Morning Coffee: A FanDuel Best Bet For Thursday Night Football

Brock Purdy has never lost an NFL regular season game.

The traders at FanDuel aren’t expecting that to change tonight.

The San Francisco 49ers are a 10.5-point favourite for their Week 3 showdown against the New York Giants on Thursday Night Football.

The 49ers are currently -560 on the money line.

Can the Giants pull off the upset on the road and hand Purdy the first loss of his NFL career?

I’m not betting on it.

This is the Morning Coffee for Thursday September 21st, 2023.

A FanDuel Best Bet For Thursday Night Football

San Francisco was a six-point favourite on the lookahead line for tonight’s game, but a number of factors forced the traders to make a significant adjustment.

It starts with the 49ers’ dominance on offence.

San Francisco has scored exactly 30 points while winning each of their first two games of the season.

That shouldn’t be a surprise, as the 49ers have averaged 32.0 points per game with Purdy at quarterback.

Purdy has done an excellent job spreading the ball around while completing 67 per cent of his passes for 213.0 yards per game while avoiding turnovers.

Of course, the 2022 seventh-round pick has had a ton of help, with a talented receiving core and a dominant running back.

Christian McCaffrey leads the league with 268 rushing yards – 88 more than any other player.

McCaffrey has averaged 152.0 scrimmage yards, while scoring a touchdown in each of San Francisco’s first two games.

In fact, McCaffrey has now scored a touchdown in each of his last 11 games for the 49ers dating back to last season.

McCaffrey anytime touchdown is currently -250 at FanDuel.

That’s the third-shortest price for an anytime touchdown bet at FanDuel over the last two seasons.

San Francisco is an obvious favourite to win the NFC right now and an obvious favourite to win tonight’s game.

On the flip side, New York is coming off a narrow 31-28 win over the Arizona Cardinals last week.

For perspective, the Cardinals were the favourite to finish with the NFL’s worst record this season at FanDuel.

The Giants were shut out for the first six quarters of the season and outscored 60-0 before rallying from down 20-0 to win in Arizona.

Now they head to San Francisco for their second road game in a row without their star running back Saquon Barkley, who was ruled out with an ankle injury.

Daniel Jones finally opened things up in the second half against the Cardinals and finished with 321 yards and two touchdowns.

Jones should be in line for a tougher test this week, especially without his most dangerous offensive playmaker in the lineup.

The 49ers have covered five straight and 10 of their last 11 games as home favourites, so it’s not a surprise that the 10.5-point spread for tonight’s game would rank as the largest closing point spread at FanDuel so far this season if it holds.

On the surface, 10.5 points for a prime-time game on a short week seems like a lot of points to lay with the favourite.

At the same time, I understand why bettors would hesitate to take the points with a New York team that was blown out in a 40-0 shutout loss to the Dallas Cowboys in Week 1 and then found themselves down 20 to Josh Dobbs and the Cardinals in Week 2 before rallying to avoid an 0-2 start to their season.

Meanwhile, there are a couple of player props that I have circled for tonight’s game, but for the purposes of this column, I am going to try to keep it as simple as possible as I attempt to make it five winners in a row in this column.

Indulge me for a moment, here.

Jones has averaged 51.0 rushing yards per game this season.

He ran for a season-high 59 yards in last week’s win over the Cardinals.

Jones averaged 44.3 rushing yards per game last season.

He recorded 25+ rushing yards in five of his first seven games last season and then finished the regular season with 25+ rushing yards in each of his final five games.

With Saquon out and the Giants a double-digit underdog, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jones uses his legs a lot tonight.

I thought about pairing George Kittle 25+ receiving yards with Jones 25+ rushing yards at -150 as my FanDuel Best Bet.

Brandon Aiyuk is dealing with an injury and has been downgraded to doubtful for tonight, so that should open up one or two more opportunities for Kittle against the Giants’ defence.

Kittle has averaged 3.0 receptions for 24.0 yards through two games, and Aiyuk’s absence would give Purdy the opportunity he needs to get Kittle more involved against a suspect New York defence.

Meanwhile, the 49ers should be able to run the football at will against New York, and I expect that Elijah Mitchell should take some carries away from Christian McCaffrey tonight.

While I like Kittle 25+ receiving yards, I like San Francisco to win this game even more.

I’ll pair the 49ers money line with Jones 25+ rushing yards at -170 as my FanDuel Best Bet for Thursday Night Football.

I’ll also take a look at Jones 25+ rushing and Kittle 25+ receiving at -150 as a Same Game Parlay to consider.

Make sure to give me a follow at @DomPadulaEDGE on Twitter for all of my plays for Week 3 in the NFL.

Hopefully, we can build off a strong start to the season and celebrate another FanDuel Best Bet winner tonight.