NFL Preseason Betting Free Picks: Indianapolis Colts at Green Bay Packers

Added on Aug 25, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

NFL

Week Three of the NFL preseason will begin on Thursday night, and in the second of two games the Green Bay Packers will host the Indianapolis Colts. By now everyone knows that the Colts place little emphasis on the outcome of preseason games, which explains their 0-2 SU/ATS record thus far. The Packers have split their two exhibition contests both straight up and against the spread. Week Three is historically when teams give their starters the most playing time as a ‘dress rehearsal’ for the regular season.

Indianapolis Colts at Green Bay Packers
August 26, 5:00 PM Pacific

A couple of competing trends at work in this contest. On one hand, the Colts’ preseason ATS record is dismal—they’re now 4-11 straight up and ATS in the last three exhibition campaigns. On the other hand, one of the more enduring angles in preseason football has been to play on 0-2 teams in their third game. The premise behind that is that most teams rest their starters in the final preseason game, and since no one in theory wants to enter the regular season off a winless exhibition campaign the 0-2 team often puts up a good effort. The Colts just miss qualifying for a 63.6% winning situation—that’s the winning percentage of 0-2 teams in preseason off of a 14+ point loss. Indy lost by 13 last week.

If you don’t already know what happens to sports bettors who base their plays exclusively on trends you might want to ask the guy pumping Slurpees at the local 7-11 since that’s where they usually end up. The two loss preseason team angle isn’t bad in theory, and in some spots works in practice. Indianapolis, however, is a completely atypical team. They simply don’t care about preseason wins and losses and don’t feel the same urgency as a garden variety NFL side. They have complete confidence in their offense (and with good reason) and see no need to risk injury to key personnel to win a meaningless game.

The result of this trend is a more reasonable price than we might ordinarily have in this matchup. Green Bay is in a brutal ATS situation here—they’re 2-12 ATS against an opponent off of two preseason losses but, again, when you’re dealing with the Colts it’s a completely different dynamic. Indy will serve up the same thing they have in their first two exhibition games—a heapin’ helping of Curtis Painter at quarterback. Green Bay has a history of letting Aaron Rodgers air it out during the preseason and he’s as good as anyone at picking apart cover 2 defenses. In theory, the Colts’ stop unit might be a little better able to deal with a pass oriented attack than the run focused offenses of San Francisco and Buffalo but the tactical matchup matters little when only one team is interested in winning the game.

Indy does have a couple more days of preparation while the Packers are off a short week, but in our view this doesn’t matter. The Colts will do what the Colts always do in preseason—very little. The Packers will look to get their first team offense in high gear and the result should be a Green Bay victory by a touchdown or more.

Bet Green Bay -3’ over Indianapolis

Make sure to check out our preview and selection on Thursday’s other preseason game between the St. Louis Rams and New England Patriots