National Football League

NFL odds Week 16: Betting edges on Falcons-Ravens, Giants-Vikings, more

Updated Dec. 22, 2022 8:17 p.m. ET

This week's NFL card features great matchups and games with playoff implications, including the Giants-Vikings matchup on FOX and the FOX Sports App.

Regarding how you should wager on the slate as a whole, I ran my models to give you my favorite betting edges and predictions for Week 16 of the season. My goal for this weekly column is to always provide you with nuggets you didn’t know before reading this piece.

A couple of matchups stuck out from a betting perspective, so let's look at my favorite edges of the week with odds courtesy of FOX Bet.

Texans at Titans (1 p.m. ET Saturday, CBS)

Back in Week 8, the Tennessee Titans were rolling, winning four in a row, and found themselves on the road, in Houston, without Ryan Tannehill. In his place, Malik Willis made his first start of the season. Willis was completely untested, had not taken starter's reps at all, nor played with the 1s at any time.

In his first start of his career in Houston, Willis threw just 10 passes for 55 yards. One of the 10 passes was an interception that set up the Texans on the Titans 11-yard line. That drive ended on the Titans 24-yard line. The Texans lost 13 yards and settled for a field goal.

That Texans’ field goal came five minutes into the second quarter. And not only was it the Texans only points, it was their only drive into Titans territory until the final seconds of the game.

Down 17-3, the Texans scored a meaningless TD with 0:17 in the game to lose by a final score of 17-10.

The Titans, with Willis throwing 10 times in his first start, utterly dismantled the Texans.

The Titans won the yardage battle 354 to 161. This, despite losing the turnover battle 2-1 and being the only team to miss a field goal.

The Texans had starting RB Dameon Pierce active. He rushed 15 times for just 35 yards at 2.3 YPC.

And he won’t be available for this game. Pierce was injured in Week 14. His first game out was last week’s game vs. the Chiefs.

Last week, vs. the 18th-best run defense of the Chiefs, Dare Ogunbowale and Royce Freeman combined to run 19 times for 65 yards (3.4 YPC).

And that was vs. the 18th-ranked run defense. Now they will face the top-ranked run defense of the Titans.

The Texans have played four games vs. run defenses that rank top-12 on the season. They went 0-4, losing by 4, 7, 13 and 15 points.

They’ll have to lean on their passing attack in this game, but the last time they played the Titans, Davis Mills completed just 17 of 29 attempts for 152 yards (5.2 YPA) and was sacked three times and picked off once. And his top three leading receivers in receptions were:

WR Brandin Cooks
RB Dameon Pierce
TE OJ Howard

Pierce and Howard are out, and Cooks may not be back. As of Wednesday, WR2 Nico Collins still wasn’t practicing, making his presence unlikely after missing multiple games previously.

WR Chris Moore will likely take on the WR1 role as he did last week. But the last time these teams played, all Texans WRs combined to gain only 79 yards on five total receptions.

The market has made a major correction to favor dropping this line from Titans -7 down to Texans -3 at home. I think this is an overcorrection.

Two weeks ago, the Texans were outgained by the Cowboys and had just two red-zone trips to the Cowboys' five red-zone trips. But Houston started a drive at the Cowboys 24-yard line after a muffed punt and at the Cowboys 27-yard line after an interception and scored their only two touchdowns of the game on those two short-field drives.

Last week, the Texans were outgained 502 yards to 219. But once again, they were fortunate in the turnover department. The Texans started drives on the Chiefs 17-yard line and 49-yard line and scored touchdowns on both drives.

The last two games combined, the Texans were outgained 906 yards to 546 but were fortunate with turnovers and lost by narrow margins.

Give me Derrick Henry, who has rushed for over 200 yards in four straight games vs. the Texans, and a line short of 3 points, and I’ll gladly predict the Texans luck runs out and take the Titans.

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Falcons at Ravens (1 p.m. ET Saturday, FOX and FOX Sports App)

I would be all over the Ravens in this game if I had any confidence at all in their offensive coordinator Greg Roman.

Flashback to last week. The Ravens were playing the NFL’s worst run defense of not just 2022 but any run defense since 2000.

In the first quarter, Tyler Huntley had three pass attempts. They TOTALED six yards.

Meanwhile, their running backs ran five times for 51 yards.

The Ravens should have led after one quarter. On Baltimore's first drive, they turned the ball over on downs at the Cleveland 7-yard line. The Browns punted on their first drive.

The first quarter finished 0-0.

It seemed like the Ravens were in good shape. The run game, predictably, was crushing. The passing game, predictably, was terrible.

In the final three quarters, Ravens running backs gained 129 yards on 15 carries, a staggering 8.6 YPC.

But Greg Roman called twice as many passes (30) as runs (15).

The result of these passes: Huntley was sacked three times, threw an interception and completed just 14 of 27 attempts (52%) for 4.9 YPA.

Did I mention it was below freezing, with gusts in the 20s, a wind chill of 23 degrees and snow coming down?

Who in their right mind is calling twice as many passes as runs while their team:

Has the worst WR group in the NFL
Is starting a backup QB
Is facing the worst run defense in the NFL since at least 2000
Is gaining 8.6 yards per carry when running the ball
Is playing in terrible conditions to pass and catch the ball

My guess is lessons were learned, and discussions were had with Roman.

My guess is the Ravens will run the ball more in terrible weather (21 degrees, feels like 2 degrees, 16 mph winds with gusts of 28 mph).

And the Falcons run defense ranks 26th and is terrible, so the Ravens once again should have success.

