Originally posted on 07/25/2010:

It's all about the matchups. I love betting situations where a team has a one dimensional offense and is facing a team who's defense specializes in taking that away. Here's an example from last season:

Week 12 the Panthers were playing at the Jets. Both teams were 4-6, it looked like a pretty even game between two bad teams, as evidenced by Vegas' line of Jets -3. Here's what we knew at the time, the Panthers' rushing attack was one of the best in the NFL, rushing for 4.97 yards/carry at the time. Their passing game was below average however, and CB Darrell Revis was going to be covering their best WR Steve Smith. At the time, the Jets had the #3 best pass defense in the NFL, so it looked very likely that the Panthers were going to really struggle moving the ball through the air. So, you had to figure they'd try to lean on their elite ground game to get the job done. However, the Jets' also had the #8 running defense at the time as well, so I figured the Panthers' ground game would be reasonably contained. On the other side, the Jets' strongest point to season, running the ball (6th in the NFL in yards/rush attempt), was matched up with the abysmal Panthers' rush defense (28th in the NFL in yards/rush attempt allowed). I figured this game was going to be played mainly on the ground, and that the Jets had a clear edge, so I went with the plays Jets -3 and Under 41.5.

How did the game turn out? Both the Panthers' rushing and passing attacks were smothered. They ran the ball 25 times for just 75 yards, and passed 34 times for a measly 130 yards, with 4 interceptions. The final score was 17-6 Jets, and both my bets won. Find situations like these and NFL is really quite easy to profit from. You can take a look at the original writeup for the plays in my Week 12 thread here, good luck with your NFL betting this season!