Sunday Night Football Best Bets Week 13: Bills Stampede 49ers?
Geoff Ulrich delivers the Sunday Night Football Best Bets for Week 13, featuring the Buffalo Bills hosting the San Francisco 49ers in a hard-fought battle.
Geoff Ulrich uncovers the Week 13 Sunday Night Football Best Bets featuring the 49ers traveling to snowy Buffalo to play the Bills.
The Bills come into this game off a bye and in need of a win to keep pace with the Chiefs, who are now at 11-1 and leading the AFC in the chase for the No. 1 seed.
The Bills can all but lock up the AFC East and this week they’ll be facing off against a wounded 49ers team that is running out of time to right the ship and get themselves back in the playoff race.
After losing a close game to Seattle, the 49ers got blown out in Green Bay in Week 12, a semi-predictable result as they had to play the game without their starting QB Brock Purdy. After practicing this week, Purdy has all but been ruled in for Sunday Night.
Even with Purdy in, the 49ers are still facing a litany of injury issues elsewhere as LB Dre Greenlaw, OL Trent Williams, and DE Nick Bosa have all been ruled out already for this game. When you add them to the list of starters the 49ers have already lost this season, it’s hard to see how they’ll be able to stop this Bills’ juggernaut, which comes in averaging 29.1 ppg and ranked 2nd in EPA per play on the year on offense.
So will the 49ers pull off the miraculous turnaround? Or do the Bills steamroll their way to another double-digit win season? We’ll go over that and more below, along with the best bets for this week’s SNF game.
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49ers +6.0 (-110; bet365) vs. Bills -6.0 (-110; bet365) 44.5
Injury notes 49ers:
Out
DE Nick Bosa (oblique)
OL Trent Williams (ankle)
LB Dre Greenlaw (Achilles)
OL Aaron Banks (concussion)
CB Deommodore Lenoir (knee)
DT Jordan Elliott (concussion)
Questionable
CB Renardo Green (neck)
QB Brock Purdy (shoulder)
DT Kevin Givens (groin)
LB Demetrius Flannigan-Fowles (knee)
WR Chris Conley (knee)
Injury Notes Bills:
Out
TE Dalton Kincaid (knee)
Questionable
WR Keon Coleman (wrist)
Spread and Total
As you can see from up above, the injury reports for these two teams are vastly different. The Bills will be without TE Dalton Kincaid, but other than that, are essentially at full strength. On top of potentially getting back standout rookie WR Keon Coleman, they’ll also see the return to the lineup LB Matt Milano, who will certainly help them in coverage against the likes of George Kittle and Christian McCaffrey this week.
On top of missing two more starters on defense in Bosa and Greenlaw, their standout OL Trent Williams is also set to miss another game, which will put Purdy at far more risk of being hit. That’s not great considering he is nursing a shoulder injury.
Our Game Model has been showing value on the Bills all week, and even with Purdy ruled in, the Bills at -6.0 is the side to be on.
I can’t say I disagree either. The Bills are not only one of the toughest offenses to stop in the league, but are also getting help back on defense, which will make it harder for the 49ers to keep pace.
With temperatures dipping into the 30-degree range and the potential for a little wind and snow, the idea of fading a warm-weather West Coast team traveling across the country to Buffalo is also very appealing, making the Bills at anything better than -6.0 (-120) a play for me as well.
I’m going to pass on the total unless we get some severe weather changes before kickoff, but our model is showing some value on the over 44.5 (-110). Given the 49ers' defensive issues, I could see the Bills just running it up in this spot, so I made a small play on the Bills over 27.5 team total (+125; bet365).
I break down the best props and more for 49ers at Bills below.
Bills vs. 49ers Best Bets:
Brock Purdy Over 20.5 completions (-110; bet365)
Purdy had put together two efficient games in a row before he sat in Week 12 with a shoulder issue. He completed 25 of 36 passes against the Buccaneers in Week 10 and then looked very dialed in against Seattle, completing 21 passes on just 28 attempts (75% comp rate).
The return of Christian McCaffrey to the lineup has certainly helped Purdy’s completion rate, as the RB has been able to convert 10 of the 12 targets he’s received in his first two games back.
McCaffrey being in the lineup is also significant as the Bills aren’t great at defending RBs out of the backfield, having allowed the most receptions to opposing RBs to date. They’re also just 27th in completion rate allowed, so while they do tend to stiffen up in the red zone, Purdy likely won’t have a hard time chopping the Bills up in the middle of the field, which should lead to a higher completion rate and another efficient day.
While there are a few weather concerns, that could easily be mitigated by game script, where the 49ers fall behind and Purdy is forced into more dropbacks. Either way, this number just seems a touch too low given the increased efficiency he’s shown with McCaffrey back and the matchup. I entered a play on the over in our Free NFL Bet Tracker and would play the over at the current number up to -125.
Josh Allen Longest Rush over 11.5 yards (-130; BetMGM)
It’s getting cold and windy out (and we’ve already had our first snow game of the season), so it should surprise no one that Josh Allen has started to heat up as a runner.
Over his last two games Allen’s rushing totals read as follows:
- 8 carries for 50 yards and a TD
- 12 carries for 55 yards and a TD
While the 49ers normally wouldn’t be the greatest matchup, this season they have been a ripe target for RBs and rushing QBs. They lost DT Javon Hargreave early in the year, will be without LB Dre Greenlaw for this game, and have been without starting safety Talanoa Hufanga most of the year as well.
The skeleton crew they have been operating with against the run is now ranked just 25th in success rate per rush and has allowed some big gains to opposing QBs on the ground, including a 50-yard TD scamper to Kyler Murray back in Week 5.
I’m not opposed to playing most of Allen’s rushing overs in this spot (anytime TD, yards, etc.), but given the matchup, the longest rush prop stood out. San Francisco hasn’t been good at limiting rushing QBs all year and Allen has gone over this 11.5 prop in three straight games and five of his last nine games overall.
If this does rise by kickoff, I’d also consider just playing Allen for an anytime TD, which is as big as +145 on BetMGM as of writing.
Underdog Card (3-way; 5.76x multiplier)
- Josh Allen Higher 0.5 TDs
- Christian McCaffrey Higher 31.5 rec yards
- Brock Purdy Higher 20.5 completions
I’m playing for a little more upside on Underdog by adding an Allen anytime TD instead of his longest rush. Allen scoring a TD also correlates well with Purdy throwing more, so it makes perfect sense to include the higher on Purdy’s completions in this card, which is also likely my favorite prop for this game.
Getting this to a 3-way was pretty simple with McCaffrey’s receiving-yard lines still quite low. On top of being in a great matchup against a defense that is poor at covering elite receivers out of the backfield, we’re in line with our projections which have McCaffrey at 34.0 yards for the week.
If you want more Pick’Em lineups for Week 13 and beyond, be sure to follow our DFS Pick’Em Tracker on Fantasy Life as the season progresses.
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