Bets from the Group Chat Week 6. Look for a low scoring week from Las Vegas.

Welcome to Week 6 of Bets from the Group Chat. This is where I, Geoff Ulrich, elicit as much information as I can from my Fantasy Life colleagues about their leans for this week. It’s mostly a selfish endeavor so I can use their plays to offset my own losers.

Before we get to the bets, a little self-promotion.

A lot of the information and bets were arrived at by using our free betting tools. Pages like our player prop table can let you see right away where our projections see the biggest edges for the week and can be very useful in helping make decisions for betting and fantasy every week.

Make sure you check them out after you’re done reading.

Below, we’ll see which plays our guys like for Week 6, and then at the end, we’ll take the three best bets (decided by me of course) and make a nice three-way community parlay for us to sweat as a group.

Let’s get to it…

Jordan Likes: Salvon Ahmed under 27.5 rush yards (-115, BetMGM)

Fantasy Life aggregate projection: 3.5 carries | 14.6 rush yards

Salvon Ahmed sets up like an M. Night Shyamalan movie for me this week. You know there is a twist coming, but you don’t know if the twist is going to be good (The Sixth Sense—he sees 10+ carries and 100+ yards) or bad (The Happening—he gets the odd pity carry but Raheem Mostert hogs the ball and rookie Chris Brooks plays over him).

If you’re playing Ahmed overs, you should likely go for the home run and play alternative lines (50+, 75+ yards), but with his rushing total where it is now, I agree with Jordan—the under is the play.

The Carolina run defense is not good (29th in yards per rush attempt against) and if Ahmed does get some run, the yardage could pile up quickly. However, Ahmed hasn’t had a touch in three games (inactive in two of the last three), and even when rookie DeVon Achane missed Week 1, the Dolphins gave him just three carries.

Ahmed is a tough projection, but our site has him at just 3.5 carries and 14.5 rush yards (aggregate), making his under a very worthy start to our parlay.

Mark Likes: Raiders under 22.5 team total (-115, BetMGM)

I gotta admit, when Mark Drumheller dropped this bet in, I had to double-check and see if it was the correct total because, like him, this one number seems like a really big bar to reach for the Raiders.

Las Vegas has been a slow-paced offense this year (27th in plays per game) and has a defense that has been decent at stopping the big play (16th in yards per play against), but that also doesn’t produce turnovers (4 turnovers on the season—tied for third worst in league).

That just adds up to lots of long sustained drives for their opponent.

As Mark explains in our free bet tracker, as bad as the Patriots have been, this is also a great spot for the Patriots' defense—both from a 2023 and historical perspective:

“This is an advantageous matchup for BB, as he faces his former offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels. He has historically done well in these spots. It's ugly in NE but the defense still finished Top 5 in defensive success rate amongst all teams in Week 5. LV defense is 27th vs. run (success rate), so the Pats will have a path to success that is correlated with winning time of possession.”

Sep 17, 2023; Foxborough, Massachusetts, USA; New England Patriots quarterback Mac Jones (10) hands the ball off to New England Patriots running back Rhamondre Stevenson (38) during the second half against the Miami Dolphins at Gillette Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Paul Rutherford-USA TODAY Sports

I like the Patriots in general to cover and also wrote up Rhamondre Stevenson as an anytime/first TD prop to look at as well.

Mark’s thinking is pretty much in line with my own and offers another way to play for a Patriots bounceback (and fade the Raiders), making the under 22.5 team total a great one for us to target.

Geoff Likes: Zach Wilson over 11.5 rush yards (-115, BetMGM)

Fantasy Life aggregate projection: 16.9 rush yards

Since it’s the first week we’re putting together the group parlay, I will selfishly take the last leg and include one of my own favorite player props for the week.

So far this year, Zach Wilson has seen a slightly elevated scramble rate (6% vs. 5% last year) and interestingly enough has a 5% designed rush rate—and has been over 7% on designed rush attempts in three of four starts.

While you don’t primarily think of Wilson as a runner, he’s still got decent mobility and comes in averaging 19.25 rush yards over his last four games.

When you add in the fact that he’s facing a team in the Eagles that brings lots of pressure—who allowed the fourth most rush yards to opposing QBs last year—this feels like a great spot for Wilson to potentially use his legs to help alleviate some of that pressure.

Week 6 Group Parlay: +543 (BetMGM)

Salvon Ahmed under 27.5 rush yards (-115)
Raiders under 22.5 team total (-115)
Zach Wilson over 11.5 rush yards (-115)

You can tail our group parlay at BetMGM, where you can get up to $1,500 paid back in bonus bets when you sign up for a new account below!

More Group Bets (from the Bet Tracker)

LaMarca Likes: Seahawks +3.0 (-110, BetMGM)

I hate disagreeing with my Fantasy Life teammates, but admittedly think the Bengals will win this game outright.

That said, I see the logic in backing Seattle—who is still a very good team—and whose defensive line could easily overwhelm the Bengals O-line, much like Cleveland’s and Tennessee’s did in Weeks 1 and 4.

As Matt notes above, getting this number at 3.0 vs 2.5 is also a huge deal, and you could argue that who you should be backing in this game really depends on which number (and what odds) are available.

You can find out more about Matt LaMarca’s decision to bet on Seattle here, along with all his other bets for Week 6 in the free bet tracker.

Matt F. Likes: Gus Edwards under 0.5 receptions (-145, DraftKings)

Fantasy Life aggregate projection: 0.4 targets, 0.5 receptions and 2.8 receiving yards

In our Week 6 prop podcast Matthew Freedman laid out his case for why taking the under on a Gus Edwards receiving prop was his favorite bet of the week.

Sweating out every single snap that Gus Edwards is on the field and praying that he is just never running a passing route feels like a gross way to spend Sunday a.m., but this bet does feel like a good value proposition—regardless of how painful it will be to see play out.

Here are Edwards’s usage stats for the season courtesy of the Fantasy Life Utilization Tool:

As we can see from the above, he rarely plays in 2 min. drills, has played under 50% of the snaps in four of five games, and has only had one game where he’s even seen a target (Week 4 – 3 targets, 2 rec. 1 yard). Smash the under and pray Lamar Jackson keeps his eyes well past the line of scrimmage on dropbacks this week.

You can tail the under on DraftKings Sportsbook, where you can get $200 in bonus bets when you sign up for a new account below and place an initial bet of $5 or more!

If you like this bet (and want more wild under plays like this) you can check out all of Freedman’s Week 6 bets in our free bet tracker.