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By Max Meyer

There aren’t that many marquee matchups remaining for Week 8 of the NFL season. But the spreads are awfully tight. Of the 14 games this upcoming Sunday and Monday, 10 of them have spreads of 4.5 or less at Caesars Sportsbook. Then the other four games features favorites of at least 9.5 points—Rams -16 at Texans, Bills -14 vs. Dolphins, Bengals -10.5 at Jets and Chiefs -9.5 vs. Giants.

“This is going to be a challenging weekend for bettors, it’s a really competitive card this week,” said Craig Mucklow, Vice President of Trading at Caesars Sportsbook. “There are the four big favorites, but other than that everything else is around 3 and 4. It’s going to be interesting where the money lands on the tighter spreads. We’re going to need either Miami, Houston, the Jets or the Giants to win one of those games. The big favorites haven’t been losing this season, and they’re going to be thrown into every parlay this week.”

The major story heading into the weekend is the health of Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott. Prescott has been limited at practice this week due to a calf strain, while backup Cooper Rush has taken over the first-team reps under center.

The Cowboys opened as 1-point road favorites and went up to as high as -2.5. The favorite has flipped here, though, with the Vikings now favored by a field goal.

“Prescott is listed as questionable, but the market moves will tell you the way this will likely end up,” Mucklow said. “It was Cowboys -2.5 and now it’s Vikings -3, so it’s suggesting around 5.5 points for Prescott’s value. If Aaron Rodgers is out, you’re looking at 9 or 9.5 points, [Patrick] Mahomes would be about the same and [Tom] Brady would be up there. I wouldn’t have Prescott as top-5 most valuable quarterbacks to the spread, but he’s at the back end of top-10.”

While Dallas has gotten 82% of the total number of tickets against the spread, Minnesota has the advantage with 64% of the total dollars wagered. 

Just one team has secured at least 90% of the total number of tickets on its respective spread, and that would be the Bengals (currently -10.5) at the Jets. Yet, Cincinnati only has a slight edge in total dollars wagered at 55%.

Meanwhile, three teams have racked up at least 90% of the total dollars wagered—49ers (-4) at Bears at 98%, Falcons (-3) vs. Panthers at 96% and Patriots (+4.5) at Chargers at 95%. New England is one of three underdogs this week to grab the majority of the total dollars wagered on its spread, joining Saints (+4.5) vs. Buccaneers at 87% and Titans (+2.5) at Colts at 51%.

“The Patriots could be a public underdog this week,” Mucklow said. “They’ve played the Bucs and Cowboys close, and you don’t get over a field goal with [Bill] Belichick that often. This is also the most number of points the Chargers have laid at home this season, the others were at 3 or right around that number. It’s crazy, the Chargers were a public underdog just a couple weeks ago against the Ravens. Sports bettors are a very fickle lot, especially when it comes to NFL.”  

Those high percentages have been boosted by a few monster wagers, as $520,000 bets have come in on Falcons -3 (-105) and Patriots +5 (-110), while $500,000 was placed on 49ers -3.5 (EVEN). Other $520,000 wagers were laid on Bengals -9.5 (-110) at Jets, Jets +10.5 (-110) vs. Bengals, Broncos -3 (-110) vs. Washington and Saints +5.5 (-110) vs. Buccaneers.

Check out Caesars Sportsbook’s latest odds and trends for every upcoming NFL Week 8 spread below. 