And I was completely underwhelmed by Desmond Ridder in his first start. If that was the game plan they had for him with two weeks to prepare, I don’t foresee a solid outing on a short week vs. the Ravens stout defense.

I would look to put the Ravens into teasers.

Raiders at Steelers (8:15 p.m. ET Saturday, NFL Network)

The Steelers have 23 offensive touchdowns on the year, tied with the Texans for the third-fewest in the NFL.

Of those, over half (12) have come from the 1 or 2-yard line. They’ve scored 20 of 23 touchdowns from inside the 10-yard line and just one touchdown from 20-plus yards out (24-yard line).

The average length of touchdown for the Steelers is 5.7 yards, the lowest in the NFL.

On the other hand, the Raiders have scored 34 offensive TDs on the season (12th-most) and only four of those 34 have come from the 1 or 2-yard line. Instead, a whopping 16 of 34 TDs have come from 20-plus yards out.

The average length of touchdown for the Raiders is 21.7 yards, the second-highest in the NFL.

Las Vegas is an explosive passing offense that can also break explosive runs. The way to attack the Steelers defense has been through the air. And in particular, their secondary.

Over the second half of the season, on passes thrown over 10 yards downfield, the Steelers defense ranks:

No. 28 in EPA/att (+0.59)
No. 27 in success rate (55%)
No. 27 in completion rate (55%)
No. 23 in yards/att (11.8)

And this is despite facing many below-average passing offenses like the Colts (No. 32), Panthers (No. 30), Saints (No. 20) and Falcons (No. 19) during that span, in addition to the Ravens starting a backup quarterback.

These were games vs. the now-benched Matt Ryan, now-benched Marcus Mariota, backup Tyler Huntley, Sam Darnold and Andy Dalton.

The only good QBs they faced were Joe Burrow (37 points scored) and Jalen Hurts (35 points scored).

That’s five bad QBs to two good QBs. You should not rank bottom-10 against that schedule. But the Steelers secondary did.

Pittsburgh is actually the second-worst overall pass defense the Raiders have played in their last seven games.

And the Steelers rank No. 31 vs. WR1s, which means a solid spot for Davante Adams.

So I can completely see why, when it was announced Kenny Pickett was starting and this line bumped to Pittsburgh -3, that the 3’s were bought by sharp groups, driving this line back down to 2 and 2.5.

I have two lone concerns for the Raiders.

1. Weather. It’s supposed to be 12 degrees, will feel like -5 degrees and will feature 15 mph winds with gusts of 32 mph. This stadium is notoriously difficult to kick FGs in, particularly when it is this windy. Additionally, this would impact the way the Raiders need to attack Pittsburgh, which is via the air and specifically, via deeper passes.

2. The passing of Franco Harris. I would only consider teasing the Raiders at this point.

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Giants at Vikings (1 p.m. ET Saturday, FOX and FOX Sports App)

The Vikings are 10-0 straight up (SU) and 5-4-1 against the spread (ATS) as a favorite this season.

The Giants are 8-2 ATS as an underdog.

While this is a big letdown spot for the Giants, having upset the Commanders on Sunday Night and now playing on the road on short rest, there also is an element of letdown for the Vikings, having expended a ton of energy in the largest comeback in NFL history while clinching the NFC North title at the same time.

But there are some reasons to believe the Giants' offense can do enough to keep this game close.

Since Week 6 on first downs in the first half, the Giants have the worst rushing attack in the NFL.

Passes: 8.0 YPA, No. 12
RB runs: 3.2 YPC, No. 32

And since Week 11, these passes are averaging 10.0 YPA, ranking No. 2, while RB runs still average only 3.9 YPC.

In an EPA basis, over the second half of the season, the Giants have the third-best efficiency when passing but the third-worst efficiency when running on these first-half first downs.

But they have been running their RBs at the third-highest rate in the NFL.

The Vikings defense has been bad but has major splits against the pass by down:

First down: 8.8 YPA, 69% completions, +0.21 EPA/att, 53% success
Second down: 7.6 YPA, 68% completions, +0.21 EPA/att, 47% success
Third down: 4.9 YPA, 62% completions, -0.20 EPA/att, 35% success

Over the entire season, the Vikings rank as the seventh-best pass defense on third down but rank fifth-worst on early downs.

But since Week 10, the Vikings rank as the NFL’s worst defense vs. early-down passes.

The Giants could absolutely exploit this if they chose to.

Saquon Barkley is also healthy for the first time in a long time. He stated that he felt the best he has in weeks coming into Sunday night, and it showed as he turned 23 touches into 120 yards and a touchdown against a Washington defense that limited him to 81 yards on 23 touches two weeks earlier.

While I think the Giants' offense can exploit the Vikings defense if they push the right buttons, this Vikings' offense will be productive, particularly if Kirk Cousins can avoid his struggles against man coverage and blitzes. The Giants play man coverage at the No. 1-highest rate and blitz at the No. 1-highest rate.

Cousins tends to overweight passes to Justin Jefferson in this situation, targeting him a team-high 33.3% of the team targets when Kirk Cousins has been blitzed and 32.6% of his routes against man coverage since adding T.J. Hockenson.

I’d look to go Over on Jefferson props and the Over on the game total at 48 points.

PICK: Over 48 total points combined by both teams at FOX Bet

Warren Sharp is an NFL analyst for FOX Sports. He is the founder of Sharp Football Analysis and has worked as a consultant for league franchises while also previously contributing to ESPN and The Ringer, among other outlets. He studied engineering before using his statistical acumen to create predictive football models. You can follow Warren on Twitter at @SharpFootball.

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