NFL Best Bets Week 7

by Ahaan Rungta · Betting & Props

This is NFL Best Bets Week 7! Welcome back to the 2023-24 NFL season and this article series. Here, we provide our best game line bets for the Sunday-Monday NFL slate each week on sportsbooks.

Each week’s article features picks on either the moneyline, spread, game total, or team total. For each bet, we will provide a wager size recommendation (note: 1 unit = 1% of your gambling bankroll). Keep the exposure disciplined and stick to the recommendations. Remember, it is always worth line-shopping at the time you place your bet so that you can get the best value available online.

Week 6 Performance

In Week 6, we put up our worst performance of the season with both 2-unit plays losing by the hook. The Seahawks out-gained their opponents 410 to 231 but lost by four to rob us of Seahawks +3. The Patriots were down two with the chance at a game-winning drive and a DeVante Parker drop followed by a safety sealed a New England loss by four to rob us of Patriots +3. These are brutal ways to lose two good-looking bets.

We are now 5-7 on the season and have some work to do to get back in the profit column. We have time to do it but it starts here. Let’s dive into the Week 7 betting board and for this week. We have only one confident bet. It is important to remember we have a long season to make money and we will not be forcing picks unless we find extreme value. This week’s bet is my only confident pick against-the-spread in Week 7.

1 unit: Bears +3 (-110, DraftKings)

In order to begin a bounce back week, we will dig deep in our bag and target the much-anticipated matchup between veteran career backup quarterback Brian Hoyer and undrafted rookie quarterback Tyson Bagent. All jokes aside, there is value with Chicago as a home underdog this week.

The Las Vegas Raiders have a mediocre 3-3 record, but there is plenty of evidence that they aren’t even as good as that record suggests. They have two consecutive one-score wins at home, but both read as fraudulent. One of them was against Jordan Love, who had his worst start of the season, putting up a -16% completion percentage over expectation and 16.6 expected quarterback rating while missing wide open throws all night. The other win was against a dysfunctional Patriots offense that still would have been in position to kick a game-winning field goal if not for a final-possession drop from wide receiver DeVante Parker on an open bomb.

Of course, they are now facing a Bears offense that is far from inspiring and with Bagent now the starter instead of former first-round pick Justin Fields. Betting on Matt Eberflus’s squad is hard to swallow, but one must remember that it’s not like Fields was lighting it up himself.

On the season, he ranks No. 30 in clean pocket completion percentage, No. 21 in true completion percentage, and No. 33 in catchable pass rate. Las Vegas ranks No. 27 in team defense EXP, No. 25 in pressure rate, No. 23 in pass rush win rate, and No. 18 in run stop win rate. They give up big plays by the bunch, and Chicago has playmakers like D.J. Moore, Darnell Mooney, and Cole Kmet.

Raiders Offense

On offense, the Raiders will be led by Brian Hoyer, who we have a significant sample size of. Among 85 qualified quarterbacks since the 2020 season, Hoyer ranks No. 59 in adjusted EPA per play, No. 68 in completion percentage over expectation, and No. 55 in success rate. We know who he is. That is someone who cannot be trusted as a starter in this league. Chicago’s defense has sneakily been improving and they now rank No. 10 in run stop win rate. That means Las Vegas cannot just ride their star running back Josh Jacobs into controlling the tempo of this game.

Even if the Raiders find their way to sneak a third consecutive close win by, they do not deserve to be favorites on the road by a full field goal.