San Francisco (+1.5) @ Oakland (-1.5); Total set at 37.5
This game represents another in-state rivalry on the schedule tonight and these two teams renew their acquaintances in the “Black Hole.” These teams play every year in the preseason, but something to note is that they do play each other once every four years in the regular season and this year happens to be one of those times. The preseason results in those years point out some valuable trends for tonight.
Since 2005, the home team has won every preseason game between these two teams with any game not being in the first week of preseason playing over the total; except in 2006 when they had to face each other during the season. In 2006 and 2002 (the years they met in the fall), the home team was Oakland and they were laying -3 and -4, and won ATS both times by scores of 23-7 and 17-10. Both of these games were low scoring, boring affairs because neither team wanted to reveal their hand too much, which is exactly what tonight’s game should be like.
The play calling on both sides will be very simplistic tonight as the coaches will just want their starters to work on the execution of their main plays so that those plays can be relied upon during the season. There will be no masking of defenses, very little blitzing, and no trickery on offense. All those things will be saved for the meeting on Oct 17, in San Francisco.
That being said, the best play here is on the under. Previous years showed that these teams don’t do much scoring in this situation and those two scores mentioned previously never even threatened going over 37.5. 37 is such a key number and with the strength of these two teams being on the defensive side of the ball, you can expect that they both will play well today knowing that the offense is just going to run “base” plays. San Francisco could take a cue from Jacksonville’s news today regarding resting their RB, because Frank Gore is a big part of the 49ers offense and doesn’t need to stay in too long to take unnecessary hits in a preseason game.
The situation in this game calls for a play on the under, and the Raiders are also 8-1 to the under in Week 3 of the preseason (when starters play a lot) over the past nine years, so they have league trends supporting this play as well. Recent years suggest that Oakland should win ATS being the home team, but the better bet here is on the Under.
Take Under 37.5 points in this game tonight.
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