The Raiders decided to spend Thursday night reminding us that nothing is easy in the NFL. Just when you think there’s a layup option with a team laying more than a touchdown on a short week against a team that’s coming off an overtime loss, you get an incredible defensive performance from the Raiders.

It’s a good reminder: there are no layups in the NFL. It sure feels like there’s a few more out there in Week 10, so be very, very careful. 

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The Panthers are rolling! The Jets traded everyone and are giving up! You can’t stop the Patriots! There are plenty of storylines and narratives that people will lean into this week, because narratives are easier than accepting the fact that the NFL is a week-to-week proposition for every single team. 

Beware the layup and beware the narrative in Week 10. 

Bet NFL Week 10 action at BetMGM, where new users can get up to $1,500 in bonus bets back if their first bet doesn’t win:

Best betsSaints +5.5 at Panthers

The Saints got completely steamrolled in Los Angeles last week and now have to deal with traveling across the country for a second straight road game, where they will be, once again, pretty massive underdogs. But this is a pretty big overcorrection by the market to the Saints getting ragdolled by the Rams (maybe the best team in football) and the Panthers shocking the world by beating the Packers (who love to play down to their competition) on the road. 

The lookahead line was closer to Panthers -3 and that’s a significant amount of value being presented to us for this game in the form of — gulp — betting on the Saints. 

If the Panthers won this game by 20 points, I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ll have some survivor entries with the Panthers. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the Saints won either. And even with Rashid Shaheed and Trevor Penning now gone and an already weak offense weakened even further, there’s a chance Kellen Moore throws out a complete junk offense that cobbles together close to 20 points. 

Carolina will play the run game, because it’s what the Panthers do, and that likely means letting the Saints hang around for most of this game and potentially giving them a chance to win at the end. 

Rams -4.5 at 49ers

The market is pushing this line towards the Rams despite this game taking place in San Francisco and I don’t care. I won’t think twice about backing the Rams for roughly the 15th time this season, despite there only being 10 weeks of football.

But I’m fine with it, because the Rams might very well be the best team in football. They’re headed to San Francisco for a revenge game (of sorts), having lost to the 49ers a few weeks back in one of the flukiest losses you’ll ever see thanks to Mac Jones morphing into Tom Brady, Kendrick Bourne blacking out and thinking he was Randy Moss and Kyle Shanahan calling an incredible game. 

The Rams know how important this game is — not only do they want to get payback for that TNF loss, but this could very well be the game that determines the NFC West and the likelihood of the Rams getting the No. 1 seed in the playoffs. 

They’re going to come out guns blazing and Matthew Stafford is going to cement his MVP case. 

Steelers +3 at Chargers

We gave this one out in our in our Bet It Now column earlier this week and it looks like the market is finally moving in our direction, with several -2.5 lines popping up for the Chargers.

It makes sense: this should be a home game for Pittsburgh once again in Los Angeles. The Chargers fan base is much bigger, but the Steelers are a bunch of traveling maniacs and there’s a ton of Steelers fans who are transplants in L.A. Remember when they started their own version of “Renegade” in that soccer stadium while SoFi was being built? We should see something similar.

More importantly, the Chargers just aren’t the same team without Joe Alt. The stats back it up and the eye test really backs it up. Justin Herbert will run a bunch in this game, I think, but it will be out of necessity. 

The Steelers defense has been terrible all season but showed some real signs of life on Sunday in Week 9’s win over the Colts. I think we see them back it up in Week 10 and Aaron Rodgers carves up the Chargers enough to escape with a win. 

Giants +4.5 at Bears

Another line that’s moved pretty substantially over the last few days, with the Bears getting all the way out to -4.5. We’re going to take the other side on this one, though, in part because we like the Giants getting this many points against a Bears defense that let Joe Flacco throw for 470 yards against them last week.

But it’s also because of the weather situation that might unfold here. We’ve seen this total dip significantly over the last 48 hours thanks to a forecast that’s calling for wind and possible rain. 

Good weather and favorable conditions are probably better for the Bears, in my opinion, even with the Giants lacking Cam Skattebo for a power run game. This thing could be sloppy in terms of the passing yards we see, which sets us up for some Jaxson Dart runs and short dinks and dunks to Wan’Dale Robinson and Theo Johnson, with an ugly cover and maybe a win by the Giants.   

