Sunday Night Football Betting: Will the Favored 49ers Stay Unbeaten and Cover as Slim Favorites?
On Sunday Night Football, we are about to get a real treat. Aaron Rodgers returns home to face the San Francisco 49ers. The Niners are trying to get to 3-0 while the Green Bay Packers are looking to win their second straight game.
Per NFL odds, the home 49ers are 3.0-point favorites, and this game possesses a healthy over/under of 50.5 points.
Let's dive into what we think could be some interesting betting angles for this contest.
A Battle Between Two Good Teams
Our nERD-based metrics really dig both of these teams. It's certainly early, but we currently rank Green Bay and San Fran inside the top 12 of our rankings. We have the Niners 5th, and the Packers clock in 12th. The Packers are fairly middle-of-the-pack in both offense and defense, but the 49ers are being spearheaded by a top-end offense.
For the Packers, Rodgers bounced back with an impressive performance in Week 2, throwing four touchdowns with no interceptions after not tossing a single score in Week 1. On the flip side, Jimmy Garoppolo has been a solid signal-caller through two weeks, and he's already thrown for more than 500 yards this season.
One place the Packers will have a significant advantage is at the running back slot. Aaron Jones is arguably the league's best back, and the 49ers have been a revolving door at the position with injuries to Raheem Mostert and Elijah Mitchell. With Mitchell officially listed as doubtful for this contest, Trey Sermon may carry the load this week. Can he be the man in the backfield? We will see.
Bets to Consider
According to our numbers, this game should be a close one, but there is not a ton of betting value.
Our model projects a very narrow margin of victory for the 49ers (24.79-23.78), but we have Green Bay covering as 3.0-point 'dogs just 51.2% of the time.
The 50.5-point over/under is a sharp line, too. We give the under a 55.6% chance to hit and rank it as a one-star bet. That goes against the Packers' recent trends as their past six games have gone over.
In the player-prop market, I'm all over Davante Adams' reception prop, which sits at a lofty 8.5. Here's why -- Jason Verrett is out with an injury for San Francisco, and Adams is the undisputed number-one wide receiver in Green Bay. Adams has 13 catches, and no one else aside from Jones has more than five grabs. Adams has 16 targets across the first two weeks, good for a 29.1% target share.
Historical Betting Trends
-- The 49ers have been surprisingly terrible against the spread (ATS) at home, logging a 2-6 ATS mark.
-- Against the Packers, San Fran has also struggled, losing four straight regular-season matchups with Green Bay.
-- The Packers have been a covering machine, going 8-2 ATS in their last 10 games.
