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Week 8 Sunday Night Football lost a lot of its luster when Patrick Mahomes went down with a knee injury. Optimism abounds for a return sooner rather than later, but he will not play in Sunday’s matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Green Bay Packers.
The Chiefs are currently a 3.5-point home underdog at DraftKings Sportsbook due to that injury. DK Sportsbook director Johnny Avello believes Mahomes is worth six to seven points per game, with some movement depending on the opponent. Moore is a stable veteran backup, but obviously he’s far down the QB food chain. All that suggests the Chiefs would have been a field goal or so favorite against the Packers with a healthy Mahomes.
It’s no surprise that the betting public is backing the Packers by a sizable majority at most any sportsbook. No Mahomes has people scared to back the Chiefs. They see that 3.5 or four points and figure the Packers will come into Arrowhead and roll. After all Aaron Rodgers just had a monster game and that offense seems to be coming together. How are the Chiefs going to hang with them?
I see that 3.5 or four points and see some value. Conventional wisdom very well might hold up, but I’m inclined to take the points. Recency bias is an opportunity to make some money and there is a lot of it baked into this game. The Chiefs is probably not as good as the unit that decimated the Broncos, but I think we see Rodgers come back to earth to a certain degree.
Frank Clark’s injury is concerning, especially with Chris Jones still not practicing. That will be something to track heading into Friday, and frankly, leaves me a little hesitant until we see the final injury report.
On the other side of the ball, I think we see Reid focus on his ground game on offense. The Packers defense ranks sixth in pass efficiency, but 19th in rushing efficiency. With that stable of running backs to rotate in, that looks like a spot where the Chiefs can keep this game close. Andy Reid will put Matt Moore in a position to find some success, but they’ll look to their ground game to keep this thing close.