Bills-Rams Line Analysis Thursday Night NFL

Written by :

Don Shapiro

Published on :

5 September, 2022

Bills-Rams Line Analysis Thursday Night NFL

After opening at Rams -1.5, the line on the Week 1 Thursday night football game ultimately swung in Buffalo's favor and was sitting at Bills -2.5 as of three days before game time.

Recreational books have been going with the flow.

We are seeing between 60% and 65% of the spread action coming in on Buffalo, but there won't be any movement to the -3.5 (we've seen a few books hit the -3 earlier).

BettingPros suggested the following:

"This is just speculation, but it feels like Vegas is trying to bait bettors to take Buffalo in Week 1, so don’t expect much movement here."

There's reason to surmise this as we've already seen at least one of the bigger recreational books (BetUS) move to the number 3. The suggestion is that books could get more action on LA if they wanted to. BetUS is just one book, and it appears to be the only book, that moved to the 3. This game has us racking our brains trying to figure out the outcome up to now.

The one thing we know is that a healthy Stafford should give us a line of Rams -1.5, so with this in mind there is value in betting LA at +2.5.

The line movement may have more to do with Rams starting quarterback Matthew Stafford and whether his elbow holds up.

Stafford originally sat out all throwing drills during spring practices after receiving an injection in his elbow to help with the pain, believed to be caused by tendonitis.

"I think anytime that you've played as long and are as tough as he is," Rams head coach Sean McVay said back in the spring, "I don't know if you're ever truly pain-free, but the goal would be for Sept. 8 and really looking toward 17 games, then hopefully some games after that if we earn that opportunity."

During training camp, Stafford had this to say:

"I don't know if you guys were watching," he said in August, per NFL Media, "(but) I felt like I could make any throw I wanted to. ... I'm just trying to be smart when I get those opportunities to make sure I can come out here, cut it loose, turn it loose like I did (at camp) and go from there."

When asked now if he felt Stafford could throw for more than 50 passes to win a single game, MvVay responded "No hesitation".

The books have him slightly favored to throw for UNDER 37.5.