The postseason picture takes shape…

In today’s Betting Life newsletter presented by Prop Drop:

On this week’s “Bigger Picture” episode of the Betting Life Podcast, I highlighted my current win total projections for all the teams I expect to make the NFL playoffs.

In case you missed them, here they are (ordered by conference and expected seeding) with a few notes.

🏆 AFC

1. Dolphins: 12.2
2. Ravens: 12.0
3. Chiefs: 11.5
4. Jaguars: 10.8
5. Texans: 10.0
6. Browns: 9.7
7. Colts: 9.6

🐬 Dolphins

The Dolphins close the season with four of five games in Miami, where they have had a strong home-field advantage — but they also play the Cowboys, Ravens, and Bills in their final three.

📈 Ravens

The Ravens are the No. 2 team (+9.44) in the Massey-Peabody Power Ratings, and they’ll overtake the Dolphins in my projections if Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence (ankle) misses their Week 15 SNF matchup.

While their Christmas Day MNF game with the 49ers in San Francisco looms large, their New Year’s Eve showdown with the Dolphins will likely determine who gets the No. 1 seed.

🤠 Texans & Colts

If Lawrence misses multiple games for the Jags, the Texans and Colts will have a shot to steal the AFC South. If that happens, the coach for that team — either DeMeco Ryans (+275, DraftKings) or Shane Steichen (+600, FanDuel) — will be live for Coach of the Year.

In full disclosure, I have preseason tickets on both Ryans (+2500) and Steichen (+2500) to win Coach of the Year in our FREE Fantasy Life Bet Tracker.  

🚀 NFC

1. Eagles: 13.4
2. 49ers: 12.8
3. Lions: 11.9
4. Falcons: 8.4
5. Cowboys: 12.1
6. Packers: 9.0
7. Rams: 8.6

🦅 Eagles

Even though I have the Eagles power rated as my No. 6 team, they still have the inside track on the No. 1 seed thanks to their league-best record (10-2) and cakewalk final three games (vs. Giants, vs. Cardinals, at Giants).

They could still win the No. 1 seed even with a loss this week to the Cowboys.

⛏️ 49ers

After their 42-19 road win against the Eagles last week, the 49ers are a scorching +11.0 in Massey-Peabody. They’re in a tier of their own. If the Cowboys beat the Eagles this week — and the Cowboys are currently -3.5 favorites — then the 49ers will control their future … assuming they (as -10.5 favorites) beat the Seahawks.

🤠 Cowboys

QB Dak Prescott has looked the most MVP-ish of any player this year with 3,234 yards and 26 TDs passing to just six INTs — but he almost certainly won’t get MVP if the Cowboys don’t win the division, and the Cowboys won’t do that if they don’t beat the Eagles this week and Bills next week.

If you like Prescott to win MVP (+325, Caesars), you’re probably better off investing in the Cowboys to win the NFC East (+480, FanDuel).

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Jason Scavone from Unabated makes the case for why you should live bet the NFL…

(Don’t do the Bill O’Reilly bit. Don’t do the Bill O’Reilly bit. Don’t do the Bill O’Reilly bit.)

F*ck it! We’ll do it live.

(Sorry. Couldn’t be helped.)

NFL sides and totals are the most efficient betting markets in sports and, therefore, the hardest to beat. But there’s another way to bet football that doesn’t ask you to stick your hand in that meat grinder.

Live betting is, in the grand scheme, still a developing product for sportsbooks. It’s not as sharp or efficient as pregame betting. Here are a few things to know before you get started.

🚫 No Market Makers

As outlined in the excellent book Interception by Ed Miller and Matthew Davidow, live betting is attractive because the numbers are made by people, not by markets. And people make mistakes.

Markets that are said to be “efficient” (i.e., the ones that are harder to beat) have a lot of money in them. Plenty will be piled on either side before the Bills and Chiefs kick off this weekend, and that money represents information the sportsbooks have to shape their lines. 

Comparatively, live betting markets don’t have that liquidity. Fewer people play them, and the markets are open for short periods. Instead, prices are derived from models created by in-house traders or third-party companies that provide odds to sportsbooks. 

And models are susceptible to flaws. Which means they’re beatable. 

👀 The Search for Truth

Because there’s no real market maker, there’s no real “source of truth.” No sportsbook will give you a sense of what the “correct” line should be, as there is with pregame lines.

This means you have to be somewhat creative with your approach to live betting. 

Think through situations where the model may not perform well. In particular, pay close attention to late-game situations where the model may be looking for objective solutions (like the Chiefs and Bills have combined for 42 points over 50 minutes, so they can be expected to score 8.5 points the rest of the way) to subjective problems (the Chiefs are up 35-7 and are feeding Isiah Pacheco to chew up the clock).

Some of that subjectivity will be accounted for, but not all of it. Your knowledge of the game, personnel, or coaches can be a difference maker in live betting, where in a pregame bet, that information is usually said to be “baked in” to the line.

Or consider a bet like alternate lines. They’re already vulnerable in pregame bets, but live alts are a derivative of a derivative. In-play tools can help you spot badly mispriced alternate lines.

