NFL Spread and O/U Picks: Hunter's Week 9 Best Bets

Week 8 was in the Halloween spirit and kicked off the week with an adrenaline-fueled Redzone witching hour with four total games in the morning slate coming down to a game-ending score in the final ticks of the game, with a Colts fumble return for a touchdown almost making a fifth. The Browns finally looked like a legitimate team, with Jameis Winston injecting life into an offense and being the NFL’s leading passer for the week. The Commanders did their best to hand the Bears a free win, who promptly returned the favor by snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in the ‘Hail Noah.’

Don’t look now, but we are on back-to-back winning weeks for the first time all season. We ended the week by going 3-2 for +2.1 units! Sides have stalled for the last couple of weeks, but totals continue to pick up the slack by hitting at a 56.7% rate in 2024. Last year, I took Week 9 off entirely while I was on vacation in Maui, but there are no trips planned this year, so let's get to the Week 9 slate.

2024 NFL Week 9 Sides and Totals

Bet #1: Philadelphia Eagles -7 -110 v Jacksonville Jaguars (graded at FanDuel, Available at BetMGM/Caesars/Circa as well, and ESPNBet has -115)

Jalen Hurts remains a quarterback with a simple handicap. Can a team put pressure on him? Jacksonville cannot. They were 25th in quarterback pressure rate before Week 8 and are 17th in PFF pass rush grade. They also blitz at the second-lowest rate in the league, ahead of only the Bills. Jalen Hurts may get two plus matchups in a row, as the Jaguars are still the market’s 31st overall defense. He may also get a third receiving option back in Dallas Goedert this week. If Jalen Hurts has time in the pocket, it's hard to see the Eagles not having success on deep throws against one of the worst safety tandems in Andre Cisco and Darnell Savage.

The Jaguars wide receiving corps took a hit in week 8, with injuries to all three starters in the 11 personnel packages. At the time of placing this bet, Christian Kirk seems like he is out for the season, and Brian Thomas may be missing a week or two. Gabe Davis should be good to go for Week 9, but has been largely ineffective in 2024 (PFF’s 116th WR out of 124 qualifiers).

Let’s talk about the Philadelphia defense, though. Upfront, the Eagles have been stout against the run, and have been 9th EPA/Rush since Week 2 and 5th since Week 3. The Eagles have also been starting Cooper Dejean on 72% or more snaps in the last 3 weeks, and it paid dividends, as they have been 4th in EPA/Dropback since his playing time increased, albeit against mostly inferior opposing quarterbacks. They did, however, hold Joe Burrow and the Bengals to 4.8 yards per play.

Risk: 2.75 units to win 2.5 units

Bet #2: Washington Commanders Team Total Over 23.5 -120v New York Giants (graded at Caesars, FanDuel has -110, ESPNBet/Bet365 have -115, Pinnacle has -108, BetMGM has -120)

This is way too low on a Commanders team total versus a defense that is not in the top 10 in defensive EPA/Play or EPA/Rush. I try to not release team totals until Wednesday or later, as it is harder to get down on them until later in the week, but I’ve had this one marked since games concluded on Sunday. These two teams played in Week 2 already, and the Commanders put up 425 yards at a 6.2-yard per-play clip. While I bet Giants ML in that game and the Giants lost their kicker in pre-game warmups, I was ultimately on the wrong side. At the time, we did not know that Jayden Daniels would be the real deal, and man were we all wrong. Jayden is first of all QBs in EPA+CPOE composite and second overall in adjusted EPA/Play. In week 2, the Commanders went 0-7 scoring touchdowns in drives that hit the red zone. That is unlikely to happen again.

While it's true that the Commanders have bolstered their offensive stats playing poor defenses for most of 2024, they have an Earned Drive Quality score of 24 or better every week except the first two, in which Jayden was likely still getting acclimated to the NFL change of speed. Since then, the Commanders have also added Noah Brown as another receiving option. The Commanders went up against a good Bears defense and put up 481 yards on a 6.7-yards-per-play clip (6.1 YPP without the Hail Mary). That’s good for a true score of about 28 points.

The Giants are currently the market’s 18th-rated defense but are 20th in defensive EPA/Play to date. It’s a defense heavily relying on its front four (mainly Dexter Lawrence and Brian Burns) to generate pressure. The Commanders have a solid center and guard combination to slow down Lawrence, and they should be getting Brandon Coleman, the starting left tackle, back to work against Brian Burns. I’d expect pressure to still get home throughout the day, but Jayden is still in the better half of the league in pressure-to-sack ratio through 8 weeks of the season.

