
