Jets @ Colts (-10) O/u: 45
Both the Jets and Colts suffer offensively through the air and succeed on the ground and have game managers running their QB roles. IND has no impressive wins as they have beaten the Dolphins, Texans, and 49ers. The Jets have beaten the Titans and the Bengals while losing every other game. It is hard to tell which direction the Jets will go on a weekly basis, but Mike White seems to bring some consistency in his game. The turnover margin differential is a concern for me but I think on a game-by-game basis Carson Wentz evens the scales.
THE COLTS HAVE THE LOWEST PRESSURE % IN THE NFL ON THE QB. This is a huge deal when it comes to hurrying Mike White and forcing him into making bad decisions, game managers do best when they are allowed to manage the game. The Jets are 14th in pressure percentage, and since the Colts only blitz on 18.7% of their plays, I don’t expect the pressure percentage to rise too high regardless of the Jets' questionable offensive line.
The Jets and Colts are neck and neck when it comes to 3rd down conversion % against, but the gap widens when it comes to red zone defense, and not the way you’d expect. The Jets are 13th in Red Zone TD defense % while the Colts are 22nd. Both teams are low on the list in DADOT, meaning a lot of these throws in this game are going to be short, west-coast passes.
I have trouble giving a team 10 points in this matchup. While I understand that the Jets are the worse team, we don’t know a lot about Mike White, and neither do the Colts. They’ll get a chance to find out since they get no pressure on the QB and the Jets have to throw a lot usually because they’re behind. I know the Jets big focus in this game is limiting their turnovers, and while that may seem like a tall task since the Colts have 18 takeaways on the year and the Jets hold a -10-turnover differential, but 11 of those turnovers were Zach Wilson picks and there are only 2 fumbles they’ve lost this season, tied for 2nd lowest in the league. If the Jets come into this game tonight with a simplified game plan for a game manager and can limit the interceptions (one of the 2 last week was a tipped pass) they could play a relatively clean game, especially since IND is the only team in the league to not yet get to 50 pressures on the QB this season.
I think this game could be painful to watch, but with that being said it might be a good matchup. I look for the Jets to come out firing, maybe one or two trick plays that they’ve been working on to get an early shift in the momentum, and with both teams being better at running than passing offensively, but better at stopping the run than stopping the pass defensively, I think there may be some mid-game stagnation. I look for this to be a low-scoring game between two teams running west coast offenses.
DRAFTKINGS/FANDUEL NOTE: Since this game seems to be going the check-down/west coast offense game, look for Michael Carter and Jonathan Taylor as single-game captains as well as Mo-Alie-Cox and maybe even Tyler Kroft for bailout-play points.
Picks
Jets +10 2u (line can be found at Circa Sportsbook)
Jets/Colts UNDER 45.5 1u (line can be found at Caesars' Sportsbook)
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