Allen, Bills brace for showdown with Ravens on Sunday Night Football

The Dallas Cowboys desperately needed a victory over the rival New York Giants on Thursday Night Football.

It wasn’t pretty, but they ultimately got the result that they needed in an entertaining prime time showdown.

Dak Prescott threw for 221 yards and two touchdowns as Dallas beat New York 20-15.

Prescott has now won 13 consecutive head-to-head meetings against the Giants – tied for the second-longest win streak by any starting quarterback versus a single opponent since 1950.

Prescott hooked up with star wide receiver CeeDee Lamb on seven receptions for 98 yards and a touchdown.

His only completion that travelled at least 15 yards down the field was a 55-yard touchdown pass to Lamb.

Meanwhile, it was the Giants star rookie wide receiver Malik Nabers that helped keep them in it until their final drive of the game.

Nabers finished with 12 receptions for 115 yards on 15 targets.

The sixth-overall pick from this year’s NFL Draft leads the league with 35 receptions, 386 yards and three touchdowns on 52 targets.

Another remarkable performance helped anybody who bet the Giants +5.5 as we saw the continuation of an early season trend that has big underdogs covering at a record rate.

NFL underdogs of 5.5 points or more at FanDuel have gone a combined 15-2 against the spread this season.

Turning the page this morning, I’m looking ahead to the marquee match-up of the week with a prime-time showdown between the Buffalo Bills and Baltimore Ravens on deck for Sunday Night Football.

While I lean towards the Bills to win outright as an underdog at +108 at FanDuel, I’m focused on a pair of player props for that AFC showdown for a pair of FanDuel Best Bets for NFL Sunday Week 4.

This is the Morning Coffee for Friday, September 27^th, 2024.

Allen, Bills Brace For Showdown With Ravens On Sunday Night Football

Josh Allen will enter this weekend as a co-favourite to win NFL regular season MVP along with Patrick Mahomes at +250 at FanDuel.

Allen certainly deserves that recognition based on his level of play through the first three weeks of the season.

He can add to his MVP resume with an upset win in a prime-time game on the road against an opposing quarterback that is also among the top five choices to win that award in Lamar Jackson.

Buffalo has leaned heavily on its superstar quarterback in wins over the Arizona Cardinals, Miami Dolphins, and the Jacksonville Jaguars to start the season.

It will be interesting to see how the Bills respond as a team against their toughest opponent to date on Sunday.

In terms of a FanDuel Best Bet for Sunday Night Football, I’ve circled a pair of player props that I like.

First up, I’ll lock in Derrick Henry over 68.5 rushing yards.

After a relatively disappointing performance in a Week 1 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, the Ravens have leaned heavily on Henry in back-to-back games.

In Week 2 against the Las Vegas Raiders, Henry had 18 carries for 84 yards and a touchdown in a 26-23 loss.

Then in a Week 3 win over Dallas, Henry finished with a season-high 25 carries for 151 yards and two touchdowns.

Head coach Jon Harbaugh said after that win that once Henry gets that momentum going, he’s different.

Harbaugh talked about wanting to be able to run the football with “big groups that protect the edges”.

The Bills will be without Matt Milano, Taron Johnson, and Terrel Bernard on Sunday night.

While they’ve succeeded without them against lesser opponents, Buffalo will be in tough to slow down Baltimore’s power rushing attack in a game in which Henry should get a substantial amount of touches.

I like Henry to go over 68.5 rushing yards on more than 15.5 carries.

I’ll also lock in Isaiah Likely 25+ receiving yards at -120.

This prop hit in each of the first two weeks of the season.

In last week’s win over Dallas, Likely saw just one target in a game that Baltimore dominated on the ground.

While the Ravens should take a similar approach with a heavy dose of Henry against the Bills, I expect to see Likely more involved the way that he was in the first two weeks of the season.

Again, if this Buffalo defence is susceptible anywhere, it will be in the middle of the field.

Likely should benefit as Baltimore’s main pass-catching tight end.

Looking elsewhere around the league, I’ve circled a pair of player props for another tight end in Ty Conklin of the New York Jets.

Conklin exploded for a career-high 93 receiving yards on five receptions in a Week 3 win over the New England Patriots.

This week, he’ll face a Denver Broncos defence that has been vulnerable against tight ends the past two weeks.

In Week 2, the Denver defence gave up four catches for 39 yards on four tatgets to Pat Freiermuth.

Then last week, the Broncos allowed Cade Otton to record seven receptions for 47 yards on eight targets.

With Patrick Surtain matching up with Garrett Wilson on the outside, I expect Aaron Rodgers to lean on his top pass-catching tight end Conklin again on Sunday.

I’ll take Conklin over 2.5 receptions and 25+ receiving.

I’ll also lock in a two-team alt spread parlay with the Jets -2.5 against the Broncos and the San Francisco 49ers -2.5 against the New England Patriots at -150.

Next up, I’ll lock in a Same Game Parlay with the Kansas City Chiefs to beat the Los Angeles Chargers outright and Rashee Rice to finish with 50+ receiving yards.

Rice has finished with at least five receptions and at least 75 receiving yards in all three games this season.

He’s coming off a season-high 12 catches for 110 yards and a touchdown in last week’s win over the Atlanta Falcons.

Rice and Mahomes are locked in right now.

Meanwhile, the Chargers have been ravaged by injuries, particularly on the defensive side of the football.

I’ll take Rice 50+ receiving and the Chiefs to win outright at -150 as a FanDuel Best Bet.

Finally, if you missed it on Thursday, I locked in the two plays you can find in the tweet embedded below.

Nico Collins is set for what I project to be the most favourable match-up of the week for any wide receiver.

Despite the match-up and the fact that Tank Dell is likely to miss Sunday’s game, his receiving yards prop only ticked up five yards before I locked in those two wagers.

Unfortunately, Collins suffered a hamstring injury in practice and popped up on the injury report later in the day.

I’ve already had some tough beats early this season, and I locked in a solid number for Collins, so I’m hoping it’s nothing more than a little tightness suffered at practice.

It’s something worth keeping an eye on this weekend if you are thinking about betting on that game.

That’s all for me today.

I’ll be back with another column on Monday.

Good luck and have a great weekend, everyone!