The gambling gods giveth, the gambling gods taketh away

Week 7 has one more game to go, but it’s already been a wild weekend for sports bettors. Almost every week during the NFL season, we’ll see bad beats — or good beats depending on how you bet them! In Week 7, we hit full tilt on Sunday.

Lions (+2) beat Falcons on last second touchdown

That subhead does not do this game justice. 24 hours after Indiana beat Penn State after the Nittany Lions accidentally scored a touchdown, the exact same thing happened in Lions-Falcons.

Detroit took a 16-14 lead on a field goal with 3:16 to go in the game. Atlanta then marched down the field with ease and had a 1st and goal at the 10 with 1:04 remaining in the game and the Lions out of timeouts. They could run down the field goal and either set up a chip shot field goal, or potentially run in a touchdown with little to no time remaining.

Instead, Falcons running back Todd Gurley broke through the Lions defense and was unable to stop himself at the goal line. He just barely broke the plane and scored with 1:04 remaining. The Falcons converted the two-point try and led 22-16.

The Lions took over at their own 25 with no timeouts remaining and 64 seconds on the clock. They then proceeded to march down the field, and benefited from a late replay review that saved them in the closing seconds. Matthew Stafford found Kenny Golladay for 29 yards at the Falcons 11. The Lions ran up to spike the ball with five seconds left, but running back Kerryon Johnson was moving at the snap. A false start penalty would have run ten seconds off the clock and meant the game was over.

Instead, the refs stopped the play after the spike to review the Golladay catch. They upheld the call, but it gave the Lions time to be ready to spike the ball and stop the clock with three seconds remaining. They still needed a spectacular play from Stafford to find T.J. Hockenson in the end zone, but that replay review was critical.

If the Falcons had simply run down clock and kicked the field goal, they would have won money line wagers, while the Lions would have covered in a 17-16 loss. Instead, Lions ML bettors also escaped with a victory and Falcons spread bettors were left in stunned disbelief.

Cody Parkey misses a field goal in Browns (-3.5) 37-34 win

The Bengals were giving the Browns all they could handle, and Cincinnati looked ready to win this game outright. Baker Mayfield was abysmal in the first half and the Bengals led most of the first three quarters. However, Mayfield got on track and the game turned into a second half shootout.

The teams exchanged leads five different times in the closing 18 minutes of football, including twice in the final 1:06 of the game. Bengals QB Joe Burrow connected with Gio Bernard on a 4th and 1 pass at the Browns 3-yard line to give Cincinnati a 34-31 lead. Mayfield responded with four big passes in the span of less than, capped by this perfect pass to Donovan Peoples-Jones with 11 seconds remaining.

The Browns led 37-34, with the extra point pending. Browns kicker Cody Parkey then proceeded to pull it wide.

The Bengals were unable to convert a last gasp pass on the ensuing drive, but it didn’t matter if you had the Browns -3.5. If you had the Bengals +3.5? Well, congrats!

Cardinals (+3.5) win wild overtime comeback vs. Seahawks

There were so many dramatic flips in this game that it’s not really fair to call any of them bad beats. When you bet Seahawks games, and particularly Seahawks-Cardinals games in Arizona, you are buckled in knowing there’s a good chance things will get crazy. Week 7 Sunday Night Football delivered.

Russell Wilson and the Seahawks were rolling for extended stretches of this game, and yet somehow the Cardinals hung around. Wilson remains the front-runner for MVP, but three interceptions dinged his case, and they gave the Cardinals the chances they needed to get back into the game.

Seattle had a 13-point lead late in the second quarter and led by 34-24 with 6:44 remaining in the fourth quarter. The Cardinals got the ball back and that’s when things went sideways in this game.

It started with Arizona seemingly taking their time moving down the field even as they trailed by two scores. They eventually found themselves attempting a 52-yard field goal with 3:02 remaining. Zane Gonzalez converted it, but then the Seahawks were called for an illegal leverage penalty. The Cardinals had new life and two plays later, Kyler Murray found Christian Kirk for a touchdown.

The Seahawks seemed ready to lock the game down with a timely Wilson scramble and slide. He grabbed nine yards and slid to a 2nd and 1 with a shade over two minutes remaining. It ran the clock down to the two-minute warning and the Seahawks converted the 2nd and 1 on the other side of two minutes. Arizona used a timeout, but Seattle just needed a first down to finish the game.

Carlos Hyde rushed twice to set up a 3rd and 2, but he was stopped for no gain on the next play to force a punt. Arizona took over at their own 20 with 52 seconds remaining and Murray went to work. He marched the Cardinals down the field and the Cardinals eventually kicked a 44-yard field goal as time expired to force overtime.

And then things got even crazier!

The Seahawks won the overtime coin toss, but the Cardinals defense made some big plays to force a punt. Murray then led them down to the Seahawks when we had Kliff Kingsbury’s most inexplicable decision of the night. With 2:47 remaining and facing a 2nd and 15 at the Seahawks 23, Kingsbury sent on Gonzalez for the 41-yard field goal attempt. Murray had just taken a big hit, and it was clear that Kingsbury was coaching scared. It would be one thing if he was down inside the 10 setting up a chip shot field goal, but 41 yards is no gimme.

It got slightly crazier when Kingsbury called a timeout to avoid a delay of game penalty. The Cardinals got the snap off and Gonzalez converted the kick, but the timeout negated it. After the timeout, Gonzalez booted the field goal wide left, and Kingsbury had managed to ice his own kicker!

The Seahawks took over at their own 31 with 2:42 remaining and I think most of us assumed Russ would drive down and end this thing. He did throw a touchdown pass to David Moore, but it was negated by offensive holding. On the very next play he threw an interception, with Isaiah Simmons getting the pick on only his fourth defensive play of the night.

The Cardinals then moved down the field and Gonzalez converted a 48-yard field goal with 15 seconds remaining to win the game.

That final sentence might seem a little anti-climactic, but given how the game played out starting in the middle of the fourth quarter, it was almost a relief just to be finished. Some will claim this as a bad beat, but VSiN’s Ben Fawkes summed up the final hour of this game best.