🕑 The Waiting Game

On the other hand, you still have to deal with latency. There’s a delay between what’s happening on the field and what you see on the TV. Betting live is a somewhat more difficult proposition for both bettors and books.

It’s not uncommon for the odds to shift under you while trying to get a bet in. You click “bet,” the wheel spins on your screen, and the bet is denied because the odds have moved. Waiting until commercial breaks is one way to ensure the information you have available to you is the same information sports books, with faster data feeds, have available to them.

With a few tools and a knowledge of how live-betting lines are made, you can turn a critical eye on these markets and find plenty of good bets. You just have to think through the logic of what you’re seeing and how sportsbooks react to it.

We’ll leave you with that, and with Sting and a cut of his new album.

Devils at Kraken Over 6.5 Goals (-105, DraftKings)

The Devils have scored 25 goals over their last five games and are now 8-3 to the over on the road. The Kraken are coming off a poor road trip but landed a couple of goals in the final period against the Canadiens. They’ve scored +0.44 more goals per game at home this year than on the road. 

Neither team features elite goaltending, and the -105 (for the over) is a solid number to attack.

🤑 Paydirt = payday: TNF TD bet for a game that might have zero TDs.

📺 A matchup of NFC powerhouses and a slate of weather issues. How to attack Week 14.

💪 Thank you for your service. Army. Navy. History.

🔥 “He’s fired up”: Zach Wilson returns to sit on Robert Saleh’s throne of lies.

🤔 Practical advice that you can’t find anywhere else. “Jake Browning MVP, good to any number.”

👀 Looking for an edge? You can win more if you stop being so certain.

🐏 The Rams, Seahawks, and Falcons: All of this makes complete sense.

💰 +20.2 units in the last 30 days, and guess what? It’s all free.

👑 DraftKings launches the Pick6 app. The more options for sports speculators, the better.

💸 Looking for more TNF bets? We’ve got you covered.

Our friends at The Hammer Betting Network have been adding their favorite Week 14 bets to our Free Bet Tracker. Here’s one of the latest courtesy of Fabian Sommer…

Per Fabian, “It's a good matchup for the Denver offense, while on the other side of the ball the Chargers just can't get anything going because of their inability to run the ball, which puts a lot of pressure on Justin Herbert through the air against a good secondary with just one reliable pass catcher in Keenan Allen.”

Thursday Night Football features a matchup that seems straight out of the Big Ten. The Patriots will travel to Pittsburgh to take on the Steelers in a game with potentially the lowest total since at least 2004. Matt LaMarca dives into his favorite bets for Patriots-Steelers.

👍 Best Bet: Under 30.5 (-115, FanDuel)

How can you bet anything but the under here? The Patriots rank dead last in points per game offensively, while the Steelers are starting their backup quarterback.

Additionally, both of these squads possess strong defenses. The Steelers rank sixth in the league in points per game, and while they’re not dominant from a yardage perspective, they specialize in the types of big plays that keep offenses out of the endzone. They’re 11th in the league in sacks per game and fifth in takeaways per game.

Meanwhile, the Patriots defense has been firing on all cylinders of late. They’ve made some history, becoming the first team since 1938 to allow 10 points or fewer in three straight games and lose each of them.

Overall, the Pats are now 1-3 when allowing 10 points or fewer this season, while the rest of the league is a perfect 53-0.

The low number on this game may scare you, but low totals have had no problem going under this season. Unders in games with a total of 38 points or less are 16-4-1 (+50.3% ROI), while the under has gone a perfect 3-0 on totals of 35.0 or fewer. Those three unders have covered by an average of 11.3 points per game, so they’ve been covering with plenty of room to spare. As I discussed with Freedman on Monday’s Early Lines podcast, the sportsbooks struggle to get the numbers low enough for these outlier teams.

⬇️ Top Prop: Bailey Zappe Under 0.5 Pass TDs (+130, BetMGM)

In a game where scoring figures to be at a premium, getting the under on Zappe’s passing touchdown prop at better than even money feels like a steal. Zappe has 64 pass attempts this season, and he’s yet to put the ball into the endzone. What’s to stop that from happening again?

Pittsburgh has been one of the tougher defenses to score on this season, ranking ninth in passing touchdowns allowed per game. The Pats don’t exactly have an abundance of pass-catching talent, so it’s not hard to imagine a scenario where they don’t find the paint through the air on Thursday. The Patriots are six-point underdogs in a game with a 30.0-point total, giving them an implied team total of just 12.0 points.

We currently have Zappe projected for 0.7 passing touchdowns, but I think this wager offers plenty of value as long as you can get it at even money or better.

🚀 Same-Game Parlay (+905, FanDuel)

• Under 30.5
• Steelers ML
• Jaylen Warren Over 48.5 rushing yards
• George Pickens 50+ receiving yards

I’m going to start with under 30.5 points for this contest, and I’m going to pair it with the Steelers moneyline. Given all the uncertainty surrounding the Patriots, I think the Steelers should be able to secure a win. It might be ugly, but that’s why I’m opting for the moneyline instead of the spread.

After that, I’m going to add in two plays from our props and ladder section: Warren over 48.5 rushing yards and 50+ receiving yards for Pickens. They both cleared those thresholds in back-to-back weeks, and I see no reason why they can’t make it three in a row.