Insider’s Vegas NFL wiseguy picks every game against the spread

Favorites dominated in the NFL last week, winning 14 of the 15 games and going 9-4-2 against the spread.

Those stats include Cleveland closing as a 1-point favorite against Tennessee and pushing with its come-from-behind 29-28 victory and the San Francisco-Kansas City 22-17 final landing on the closing line of 49ers minus-5 after many earlier Chiefs backers cashed. Even if you count those as underdog covers and cut the favorites’ edge to 9-6 ATS, I don’t feel so bad with my 3-4 mark with my underdog plays in last week’s Tuley’s Take column, but at least we did hit our middle with Houston plus-6.5 and Dallas winning straight up as our Streak for the Cash pick.

But that was a small consolation. I’m still not proud of the fact that I dipped back below .500, and hopefully we’ll start landing on the right underdogs as we enter this middle portion of the regular season.

This NFL Week 6 card is unusual as we have eight — count ’em, eight — of the 15 games (including Thursday night’s Colts-Texans game) with home underdogs. Traditionally, home ‘dogs are a very good bet in the NFL, but they’re 8-10-1 ATS this season after Houston failed to cover against Indianapolis.

Let’s take our weekly look at the Sunday/Monday card and try to determine the best bets.

Last week: 3-4 ATS | 2014 season record: 16-17 ATS

Streak for the Cash: I’m no longer eligible to play ESPN.com’s Streak for the Cash contest, but they’ve asked me to suggest some plays. This is different from picking games against the spread — especially because they mostly have you pick games straight up and the games are closer to pick ’em — but it’s all about win percentages/odds, so I’ll tackle those at the end of the column.

Note: The listed spread for each game is from the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook as of Thursday night (note: Westgate is the new owner of the LVH Hotel, which was formerly known at the Hilton, but the SuperBook name lives on). The public consensus pick percentages are from ESPN PickCenter, also as of Thursday night.

Matchup: Denver Broncos at New York Jets

Spread: Broncos minus-9
Public consensus pick: 87 percent picked Broncos

Public perception: The Broncos are almost always the public choice, so add their 41-20 win over the Cardinals and the Jets’ 31-0 loss to the Chargers and it’s no surprise this is so lopsided, especially as the line opened at Denver minus-7.

Wiseguys’ view: The sharps bet the Broncos right away after the opener to push it over the key number of 7. I wouldn’t be shocked if some more sharps helped put it to double digits, but there’s sure to be a wiseguy buyback with the double-digit home underdog.

Tuley’s Take: I was pretty much resigned to