Thursday night football sees the AFC North division matchup between Baltimore and Cleveland. Checking out the Latest NFL Lines we see that average point spread is Baltimore -12 Cleveland +12 which is where they opened the week. A bit of line shopping will uncover some sportbooks who are offering lines either side of 12 with -/+11.5 and -/+13 available. The moneyline odds market opened with the Ravens -675 ($1.15) and the Browns +552 ($6.52), we see now the current odds for Baltimore trading between -630 ($1.16) up to -555 ($1.18) while Cleveland are priced between +455 ($5.55) up to +500 ($6.00). The over under total opened the week at O/U45 and has dropped a full point to be trading at O/U44 with most of the sportsbooks.
Where are the wagers being placed? Well a quick look at the wager count at one of the leading offshore sportsbooks reveals that in the NFL point spread market 55% of wagers have been placed on Cleveland while 57% of moneyline bets are on Baltimore and the under wager has attracted 60% of the wagers placed in the totals market.
Baltimore is 2-1 having had wins against the Bengals (44-13), Patriots (31-30) and suffering a loss to the Eagles (23-24). Cleveland are still looking for their first win of the season having lost to Philadelphia (16-17), Cincinnati (27-34) and Buffalo (14-24).
The last ten regular season games between these two sides has produced 8 wins for Baltimore and 2 wins for Cleveland. The home v away record is 4-6 and the starting favorite v underdog is 8-2. The team who has won straight up has also managed to cover the spread 8-2 and the over under total record is 4-5-1. The last time they met was in week sixteen last season when Baltimore managed a 6 point win (20-14) as -617 ($1.16) home favorites however they failed to cover the spread of -10.5.
The Pick - Here at TheFootballLines.com we won't start making plays until next week. Looking at this game you would have to agree that Baltimore deserve favoritism however they are coming off an emotional week with their win over New England and the death of Torrey Smiths brother. It will be a tough job for John Harbaugh's crew to get the Ravens up for this game and if the Browns can keep the Ravens offense quite anything is possible.