By Dan Rivera
And here we go again! Looking ahead to Week 6, I want to stress being careful in chasing CLV (closing line value), not just this week but for the rest of the season going forward in general. We could continue to see COVID-19 cases pop up around the league, and in that case a game could be in jeopardy of being played or have key guys missing. This is a tough week looking ahead for me personally because of this, and I simply don’t have a good feel vs. prior weeks like we've had with past editions of this weekly article:
Bears @ Panthers (-2 BetOnline)
Another Bears comeback, and another week I will be fading them. I just can’t back a team that seems like they need to magically pull out a win each week. I did lose my best bet of the Bucs on Thursday Night Football, sure, but the Bears travel to play Week 7 at the Los Angeles Rams in primetime. I am concerned Chicago is in lookahead spot here coming off a nice win over Tom Brady. I like the Panthers -2.
Texans @ Titans (-4.5 BetOnline)
The Tennessee Titans are in the odd situation that I think that favors them more than the Bills in Week 5. The Buffalo Bills play next Sunday against the Chiefs, which is a big lookahead game for them. The Titans, on the other hand, haven’t had much practice over the last few weeks, in what essentially has been consecutive bye weeks, but I think the Titans get it done ultimately over the Bills and gain steam in the market heading into this Week 6 matchup against their rival Texans. I like the Titans at -4.5 here.
Bengals @ Colts (-7.5 -115 FanDuel; -7.5 -110 BetOnline)
I like the Cincinnati Bengals +7.5 for -105 on FanDuel in this spot. The Colts offense hasn’t looked very good, even against bad teams, in 2020. Indianapolis' defense is good, but I want to see another week of them before I buy them as legit and elite. Joe Burrow has looked fantastic in his first four NFL career starts, and the number of +7.5 will have a lot of sharps grabbing this number for Cincinnati. The Ravens play the Bengals this week and I am expecting Burrow to put up some points against them. A solid showing from Burrow could easily move this line past the key number of seven and lose value that we now have.