Las Vegas Raiders at Cleveland Browns: How to bet Week 8

Las Vegas Raiders at Cleveland Browns: How to bet Week 8

Betting in Week 8

I love the Raiders this week in Cleveland. To keep it straight and simple, if the Browns were to move to 6-2 on the season after this game, especially with Nick Chubb out, Odell Beckham Jr. now on IR and done for the year, Kareem Hunt nursing a rib injury, and Austin Hooper ruled out this week with an abdomen injury, I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself.

The Raiders are not a consistent team by any stretch of the imagination, but as the saying goes, they’re consistent about being inconsistent. So, since they lost last week, I would say they’d have to win this week. Right?!

Inside the Numbers

Here are some numbers for you guys. The Raiders are 15-10 all time against the Browns, and although the Brownies are 9-5 in this series in the last 14 games, they’re also 3-6 at home all time, so major advantage Las Vegas in that regard.

Derek Carr also has experience beating Baker Mayfield and is 2-1 against the Browns in his career. Remember the two squaring off in Baker’s rookie year and how close that game was? Baker and the Browns got the short end of the stick there, but I think a similar result happens this time around.

I really like Derek Carr’s matchup with this Browns defense that’s 29th in PPG allowed as of the end of Week 7 and 30th in PYPG allowed in the passing game,

Cleveland is indeed 1st in takeaways (the Raiders are 32nd- go figure), but the last time I checked, Derek Carr has only thrown two picks on the year and we all know how beat up Cleveland’s secondary is.

So, I’m feeling good about a Raiders win here.

As for the O/U, here’s some numbers. In 25 total games in this series, these two teams have hit over 49.5 points 5 times, so 25% of the time, these games go over 49.5 points. As for games in this series in Cleveland, 2 of 9 went over 49.5 points (22%).

The Raiders/Browns game is the least likely of the 13 left on the Week 8 slate to go over their O/U by my estimation.

The Raiders’ 25% over rate in overall matchups with Cleveland ranks 13th of the remaining 13 matchups on the slate and their 22% over rate of games against the Browns in Cleveland ranks 11th of 13 making this game the least likely of the 13 to go over.

I’m taking the Raiders to win this game 27-20 and for the under 49.5 to be hit. Both of these tams are expected to put up a lot of points, but I think efficiency is going to be the mantra of the day.

The Browns love to get in shootouts, but I have yet to see the Raiders get in a true gun-slinging shootout. They beat the Chiefs 40-32, but I’d argue they had the upper hand the entire way and did a great job defensively to hold the Chiefs to 8 points in the second half.

This game should be controlled by the Raiders and Derek Carr’s efficiency should win the day. Raiders upset the Browns. Let’s see if I can finally nail a Raiders game completely.