I also like the full game over here at 43.5 but feel the Commander's team total is a ‘safer’ bet as I think the Washington defense has been improving in the last few weeks. Brian Daboll, however, has shown a willingness to go for the high leverage 4th down gambles in recent weeks too. If the Giants get a couple of those the full game over should get home as well.

Risk: 3 units to win 2.5 units

Bet #3: Cleveland Browns v Los Angeles Chargers O42.5 -115 (graded at ESPNBet, FanDuel has -105, Circa is -110, BetRivers is at -115)

The story of this bet is that both offenses are nearing their season-high potential and both defenses are losing key pieces, especially in the secondary. The Browns have an NFL-caliber starting offensive line again and just lack depth options. They also had a massive addition-by-subtraction happen at the quarterback position, with both Deshaun Watson and Dorian Thompson-Robinson getting hurt in the same game to officially kick off the Jameis Winston era. Both of these teams have been passing at a top 5 rate on early downs in the last few weeks, and I would anticipate that to continue in Week 9.

For the Chargers offense, they should be welcoming back Quentin Johnston back this week, who has quietly been putting together a decent season. They also came out of the bye week with a healthy offensive line and have elite tackles to deal with Myles Garrett and Zadarius Smith. This should be the most healthy the Chargers' offense has been since Week 1 and since the bye week, they have ‘earned’ scores of 23, 26, and 25 points versus the #1, #29, and #16 EPA/Play defenses respectively. The Browns are 18th in defensive EPA/Play and 23rd in defensive EPA/Dropback and are likely without their best corner Denzel Ward this week.

The Charger defensive coverage unit has played 4 of the bottom 10 QBs in adjusted EPA/Play in their first 7 games. The number I am using for Jameis would make him the 3rd best quarterback the Chargers defense has faced to date. They also lost Kristian Fulton to a hamstring injury so may be starting two 5th-round rookie cornerbacks. Joey Bosa made a return last week, but the Chargers moved down from 29th to 31st in QB pressure percentage. The Chargers defense is ranked 5th by market, and I am hilariously far off from that heading into Week 9.

Risk: 2.3 units to win 2 units

Bet #4: Atlanta Falcons -3 -115 v Dallas Cowboys (graded at Circa, also available at BetMGM/FD/BetRivers)

Risk: 2.87 units to win 2.5 units

Bet #5: Atlanta Falcons Team Total O27.5 -112 v Dallas Cowboys (graded at DraftKings, FD/ESPNBet have -110, BetMGM/Caesars have -115)

Risk: 2.24 units to win 2 units

Dallas currently does not have pieces back along the defense to compete with the teams that are in playoff contention. I wanted to make sure Parsons was out for sure, and he was ruled out today. Daron Bland was also ruled out and Trevon Diggs hasn’t practiced at all this week. That leaves us with the Cowboys having the 28th-rated defensive line to stop the Atlanta running back duo, that's 13th in EPA/Rush on the year but has been 4th in EPA/Rush against similarly poor run defenses over the last 3 weeks (TB - 5th, SEA - 28th, CAR - 29th). The Cowboys are 32nd in EPA/Rush.

The Dallas defense may also be at its worst point all season in pass coverage. If Diggs can’t go, Dallas would drop to my 28th coverage unit in the league. Dallas also blitzes the ninth most in the league but faces Kirk Cousins, who has the third shortest time to throw on dropbacks (2.55 seconds) and can mitigate a blitz-heavy approach.

Dallas has been giving up 7.3 and 7.5 yards per play in their last two outings against the 49ers and Lions. While I don’t think the Falcons are quite the same as those offenses, they are still 5th in EPA/Play since Week 2.

On top of that, the Cowboys are being overrated by the market on the offensive front. Inpredictable has them as the 13th-best offense, but the Cowboys are struggling along the offensive line and with wide receiver options beyond CeeDee Lamb. Atlanta has a true CB1 in AJ Terrell to limit CeeDee’s upside and force Dallas to look to their other receivers who are not creating separation at all. Judah Fortgang (@throwthedamball) tweets a chart of tight window throws each week and Dak Prescott is leading the league in tight window throws by a longshot. Atlanta, while they cannot pass rush, is my 5th-rated coverage unit and 7th in PFF’s coverage grade.

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