Geoff Schwartz’s 3 best bets for Week 11 in the NFL

Let’s get right into this week’s gambling action. We’ve got some amazing games on the board in Week 11.

I love the Seahawks in this spot. Russell Wilson’s career record at home is 39-12, and that includes the Week 9 loss against the Chargers. The Seahawks are getting back to their winning formula of the past — running the football and playing good defense. In their last seven games, the Seahawks have averaged 176 yards on the ground. They play a Packers defense coming off a short week, and Green Bay can’t stop the run. Packers are 26th against the run according to Football Outsiders.

The Packers offense, even with Rodgers getting healthy, hasn’t been its usual scoring self. They are “only” 13th in points per game. They average 21 points on the road and almost 28 at home. So a Packers offense that struggles a tad more on the road and a defense that won’t be able to stop the Seahawks run game, on a short week, against a Seahawks defense that’s getting better? I’ll take the Seahawks.

This game has been moved from Mexico City to Los Angeles after field conditions were determined to be too poor in Estadio Azteca. Since the time of the announcement, the line has been driven to the Rams. I just don’t get this.

The Rams might be an outstanding team, but they aren’t outstanding against the spread. They covered in the first three games of the season, but since then it’s been one push, five losses, and one win (against the lowly Niners). I think this trend continues this weekend.

We all know about both these offenses, so I won’t bother y’all with that. The reason the Rams haven’t been able to cover these games is because of their defense. In the last seven games, they’ve allowed an average 27.9 points per game, compared to 12 points per game through the first three. Most of their issues are with the pass defense as Aqib Talib has been hurt since Week 3, and former Chief Marcus Peters isn’t playing as well this season as his past performances.

Another reason I like the Chiefs in this game is that their defense is the opposite of the Rams lately. It’s gotten better as the season has progressed. Over the last four games they are allowing only 17 points and have rushed the passer much better. To be fair, the Chiefs have played the Bengals, Broncos, Browns, and Cardinals — not exactly a murderers’ row of offenses — so this could be smoke and mirrors. Nonetheless, I like the Chiefs’ chances to cover this game with their defense playing better.

I like the Falcons in this spot for a couple of reasons. First, the Falcons are coming back home after two weeks on the road. The Falcons in the dome play much differently than on the road. So far this season they’ve scored 31, 37, 34 and 23 at home. While the Cowboys have an excellent defense, I don’t trust their offense to score enough points here. They are too up and down weekly for me to trust them in this spot.