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Eagles vs. Raiders: Birds a Double-Digit Favorite for First Time This Season
By Joe Tansey
Published:
Get used to the Eagles as an overwhelming favorite.
The Birds are -12 at BetMGM for Sunday’s home game with the Las Vegas Raiders.
Sunday’s spread is the largest in favor of the Eagles this season. I’d expect two more double-digit spreads for the Weeks 16 and 18 games against the Washington Commanders as well.
Now, anyone would tell you that there’s zero confidence around these parts for the Eagles to cover a 12-point spread. Hell, there’s not even confidence here that they’ll cover a two-point spread.
To that point, I’d say you’re right. The Eagles are 1-4 against the spread when they’ve been a favorite of four or more points this season.
The good news is that the Raiders haven’t exactly been good at anything in Pete Carroll’s first season in. They’re 2-3 ATS as an underdog of seven or more points and 3-6 ATS as an underdog of any kind.
Las Vegas is sending Kenny Pickett out to start on Sunday in place of the injured Geno Smith. My god, imagine the takes if Kenny Pickett, the former Eagles backup, comes into South Philadelphia and outperforms Jalen Hurts. I pray to God we don’t get that far because the takes are already beyond insufferable.
If the 2024 version of the Eagles showed up on Sunday, they’d cover the Over 38.5 on their own, but the Birds have only scored more than 20 points once since the Week 9 bye.
The Raiders give up the sixth-most touchdowns to opposing wide receivers and the fourth-most touchdowns to opposing running backs. The obvious bets to make off those stats would be Saquon Barkley and A.J. Brown touchdowns.
Barkley is -120 to score at bet365, while Brown is +140.
Brown is the obvious choice for player props as well because his receiving-yard prop sits at Over/Under 64.5 despite three straight 100-yard performances.
It’s the Raiders and the game could be over by halftime, but you kind of have to bet Brown at that number given how high his usage rate has been lately.
The other prop I’d hammer at PA and New Jersey sports betting apps is the Over 3.75 team sacks for the Eagles. Geno Smith was sacked 18 times in the last three weeks before he left last week’s game with an injury. The same offensive line is in front of Pickett, and if anything, we know the Eagles defense will show up.
Joe Tansey writes sports betting posts for Crossing Broad and also covers the Philadelphia Union for his Substack site, Union Soccer Blog.