3 NFL Preseason Best Bets for Saturday, August 12

Now that we’ve handed out the freshly tailored gold jackets and the shiny, new Hall of Fame busts are displayed in Canton, the NFL Preseason can fully begin.

This week’s schedule is perfect for late-summer viewing experiences. It works around weekend vacation travel, with four games played across Thursday and Sunday, while Friday and Saturday hold the spotlight with six games apiece from coast to coast.

We’ll focus on Saturday’s slate for this piece, which includes several Super Bowl contenders like the Eagles, Bills, and Cowboys, as well as the featured team on this season of Hard Knocks, the New York Jets.

We lost our best bet during the Hall of Fame Game last week, and the first game of the year finished over 33.5 points to render our ticket worthless. There is more value to take advantage of with this larger sample of games, and our best bets for Saturday’s Week 1 action are featured next.

Jets @ Panthers: UNDER 37.5 (-110) (FanDuel)

Several other totals on Saturday’s board have moved three or more points since opening, but this number is not one of them.

The Jets’ reserves were outplayed by Cleveland in multiple facets of the game, highlighted by a +17 advantage in offensive plays, a +1.4 effort in yards per play, and nearly a 12-minute disparity in time of possession for the Browns.

New York’s trio of quarterbacks who saw the field combined for a 43.5% completion rate on 23 throws and a quarterback rating of 44.6 in the loss. Their running game was equally ineffective, with four ball carriers accumulating just 53 yards on 23 attempts (2.3 yards per carry).

Fifth-round pick Israel Abanikanda led the group with nine rushes for 27 yards and a touchdown, New York’s only non-field goal points on the day.

Without knowing much of what we’ll see from Carolina, other than potentially a healthy dose of a rookie quarterback against a proven defensive scheme, we’ll play the under in Charlotte.

Eagles +210 over Ravens (Unibet)

The Ravens’ recent record is one of the first things that comes to mind when you play word association with “preseason.” According to a USA Today piece, Baltimore hasn’t lost since 2016 in these exhibition games and is 20-3 against the spread. They’ve failed to cover three times in that stretch by a combined six points.

Why then, you’d ask, would we bet on the Eagles to win outright as six-point underdogs? Because everyone and their friend will be betting on the Ravens to continue this run.

We haven’t seen either team yet this season, and while Baltimore’s second and third-string guys will want to keep that streak going, we like the value of picking Philadelphia in this battle of the birds.

Jaguars @ Cowboys: UNDER 38 (-115) (WynnBet)

This total has moved five points since it opened, the most significant change for any game in the first week of preseason matchups.

Both teams bring back top-ten scoring offenses into the 2023 season, but the chances that any of the players who largely contributed to those numbers play for more than a half are slim.

We will lean toward the under in the game with the second-highest projected score on Saturday’s docket.