Week 6 and Week 7 were great - there’s no way I can go three in a row, right?!?

Well how about starting off by betting an underdog Rams team that’s burned me in the past, based on the return of two guys who haven’t played in over a month? Sounds like the recipe for success to me!

Vikings vs. Rams

Meet Me At The Spot

This is undoubtedly a spot for the Rams. They are staying home on a short week whereas the Vikings are traveling after getting beat up by the Lions. Did you know teams are 0-4 straight up and ATS in their games following the Lions this year? That may be coincidence, or it may be because the Lions are crazy physical, and if there is any amount of truth to that last point, it should be even more pronounced on a short week.

Additionally, Vikings coach, Kevin O’Connell is a disciple of the Sean McVay coaching tree and although I don’t have the stats to back this up, I typically like to go with the teacher vs. the student.

Plus…

🎵We Are Baaaack, We Are Getting Cooper Kupp Back!!!🎵

Cooper Kupp is officially back tonight and I’m going straight to his receptions props. The Stafford-Kupp connection can’t be understated and against a Flores-blitz-heavy defense, I can just see countless little outs and screens to fill that Kupp.

He probably gets home on the yards too, but I’m just staying with the receptions given the vision above. The Vikings have given up 110 yards on 8 receptions to Deebo, 101 on 13 to Garrett Wilson, 86 on 4 to Nico Collins in the same game as 94 on 10 to Diggs, and 139 on 7 to Jayden Reed.

Kupp is SO back.

Aaron Jones Is My Island Of Vikings Picks

Clearly I like the Rams tonight, but I do think Aaron Jones will be able to do some damage. The Raiders are straight up bad at running the football and they were gouging the Rams at times last week.

Jones is over this longest rush in 4/6 games with those 2/6 coming against the 49ers and Jets in which he had fewer than 10 carries. Barring injury (which is why I’m limiting my Jones action here), he should have enough attempts to break away on an explosive at least once this game.

Tutu Atwell’s Fast Little Feetsies

Did I mention Cooper Kupp is back? And when I placed this bet, Puka Nacua wasn’t, but now it looks like he could be (activated off IR with plans to play but will be a game-time decision).

If Puka plays, I feel a little less confident in this bet, but if he doesn’t, I can absolutely see a scenario in which Kupp sees most of the action underneath while Atwell is deep and/or simply ignored for a deep pass or high-YAC play.

Plus, he’s just so quick and this is fun to root for. Puka, I think you could use another week off…

Matty Stafford Tin Foil Hat Time

Alright here’s the deal, the matchup stuff I look at gives a decent edge to the Rams tonight, particularly in the run game.

Run game? But this is Stafford’s section?

Bear with me…

My logic for the game tonight started with the idea that last week, the Lions may have found the blueprint to beating Flores’ defense, which was to run it down their Viking faces.

But then my inner dialogue responded with “maybe the Lions are simply so dominant in running the ball that it’s not necessarily a repeatable blueprint."

Well, the O-line matchup advantage actually suggests they could, but then my inner dialogue chimes in, “what if Minnesota makes an adjustment? And also, although Kyren has looked good and scores a bunch of TDs, he’s also a notably inefficient RB.”

So I check Kyren’s attempts and yards lines for the night: 17.5 and 73.5. For one thing, that’s 4.11 yards per carry, which is nearly 10% higher than his average of 3.8 for this season. For another thing, he’s over this yardage line in the past 4 games, but he’s needed 20+ carries in order to get it.

So why is his attempt line set so low at 17.5? Either 1) the books are wrong and this is a SMASH spot, or 2) something’s fishy here and this could be interpreted as an indicator for passing in this game - either due to an expected Rams-trailing game script or perhaps the return of Kupp and possibly Puka.

I’m not sure, but I’m fastening my tin foil hat and choosing to interpret that 17.5 line as an indicator for passing…

So finally, enter Matt Stafford. Interestingly, he’s only over this passing attempts line twice this year, and 1) when he’s over, he’s wayyy over, and 2) both of those games were against fellow NFC North opponents (Lions & Bears).

In other words, I think Stafford’s passing attempts are essentially binary - I’m either correct and he’s going way over this, or I’m horribly wrong and he’s going nowhere near this and I’ll feel like an idiot for not smashing Kyren Williams.

The same arguments can be made for taking Stafford’s and Kupp’s yards instead of attempts and receptions, but I think the ladder has a better chance of hitting across various game scripts.

We’ll see - the last time I bet on the Rams, it didn’t go so well…

No excuses, play like a champion.