We were able to get good value backing the Dolphins and Titans on the lookahead spreads last week, with Miami flipping to the favorite in the Madrid game while Tennessee has gone from catching 7.5 to 6.5 at several books. Outside of those moves, the Sunday games this week have seen the Chargers, 49ers and Eagles all move up from -1.5 to either laying 2.5 or 3 points, and when you consider that was the line in the Commanders-Dolphins game as well, it’s clear that 1.5 is a number that has the potential to make a key move after the Sunday rerelease.

This week, we see three games that have the home team favored by 1.5 on Thursday: Steelers at Bears, Browns at Raiders, Jaguars at Cardinals. Where are those lines likely to go?

In Browns-Raiders, only Cleveland will have played by the release, and it’s unlikely the Browns’ offense has a lot of success against the Ravens. But if the defense can limit Lamar Jackson and Co. in what could be poor weather, people may talk themselves into backing Cleveland — we saw it happen in Week 10 when the Browns flipped from ‘dogs to favorites against the Jets after the trade deadline.

Steelers-Bears has the potential to flip to Pittsburgh being favored. Their offense should look much better against the Bengals‘ defense this week, while the Bears could struggle to have offensive success in Minnesota. If the Vikings‘ offense can light up a Bears defense that has been inconsistent, I could definitely see the Steelers moving to favorites here.

Jaguars-Cardinals is a bit tougher to crack, but I have more hope that Jacoby Brissett is competitive against a beat-up 49ers defense than the Jaguars finding success against a Chargers defense that has been elite over the last few weeks. This might be one where Arizona reopens at -1.5 or -2 but quickly moves to -2 or -2.5.

What else can we predict this week? Let’s take a look at the consensus Week 12 lookahead lines and then share our best bets to lock in early.

Week 12 lookahead lines

Bills (-2.5) at Texans, 45
Patriots (-5.5) at Bengals, 51
Colts at Chiefs (-4.5), 50.5
Giants at Lions (-11), 49.5
Vikings at Packers (-6.5), 43.5
Steelers at Bears (-1.5), 46.5
Jets at Ravens (-14.5), 44.5
Seahawks (-12.5) at Titans, 43.5
Browns at Raiders (-1.5), 37.5
Jaguars at Cardinals (-1.5), 45.5
Falcons (-3.5) at Saints, 41.5
Eagles (-3.5) at Cowboys, 50.5
Buccaneers at Rams (-6), 49.5
Panthers at 49ers (-6.5), 46

Week 12 lookahead picksColts at Chiefs

The Colts are off this week, so this comes down to how the Chiefs perform against the Broncos. But even if that one is a blowout, I struggle to see how you can give the Colts this many points with how well they’ve played. If the Chiefs lose, this could reopen at 3. I’d take the 4.5 now with Indianapolis and expect that even if the opener is Chiefs -4.5 or -5, that the market will knock it down to at least Chiefs -4 pretty quickly.

Falcons at Saints

This again comes down to how one team performs with the Saints off this week, but considering the Falcons are only laying 3.5 against a Panthers team that was just beat convincingly by New Orleans, anything other than a Falcons rout against Carolina will make this clearly a spot where the Saints should be catching a field goal at most. The Panthers had just 175 yards against the Saints, so I don’t know how the Falcons are going to beat that performance defensively on Sunday.

Bills at Texans

The Texans are coming off an impressive win against the Jaguars without C.J. Stroud, but their line against the Titans has moved against them this week. And with a low total, there’s potential for the market to be unimpressed by what it sees from Houston on Sunday. The Bills are picking up the pieces after an embarrassing loss that has them at depressed value in the market, and we’ll see if they bounce back against the Bucs. I see this having more potential to reopen at Bills -3 than lower than -2.5.

Other notes: Eagles-Cowboys is unlikely to move on reopen with both teams playing in primetime on Sunday and Monday, but by Tuesday I could see the Eagles as much bigger favorites if they are able to cover against a great Lions team, which the market expects by moving that line from 1.5 to 2.5. Maybe people buy in to the Cowboys’ defense if their trade acquisitions have a great game against the Raiders, but I see more potential for this to rise to where we see the Patriots-Bengals game where the Pats are -5.5 … It’s hard to say that you should grab a -14.5 before it goes up, but I don’t see a scenario where anyone is playing the Jets at that number in Baltimore. If we’re lucky, we might be able to grab -14 on the reopen, but there’s potential for this to get to 17 in a hurry.