The SportsLine Projection Model was developed and powered by the Inside the Lines team. You can visit SportsLine for our model’s main market bets (spread, total, money line) but if you are looking for ALL our personal best bets for free, check out our recently launched Inside the Lines blog. These are just a fraction of our best bets, which are all free on our new blog.
Last week’s best main market bets were a perfect 5-0 including predicting the Bucs to beat Houston by 1 point.
Best Main Market Bet: Bills -12.5 (-110)
One of our perfect 4-0 ATS bets in Week 2 was on the Bills to cover a big number vs the Jets and that was a very minimal sweat cover. Expect more of the same on Thursday. We don’t directly factor motivation in our model but we do in our best bets. I saw Miami put up a real fight vs New England but when they allowed a kick return TD after their magical punt return TD AND Tua threw a horrible game ending interception I saw any hope that they would put up a fight when overmatched evaporate.
When the objective model matches the subjective motivation I love it. The Dolphins have a brand new secondary and it shows. Most of our spread value comes from Buffalo scoring over the 31 pts that the odds imply. The Bills averaged +5 more at home vs the road last season (33 per game) and of course put up 41 on Baltimore in Week 1. I’m not scared by the sloppiness that can come on Thursday Nights because the Bills coasted vs the Jets.
Miami has allowed 33 to Ne England, 33 to the Colts, and 32 (Wk 18 of ’24 vs the Jets) their last 3 games. No way the Bills can’t match that.
James Cook Anytime Touchdown -172 (Caesars)
In what world do the Bills score 30+ points and not get at least 1 James Cook Touchdown? Not this world. Cook leads our Week 3 ATD projection with a 77% chance of scoring at least once and these odds only imply 63%. Other books are already at -200 so you want to click on this link below right now to get this line because it’s going to move barring a practice injury to Cook or Josh Allen.
He has scored at least once in 76% of his games since 2024 when he became a touchdown machine.
Keon Coleman Over 42.5 Receiving Yards (-114 at FanDuel)
Coleman barely caught 50% of his targets last season as a rookie and still averaged close to 40 receiving yards per game. This season he has caught 11 of his 14 targets with a monster 112 yard game vs the Ravens (at home). He could have done more vs the Dolphins but the Bills didn’t need to do anything once they were up big.
The model is projecting Coleman for 56 receiving yards because the Dolphins totally revamped secondary is a mess. It’s early but last season the Dolphins allowed just 6.7 yards per pass attempt. Currently they are allowing 9.7 yards per attempt. That increase applied to Coleman’s average is why we have such value.
Tua Tagovailoa Over 0.5 Pass Interception (-160 at BetMGM)
Our model has him at around 75% to throw an INT and would set this line at -300. Tua’s thrown 3 INTs in two games this season and they weren’t ‘arm punts’ or tipped off the hands of the wide receiver. They were his fault. He didn’t see defenders he should see. He couldn’t avoid them even in situations where he didn’t have to take unnecessary risks.
Buffalo’s defense was 5th in the league in interceptions last season, but has none so far this season. That should change this week. We expect Buffalo to take a big lead and Miami will have to be pass heavy to try to compete. Tua can play a great game with 3 TDs and still end up throwing an interception just purely based on number of attempts.
What makes a bet an “Inside the Lines Best Bet?”
These are ones where:
1) Best Projection: Our SportsLine Model’s projection shows clear value versus the line and we love certain statistical trends, X’s and O’s and subjective supporting data that supports our side but isn’t directly factored into the model. For example, say we love a running back to go Over 14.5 carries and his backup is projected for 5.5 carries, but the backup is questionable and there’s a chance he can be ruled out, which surely will change our projection to 16.5 (third-stringer gets 3.5) and the line would likely go from 12.5 to 15.5. If we have value on a side and the only unknown factors that will change are in our favor, we’ll consider it our “Best Projection.”
AND
2) Best Price: There is an outlier best price that we should take advantage of before it steams in “our direction.” In most of these cases, the best-priced book is using “standard odds making logic” to set the line, but our team has identified a unique situation where standard odds rules don’t apply. For example, maybe a player is -110 to throw an interception, but in his last three seasons he has averaged just 0.4 interceptions on the road compared to 0.7 at home because the team plays on a fast track at home and averages 5+ more pass attempts at home.
Step 1 provides greater accuracy and Step 2, especially when combined with a nice Profit Boost or Promotion, significantly lowers the bar for being profitable … which is why we like to feature our best line sportsbooks offers.
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