NFL Week 4 TNF Betting Pick: Seahawks @ Cardinals +2

The fourth week of the season kicks off with an NFC West matchup between the Seattle Seahawks and Arizona Cardinals (both 2-1 SU/ATS). Our NFL betting picks for the week include a play on the slight dogs for the home cover.

Supporting our expectation, we note that, early in the season, the public tends to undervalue pooches after lackluster offensive performances and facing lowly opposition.

Backing squads in this spot has delivered a (statistically significant) 12% long-term return on investment, and has submitted losing records in only four seasons included in the lookback period. Also worth noting, this system is 53-30-1 ATS, for 23% long-term ROI, in intra-division games like tonight's affair.

The rationale for this angle's success might be that recency bias dissuades Joe Public from siding with teams that have struggled on offense recently, despite the normalizing effect of the betting spread and even when their opposition isn't especially skilled at winning. Further, squads might be particularly suited to stifle the opposition's offensive efforts in situations where they are especially familiar with one another (as is the case in divisional matchups). The result of this setup is typically closer games and value with underdogs.

Seattle is coming off a narrow week 3 loss at San Francisco, while Seattle won decisively versus New Orleans last Sunday. Not surprisingly, as a result, the Seahawks moved from +2.5 dogs to -1.5 favorites and are supported by 87% of the betting handle tracked by SportsInsights. Accordingly, we are intentionally waiting until closer to kickoff to pile on the Cards, as lopsided betting flows might muscle the spread even wider to +2, or even +2.5 (Bovada's line on Arizona is already up to +2...from 1.5 yesterday).

Happy betting!!