By Andrew Doherty
We took what the board gave us last week and kept it simple, placing only one bet on the early lines before injury reports came out. As a result, the lone early line bet was cashed on Thursday Night when the Bengals handily defeated the Dolphins. After going 2-1 on early line bets the week prior, we’re on a roll and looking to continue in Week 5. We’re only rolling with two plays here but there is a ton of value in both, especially at the current odds. Here are the best early NFL plays for this week:
Top Early Week 5 NFL Lines
Bengals +3.5 @ Ravens
Most of the discussion surrounding the Ravens recently has been centered around Lamar Jackson and several of the remarkable performances he’s had to start the season. What seems to be flying under the radar, as a result, is just how awful Baltimore’s secondary has been to this point. They’re allowing 315.3 passing yards per game through four games, which is particularly noteworthy because two of their opponents have been the Jets and Patriots… not exactly a pair of prolific offenses. They also allowed a ridiculous 439 yards passing and 6 touchdowns to Tua and the Dolphins. This week they face off with a Bengals passing attack that started slow but is improving weekly, with Joe Burrow passing for 562 yards with 5 touchdowns over the past two weeks.
Things haven’t been much better for the Ravens defense on the ground, either. They’ve allowed their opponents thus far to average 5.0 yards per attempt in the running game, for a total of 109.8 yards per game. That puts the total yards allowed per game at a putrid 437.8 for Baltimore. With the Bengals revamped offensive line finally appearing to gel, they’ll be able to find success through the air or on the ground at will against this struggling Ravens D.
Eagles -5 @ Cardinals
Philly is for real. Week Four’s win over the Jaguars wasn’t pretty, but they were able to grind it out in some horrible weather conditions. They’re really strong on either side of the ball and there’s no reason to believe they won’t continue rolling in Week Five against the underperforming Cardinals.
Arizona’s offense has taken a step back from 2021. Kyler Murray has failed to hit 210 yards passing in half of his games this year. To be fair, it’s not totally on him. The Cardinals wide receivers really aren’t offering much outside of Marquise Brown, who’s likely to see a heavy dose of star cornerback Darius Slay. While they did get some solid production out of Greg Dortch, he was held to 1 catch on 1 target for 6 yards after Rondale Moore made his unimpressive 2022 debut.
The Cardinals run game hasn’t yielded much success to this point and is likely to continue its struggles against the Eagle’s strong defensive front. James Conner has failed to eclipse 30 yards rushing in two games, failed to hit 40 yards rushing in three games, and has yet to hit 60 yards rushing in a game all year. His fortunes aren’t likely to improve this week. While some of the slack in the ground attack is picked up by Kyler’s running prowess, it’s not ideal to rely on him to do it every single week.
Jalen Hurts, on the other hand, has been on fire this year and is an early favorite to win the MVP award. Hurts has gotten it done through the air and on the ground to this point, and shows no signs of slowing. Philly has been extremely efficient on offense, behind a group of talented linemen. Miles Sanders and the running game have excelled, and the Eagles top pass-catching trio of AJ Brown, Devonta Smith and Dallas Goedert have overmatched their opponents each week. Arizona has shown nothing to indicate they’ll be able to slow down Philadelphia and I’m comfortable betting this one all the way up to -7.
