With profit from two of his last three previews, Ross Williams picks out four bets for NFL Week 9, all of them on Sunday night.
NFL betting tips: Week 9
2pts Raiders @ Jaguars under 47.5 points at 19/20 (General)
2pts New York Jets (+12.5) to beat the Buffalo Bills at 10/11 (Sky Bet)
2pts Detroit Lions (+3.5) to beat the Green Bay Packers at evens (SBK)
2pts Seattle Seahawks to beat the Arizona Cardinals at 7/8 (SBK)
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Las Vegas Raiders @ Jacksonville Jaguars
- Kick-off time: 1800 GMT
- TV: Sky Sports Mix (NFL Redzone)
- Best bet: Under 47.5 Total Match Points
One for the purists. Or the sadists. Both apply.
A few weeks ago, this match-up may have had some potential but it now appears to be something of a dead rubber, as play-off aspirations for each side have evaporated.
Both the Jaguars and Raiders have two victories each, with none coming against particularly respected opponents. It’s a bleak outlook for this game, but it can play into our hands from a value perspective.
The key players heading into this one are Josh Jacobs of Las Vegas – who seems to have fully found his feet in the #1 Raiders running-back spot – and Travis Etienne of the Jags, who shined despite Jacksonville’s eventual loss to the Denver Broncos at Wembley Stadium last week.
This makes for something of a bruiser, as the positives of both offences rely heavily on extensive use of the ground game. This means time should fly off the clock and points should be at a premium.
With this in mind, a total match points line of 47.5 seems a little odd and I’d certainly be favouring the ‘under’.
Every game Jacksonville has hosted this season has failed to reach the pre-determined match points line and the arrival of the Raiders doesn’t exactly signal an obvious end to that particular trend.
The Jags and Raiders combine for 44.8 points per game on average and, interestingly enough, they concede a combined average amount of 44.7 points.
With that information in our back pocket, it really does seem bizarre that the line wasn’t set at 44.5 here. Alas, we’ll take the added three points and run with them, before forgetting this game ever happened.
Buffalo Bills @ New York Jets
- Kick-off time: 1800 GMT
- TV: Sky Sports Mix (NFL Redzone)
- Best bet: New York Jets (+12.5) to beat the Buffalo Bills
The Buffalo Bills are clearly excellent – and their current Super Bowl favouritism points to that – but 12.5 is a massive number that can’t be ignored.
For context, this handicap spread makes the New York Jets the biggest home underdog (with a winning record) for 15 years.
No one would be massively surprised if Buffalo cover on Sunday, but the boys in green will justifiably find the line disrespectful and I give them a solid chance of keeping the game tighter than the sportsbooks are expecting.
The Jets are 4-3 as an underdog this season and dogs have generally performed very well. The Buccaneers, in particular, have fallen victim on a couple of occasions and, all told, 2022 underdogs are 67-51-3 against the spread. Backing each of them would have returned significant profit.
When a handicap is this large, the first thing to consider is how many points are likely in the game generally. Obviously, the lower the number of total points, the more likely the underdog is to cover a double-digit spread.
Despite their fantastic start to the season, there’s an interesting wrinkle to the Bills’ covering stats in 2022. Buffalo absolutely love the under. So much so, that it’s gone 6-1 through seven games.
The Bills are often dominant, but they’re not making a habit of absolutely annihilating opponents by 30 points. They’re a little more measured, conscious that it’s a long season and nothing is won in this league before the turn of the year.
Add in the fact that this is a divisional match-up and I think it’s fair to say that we can expect a tighter, lower-scoring affair than many may suspect at first glance. This brings the 12.5 spread firmly into play.
It won’t be easy for the Jets to cover, seeing as the Bills have the highest-ranked defence in the NFL according to Pro Football Focus and an offence to match, but New York are no slouches and they’re good value for their 5-3 record.
The Jets' defence actually ranks second heading into week nine and will give Buffalo one of their biggest tests so far.
The key for them is getting off the field as much as possible, and they do have the ability to slow down and stop the Bills, thanks to the play-making abilities of Sauce Gardner and co. A turnover or two for the Jets and this game will be well and truly on.
Josh Allen will be well-fancied to lead Buffalo to victory, but his 13 turnover-worthy plays at quarterback has only been exceeded by a couple of players so far this season and if that trend continues, it opens the door – ever so slightly – for the shock of the week and perhaps the season.
Green Bay Packers @ Detroit Lions
- Kick-off time: 1800 GMT
- TV: Sky Sports Mix (NFL Redzone)
- Best bet: Detroit Lions (+3.5) to beat the Green Bay Packers
How can you put any faith in these Packers to win what is usually a guaranteed record-booster?
The Packers have been terrible lately and now face their division rivals on a 0-4 slide. Green Bay are also 0-4 against the spread over the past month.
They look defeated and even though this is a must-win game for Matt LaFleur’s troops, it’s a bad time to face the Lions on the road, in what will be their de facto Super Bowl.
Detroit are not a good football team, but they haven’t been for years. And yet, they’re 8-2 against the spread facing the Packers since 2017. Lions teams always get themselves up for meetings with their perennial bigger brothers, and that will be amplified on Sunday with Green Bay coming to town showing signs of clear vulnerability.
Green Bay have the fourth-worst rushing defence in the NFL and no talent on the interior, outside of Kenny Clark. This plays right into the hands of D’Andre Swift and Jamaal Williams. The running-back duo has been the brightest light on the Lions roster this season and I’d expect a big game from at least one of them this week.
The flip-side argument is that the Lions are equally bad on ‘Rush D’ and will concede plenty to Aaron Jones and A.J. Dillon.
But, crucially, this creates a run-heavy game on both sides of the ball that kills the clock quickly and limits the number of points, making the game naturally closer and bringing the spread into play.
Few will be brave enough to pick the 1-6 Lions straight up, but the handicap is generous enough. There’s a high chance that the game will be far from pretty, before descending into a late scramble for decisive points. With that considered, I like the Lions to, at least, come within a field goal of a famous win.
Seattle Seahawks @ Arizona Cardinals
- Kick-off time: 2105 GMT
- TV: Sky Sports Mix (NFL Redzone)
- Best bet: Seattle Seahawks to beat the Arizona Cardinals
Let the fairy-tale continue.
The score was 19-9 to Seattle when these teams faced off just three weeks ago, yet the book favours Arizona in the rematch. If I’m brutally honest, I’m struggling to see why.
Since then, the Seahawks have had two comfortable 14-point wins and looked great in doing so. Out of nowhere, Geno Smith is playing the quarterback position at Pro Bowl level and looks a nice bet for Comeback Player of the Year. Meanwhile, the Cardinals have gone 1-1 since, conceding 68 points in shootouts with the Saints and Vikings.
With all this in mind, I’ll be jumping at the chance of taking the money line. It looks to be a favourable match-up with Smith’s explosive offence pitting their wits against a defensive unit that has been leaky at best in recent weeks.
The return of DeAndre Hopkins to Arizona’s receiver group is the one major difference since the October 16, and he hasn’t missed a step since coming back in. But, I have no real faith in the Cardinals defence doing a job on Seattle. At least, not to the extent they’ll need.
Arizona don’t look like a strong-mentality, big-game team. They flashed in the comeback win against the Raiders early on in the year, but that’s about it and the jury’s well and truly out on what a win over Las Vegas means anyway. Arizona are 0-2 within the NFC West this year and 0-5 their last five games in-division.
The Cardinals fold when the pressure is on, whereas this Seattle team – with little to lose and everything to prove – are shining under the spotlight.
Posted at 1430 GMT on 04/11/22
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