Buccaneers -2.5 vs. Patriots

Speaking of ugly, the Bucs are going to have to do this one in pretty ugly fashion, because it’s not looking like Tampa Bay is going to have its full compliment of offensive weapons as Bucky Irving and Chris Godwin haven’t been practicing.

I expect the whole world to be on the Patriots here and I’m willing to take the other side — the Falcons nearly took down New England on the road and now the Pats are going to be a public darling a week later against Baker Mayfield away from home. 

This game has a high total, but I don’t think we see a lot of points early. However, I expect Drake Maye and Mayfield to sling it late against two passing defenses that can be had, and then eventually we get a Baker march down the field to win this game by a field goal.  

Week 10 NFL player props Alec Pierce Over 56.5 receiving yards

The market is catching up to Pierce, who has been stereotyped as a one-trick, deep-shot pony for a few years now. This year, however, Pierce has morphed into a legitimate borderline No. 1 threat. 

He played with Sauce Gardner in college (there’s a cool story about how he only would go against Gardner in practice) and the acquisition should motivate the old teammate in this spot. 

Pierce’s number is nearly five yards lower at MGM than anywhere else and he’s just become Daniel Jones‘ go-to target. I think we’ll see plenty of passes his way against a Falcons defense that is more than willing to give up deep shots, especially against an offensive line that can keep the pass rush at bay.  

TreVeyon Henderson Over 20.5 receiving yards

With Rhamondre Stevenson out last week, everyone expected a breakout Henderson game. We didn’t get it, per se, but we did see an interesting uptick in usage from a receiving perspective. 

You can’t run against the Bucs for the 15th year in a row, but you can throw dump off passes as an extension of the run game against them. And Henderson had four catches for 32 yards last week against the Falcons, which sets him up well here. 

Stevenson still isn’t practicing as of Thursday, which means more snaps for Henderson, which means more targets out of the backfield and an ability to clear this low number pretty easily.

Quinshon Judkins Over 81.5 rushing yards

Let’s target another rookie running back, with Judkins a full go in a game where the Browns are somehow road favorites. Such is life when you trade multiple former first team All Pro defenders! The Jets did just that and it should mean the Browns are able to be a little less lethargic on offense.

When Judkins is healthy and active he gets a massive workload, and I fully expect the Browns to let him carry the ball close to 20 times in this game. Just average 4.5 yards per carry, young man! 

Anytime touchdown scorer propsRashid Shaheed anytime TD 

Ordinarily we wouldn’t want to jump on board with a player who was traded midweek from one team to another when it comes to an anytime touchdown scorer, but Shaheed is a touch different because of his previous employer’s previous employee. 

Specifically, Shaheed’s old offensive coordinator from 2024 was Klint Kubiak, the current Seahawks offensive coordinator. And while he was healthy last year with Kubiak, Shaheed averaged 17.5 yards per reception and scored three touchdowns in just six games. 

He’s a perfect complement to what the Seahawks already have on offense — his deep-play ability across from Jaxon Smith-Njigba and coupled with Sam Darnold’s play-action passing is going to be a problem for defenses. 

The Seahawks will want to let people know about it immediately and I expect 1-2 shot plays drawn up for Shaheed despite the short week of prep. 

De’Von Achane anytime TD

Laying a little bit of juice here because of two things.

One, DraftKings has a much better price than most of the market by about 20 cents and -135 is an acceptable anytime touchdown number, in my opinion (but probably the outer limit unless we’re parlaying something).

Two, the usage for Achane remains silly through nine weeks of the season and the Bills defense, despite an incredible performance against Patrick Mahomes — particularly by the secondary — can be gotten, especially by running backs. Achane sees tons of carries, tons of passes and tons of red-zone opportunities. The back door for this is wide open in garbage time as well. 

Justin Jefferson anytime TD

Sound the siren, it’s the Pure Value Anytime Touchdown of the Week Play! Jefferson is still one of the best receivers in football and he’s catching plus money against a Ravens defense that is suddenly getting a lot of respect after turning the corner the last few weeks in terms of points allowed. 

And while I think that’s legit, especially because we saw them do it last year, this total is still a massive 48.5, which means we’re expecting a lot of points scored by both teams. The Vikings team total is 22.5, which means they’re expected to score at least three touchdowns (or a ton of field goals). 

J.J. McCarthy played pretty well last week and should have to sling it a little bit to keep up with Lamar Jackson. Jefferson at plus money is extremely enticing as a result.Â