Our Gambling Picks for NFL Week 7

Week 7 is here. Fresh off another Thursday Night Football win (Chiefs -3, and that’s 7-1 on TNF over the last two weeks. Not bad!), we head into Sunday with our heads held high. Confidence is oozing, but humble we remain. And boy, do we have some juicy matchups this week. Let’s dive in.

Here I am, riding with Joe Public once more. Why? 

The Giants, when healthy in the short-but-hyped era of Danny Dimes, have looked pretty damn good. And they’re finally healthy, with top skill players Saquon Barkley, Evan Engram and Sterling Shepard on track to play, logging at a minimum limited practices twice this week.

What else is there to like? Quite frankly, a lot. 

Coming off two lackluster performances, Dimes is back at home. Of course, those two dud performances came against two of the top secondaries in the league (Patriots, Vikings), and now he faces an Arizona secondary that probably would allow me to go for, say, 6-for-65 and a score (OK, maybe not, but you get it).

Arizona’s run defense isn’t much better (26th in rushing yards per game), and Barkley, the NFL’s most dynamic running back, has got to be hungry.

Let’s break down the efficiency metrics:

You can see that the Cardinals are outranking in offensive categories, and the Giants are outranking in defensive categories, but that doesn’t factor in two things:

• Eli Manning did play for the Giants (Off. Pass Efficiency lower than it should be)
• The Giants were without Barkley (ouch), and then lost the backup Wayne Gallman, which led to a decreased level of run efficiency.

With both of those in mind, I give the Giants’ offense a large enough boost to be able to outscore the Kyler Murray-led Cardinals.

That’s not to say I don’t like this Cardinals’ offense—they’re explosive, they’re fun to watch and the Giants’ defense is meh, but I’ll also take their run defense vs. DJ over the Cardinals run defense vs. Barkley. 

This is New York Giants football. One unit, Giants -3.

(Bonus: I’d also lean toward the over here, but not 100 percent sure I’ll play it. Follow on Twitter for extra, last-minute plays).

The Colts are the most undervalued team in the league. 

They have been since Andrew Luck retired; they still are even after beating the Chiefs last week.

This team is not a fluke, and the fact that they’re favored against an explosive Texans team speaks volumes.

Let’s break it down:

The Jacoby Brissett-led Colts are good at a few things—pounding the rock and controlling the clock. They’re currently eighth in the league in time of possession, and make the most of those possessions, ranking fifth in points per drive. 

The Texans are of course loaded on offense: Deshaun Watson routinely finds DeAndre Hopkins and Will Fuller (more Fuller thus far, but you have to think Hopkins is due), and volume-based Carlos Hyde has proven he’s indeed worthy of a roster spot. This Texans’ offense scores and scores often, ranking third in points per drive. Impressive, sure.

Defensively, I am not worried about this Colts squad, who aren’t particularly fierce against the run or the pass. That being said, they bend, not break.