NFL Betting Trends: Road dogs and Unders are holding strong

After over a quarter of the NFL season, there are plenty of juicy trends and eye-catching analytics available to make smart wagering decisions.

Let's break down the latest metrics from around the NFL and determine the trends you should take advantage of in Week 7 and beyond.

Road underdogs after a loss

Road underdogs after a loss have a 17-11 record against the spread in 2021. Since the start of the 2019 season, road underdogs are 105-75-5 ATS after a loss.

In Week 7, there are seven games that fit this mold — Denver at Cleveland, Washington at Green Bay, New York Jets at New England, Detroit at Los Angeles Rams, Philadelphia at Las Vegas, Chicago at Tampa Bay, and Houston at Arizona. This trend continues to be a moneymaker if you play every game blindly, and there are very few long term trends you can say that about.

Road dogs and Unders holding strong

Through six weeks of the season, the Under is 51-42 overall and 49-33 in non-overtime games. In primetime games, the Under is 6-12 and four of those Unders were on Thursday night games. This means all non-overtime, Sunday-afternoon games are 43-26-1 in favor of the Under.

Home underdogs have not done well in recent weeks, but that is not the case for dogs on the road. Road underdogs are 33-22 ATS through six weeks, so the previous trend also comes into effect here.

Undefeated teams get too much respect

Once you get into October, the undefeated teams remaining start to get a little too much respect in the opening lines. A big part of this is that the public will continue to hammer the undefeated teams against the spread no matter what the spread is.

Since 2003, an unbeaten team favored by 17 or more points has never covered the spread in October or later (0-6 ATS). Another interesting trend here is that when a team that lost by 17 or more points the week before is playing a team that won by 17 or more points in the previous week, that team coming off the loss is 96-59-4 ATS. Over-inflated lines cause these types of trends to be so successful, so swallow your pride and take the terrible team over the great team against the spread.

The Monday night to Sunday afternoon turnaround

Football is a grueling sport and short rests can make a massive difference. It's the reason that Thursday Night Football often looks worse and worse as the season progresses. To a lesser extent, you can also see this from teams that go from playing on Monday night to having to play a Sunday afternoon game the next week as well.

The Tennessee Titans are 2-12 ATS in their last 14 Sunday games where they played the previous Monday Night Football game. There are other trends in this game that favor the Chiefs as well. The road team is 8-3 ATS in the last 11 meetings between these two teams and the Chiefs are 4-1 ATS in their last five games in the month of October.

Honeymoon ends after one game for interim coaches

You will see a new head coach take over in the middle of the season and win their first game quite often in the NFL. In fact, it happened twice last year with the Houston Texans and Atlanta Falcons. However, they almost never win the second game.

The last interim head coach to win the second game of the season was in 2015 when Dan Campbell did it for the Dolphins. Since then, interim head coaches went 0-12 in this spot. The Raiders are favorites here and may be getting too much love since they looked impressive in their one game honeymoon.