BetIQ Daily: Three NFL Week 15 Upsets to Consider
Picks for Wednesday include our three upset picks for Week 15 in the NFL, including the New England Patriots as an underdog.
December 15, 2021 - by Jason Lisk
The Patriots will go for win No. 10 against the Colts (Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire)
Wednesday, December 15 (#18)
BetIQ Daily has joined the rest of the NFL in health-and-safety protocols. We’ll see if we can hit some upsets for Week 15 as we look ahead.
This post highlights a sample of picks available to subscribers, which also include college basketball, NBA, and all of the upcoming bowl games. And if you are playing in any college football bowl pools, our College Bowl Pool Picks are back and ramping up with bowls starting Friday.
See all picks by subscribing or using our free one-year subscription offer from BetMGM.
3 Week 15 NFL Upset Picks
Our upset picks went 1-for-3 last week (Atlanta over Carolina), For the year, we are 16-19-1 SU on upset picks for +12.0 units.
[Note: We originally had Las Vegas as one of our top underdog picks this week, but as we were about to post, the news about Baker Mayfield testing positive for COVID-19 broke. The line was pulled off the board and the Raiders are now the betting favorites, so we’ve replaced that pick.]
1) New England +123 (at Indianapolis) – NFL Moneyline Pick
- Saturday, 8:15 p.m. ET
- Both the Similar Games and Predictive Rating models give a strong edge to New England.
- New England is 2-2 SU and 3-1 ATS as an underdog this year, with only non-cover coming on an OT touchdown.
- Since 2010, Patriots head coach Bill Belichick is 17-12 SU and 20-9 ATS as a betting underdog.
- New England has covered the spread in seven straight games, including five by double digits.
3) Chicago +169 (vs. Minnesota) – NFL Moneyline Pick
- Monday, 8:15 p.m. ET
- Both the Similar Games and Predictive Rating models show some value on Chicago.
- The Vikings have rarely played outdoors in Chicago in December, but they’re 0-4 SU and ATS there in December since 2002 (three times as a favorite).
- Expanding outside this matchup, the Vikings are 8-14 ATS at a cold-weather, outdoor venue in December/January since 2002.
- Minnesota’s rush defense and defense in general is vulnerable and can keep underdogs in games, as evidenced by the game-winning drive it allowed to Detroit and allowing Pittsburgh to almost come back from a big deficit last week.
2) Houston +160 (at Jacksonville) – NFL Moneyline Pick
- Sunday, 1:00 p.m. ET
- Our highest-rated moneyline play for Week 15.
- Jacksonville is showing signs of declining under Urban Meyer, getting shut out last week after reports of discord in the locker room.
- The Jaguars have failed to gain more than 200 total yards in three of their last four games, and they’re averaging a paltry 9.1 points over their last seven games.
The NFL’s COVID-19 Outbreak
A COVID-19 outbreak has hit the NFL, with 75-plus players being placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list since Monday.
The NFL seems committed right now to moving forward with the schedule this week for all teams, but this kind of outbreak on some teams last year caused shuffling of schedules.
One of the two Saturday games, Cleveland versus Las Vegas, will feature a Browns team that has placed 14 players on the reserve/COVID-19 list in the past few days, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter. The league flexed those two Saturday games a few weeks ago, but be aware that it could move the game if the Browns’ outbreak gets bad enough. (Last year, the NFL played some games as late as Wednesday to get them in and give teams a few extra days to recover from COVID-19 outbreaks.)
Top Pick Performance Trends
Our algorithmic models use over a decade of data to predict every game across five sports.
As of post time, here are some highlights of prediction performance from our primary Ensemble Forecast model this season, for playable-rated picks (52.5% confidence or better) against game-day betting lines:
- NFL point spread picks: 41-30-1 (58%, +7.3 units)
- College football over/under picks: 173-143-3 (55%, +14.3 units)
- NBA spread picks: 13-8 (62%, +3.8 units)
To view our model predictions and picks for all sports and all games, see our subscription page.
We also have a free one-year subscription offer from BetMGM available in select betting-legal U.S. states, though some restrictions apply.
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