Every NFL team's record vs. the spread and Week 3 preview

It's rare that bookmakers show a sign of weakness, but we've got a trend to monitor as you prepare for Week 3, the last weekend of the month. In September games since the beginning of last season, under tickets have cashed 78.6% of the time when the over/under is set under 45 points. That number is down a considerable amount from the September rate over the previous decade (49.1%) and got me to thinking — do sportsbooks underestimate just how bad the bad teams are?

The thought behind that hypothesis is that low totals often involve at least one bad offense and, in this era of professional football, a bad offense is more often than not a bad team. This train of thinking gained some steam when I looked at games in which a team was favored by more than a touchdown.

2011-20: Those heavy favorites covered 47.9% of the time

2021-22: Those heavy favorites have covered 58.8% of the time

So we've got big favorites covering and low totals going under. To me, that reflects an underestimation of dominance. Now, it is worth noting, that overs connected on 53.9% of games in that low total window after September ended last season, so it's possible that this «flaw» is rectified sooner than later. Understanding that, we do have another week of September and we have plenty of low total spots in Week 3. There aren't many big favorites (the Bengals and Rams are both road teams favored by more than a field goal), but if the books are underestimating how bad some of these offenses are… two of them playing in the same game (Texans/Bears, Falcons/Seahawks, Cowboys/Giants), feels favorable if you're buying this trend.

Here are our ATS standings, matchups and betting nugget for each team, updated weekly.

Steelers ATS: 1-0-1O/U: 0-2What we know