TNF Week 8: Carolina Shows Up Short-Handed, I'm Laying the Hook With Green Bay

TL;DR

Green Bay -3.5 at -104 on LowVig, 0.5u. Jordan Love over 264.5 passing yards at -111 on DraftKings, 0.75u. Josh Jacobs over 2.5 receptions at -127 on DraftKings, 0.5u. Total risk 1.75u, all one Green Bay position.

The why in one breath: Carolina lost three starters at inactives, Green Bay can't run the ball, so Love throws and Jacobs catches. These are my own analyst picks, not ATSKillers model Picks.

The inactives did the talking

Carolina is down OLB Jaelan Phillips, LG Damien Lewis and DT Bobby Brown III tonight, and G Torricelli Simpkins III is out too. RT Taylor Moton and CB Jaycee Horn were already on IR. That's two starting guards and a starting tackle gone from the offensive line, and the best edge rusher and a starting tackle gone from the front.

Green Bay has its own mess. Center Sean Rhyan is out, Jacob Monk is on IR, so the third-string center snaps it. But Matthew Golden is active through the shoulder and foot, and he's their best receiver with Jayden Reed on IR.

The market sat at Green Bay -3.5 all day with the no-vig cover right around 50%. The look-ahead line in September was -7, and it got hammered back to -3.5 on the Packers' line problems. I think the Carolina side of the injury report got less attention, and that's what I'm backing. Yes, -3.5 means I'm on the wrong side of 3. I know. I'm laying it anyway, and I'm sizing it small.

Love throws because he has to

Green Bay's run game is dead last in rush yards and runs 2.9 yards a carry. Ask a team like that to win by four and the ball goes in the air. My projection has Love at a mean of 288.8 and a median of 284 passing yards against a 264.5 line, about 59.6% to go over. Fair price around -148, I got -111.

This morning the line was 259.5 and the market walked it up to 264.5. That's the market moving my way, and I'm still taking it at the higher number.

Wrong if: the patched-up line gets Love sacked into third-and-long all night, or Green Bay jumps out early and leans on the ground.

Jacobs out of the backfield

Jacobs came back in Week 7 and caught 5 of 7 targets for 55 yards and a score on 52% of the snaps. Tonight Kaleb Johnson and TE Jonnu Smith are both inactive, so there are fewer bodies to steal short targets. With a third-string center, the quick checkdown is the pressure release.

My projection: 4.1 catches on average, about 64% to clear 2.5, fair around -178. One clean game is a thin sample, so 0.5u and not a dime more.

The model lens

There's no ATSKillers sim for this game yet, so there's no sim line on this card. My own team numbers have Green Bay by 7.4, but that team model hasn't beaten closing lines in my backtest, so I give it zero weight on the side. The side is an injury call. The props are where my numbers actually do the work.

What would make me wrong

Bryce Young gets the ball out fast enough that Carolina's banged-up line doesn't matter, Carolina keeps it within a field goal, and all three of these go down together. They're one position, and I sized it like one.

Sources

Inactives: packers.com and panthers.com, both posted about 90 minutes before kickoff. Injury report: packers.com. Prices: The Odds API across 11 US books, captured about 6:05 PM CT Thursday. Player logs and my projections: my own handicap model built on nflverse and BallDontLie data. Run-game numbers and the Jacobs return: Sports Illustrated.

Market references & reading

• Packers-Panthers inactives (packers.com)
• Panthers Week 8 inactives (panthers.com)
• Packers Week 8 injury report (packers.com)
• The Odds API

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