The Play: 7-Point Teaser (-140) featuring Carolina Panthers +11.5 & Indianapolis Colts +8.5
History suggests the Colts and Panthers can both beat the listed week 4 numbers. Accordingly, we are inclined to take the points with this pair of road dogs Sunday. Additionally though, the present spot appears opportune to package Indy and Carolina into a two-leg, seven-point teaser. We detail below our rationale for endorsing this particular multi-outcome wager.
Carolina Panthers +4.5 @ Dallas Cowboys
The Carolina Panthers have rattled off three consecutive victories and covers to usher in the 2021 NFL regular season, in a rather dramatic turnaround to the 2020-21 season, which featured a lowly five straight up wins. We have observed that bettors commonly get too pessimistic on teams off poor seasons, and we perceive the Panthers situation as signaling a likely cover in Sunday's get-together.
Teams taking less than a touchdown early in the season, after winning no more than six games the prior year, have delivered about a 14% return on investment back to the 2004-05 season...
Further, the Panthers beat the Jets, Saints and Texans by a combined 39 points. Based on our read of history, we expect this momentum to beget additional imminent ATS success.
Conference dogs of at least three, with average win margins of at least 13 points over their previous three games, have proven very profitable ATS bets, delivering nearly a 25% long-term return on investment...
But perhaps more importantly (at least, for the purpose of constructing a high-conviction teaser), conference point-takers with hefty recent average margins covered seven-point teased lines 81% of the time (versus the 76.4% breakeven win rate assuming the standard -140 vigorish for such wagers).
Indianapolis Colts +1.5 @ Miami Dolphins
The Colts sit near the bottom of the AFC South division, after coming up short in each of their first three games of the season. While no team wants to start 0-3, the tough patch for Indy is not exactly surprising given that bookmakers slated the Colts as dogs of at least a field goal in each loss.
Along the same vein, the AFC East-member Miami Dolphins (barely) upset the Patriots in week 1, but have not smelled victory since. These teams recent struggles offer guidance for the likely ATS outcome for their week 4 meeting.
When teams from different divisions, both on two to four game losing streaks matched up in the past, the road dog secured the ATS win about 62% of the time, amassing better than a 20% long-term ROI...
Again, more germane to our purpose, in non-division competition between teams with similar losing streaks, the road dog bested seven-point teased lines 83% of the time...statistically significantly different than the breakeven rate at better than a 90% confidence level.
Happy betting!!