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Inside the Lines team

The SportsLine Projection Model was developed and powered by the Inside the Lines team. You can visit SportsLine for our model's main market bets (spread, total, money line) but if you are looking for all our personal best bets for free, check out our recently launched Inside the Lines blog where we have all of our best bets across all sports for free.

We will be providing our team's personal best bets for every NFL game during the 2025 season. We are coming off of a 23-13 +7.5 unit Week 3 and a 14-7, +6.6 unit Week 4.

The 49ers are not playing well, Mac Jones may have to start again with Purdy getting hurt again on Sunday and only have a 3 days to get better. The lookahead spread was Rams -1.5 but that has steamed to -5.5 (consensus). You can shop around and still find Rams at -5 (-110).

We only have a slight lean on the Rams at 52% to cover and a lean of 52% on the under so there are no good main market values. With Purdy's status TBD there aren't a lot of prop lines posted so we will update these best bets as we get more lines.

Davante Adams Over 52.5 Receiving Yards (-115 Caesars)

We are projecting him for 65 receiving yards. He hasn't soared over this line the last 2 weeks but he has gone over with back to back 56 yard games. He's obviously fit in perfectly as WR2 given he's ha a TD in 3 straight games and his season low in yards is 51 in Week 1.

He was in a similar WR 1a / WR 1b situation with the Jets last season playing alongside Garrett Wilson. Even without being the clearcut WR1 he has averaged 74 yards and gone over 13-5 since 2024. The 49ers defense has done great allowing just 5.6 yards per attempt and 172 yards per game which is why we're getting a line this low. I think Sean McVay's familiarity with the 49ers even with Robert Saleh will help him get at least 2 big plays for Adams.

Puka Nacua Anytime Touchdown +115 DraftKings

Puka has been an absolute monster this season but because he only has scored 1 receiving touchdown from 42 receptions his already lower than expected career % of team receiving TDs is down to just 15.5%. He accounts for nearly 40% of team receiving yards and 37% of team receptions.

Puka has accounted for a higher % of team RUSHING TOUCHDOWNS (16.4%) in his career than % of team receiving touchdowns. Our 0.48 receiving TD projection would be fair value vs +115 but when you throw in his 0.16 rushing TD projection we get a combined 0.64 TDs which roughly translates to a 57% chance of scoring a TD. Our line would be around -140 so a +115 is an excellent price.

Christian McCaffrey Anytime Touchdown -130 FanDuel

A couple of seasons ago McCaffrey was consistently priced at -350 or more so it's kind of sad to see him down to this 56.5% implied probability. Adding "power RB" Brian Robinson hurts his guaranteed 100% of goal to go snaps, even though I don't think it should because in my opinion Robinson isn't that effective in short yardage situations. Coaches just assume he is "that guy" and give him 3 or 4 shots at something others might convert in 2 snaps.

McCaffrey has amazingly not rushed for a TD this season (69 carries) and hasn't rushed for a TD since the NFC Championship game on Jan 20, 2024 vs Detroit. He does have 2 receiving TDs this season and with no George Kittle and maybe no Brock Purdy he's nearly as likely to score through the air (0.29 rec TD projection) as he is on the ground (0.35 rec TD). Either way it adds up to 0.64 (implies 57% like Puka above).

This is NOT a great value but I point this out because -130 is a better price than the -155 Hard Rock is charging.

What makes a bet an "Inside the Lines Best Bet?" 

These are ones where:

1) Best Projection: Our SportsLine Model's projection shows clear value versus the line and we love certain statistical trends, X's and O's and subjective supporting data that supports our side but isn't directly factored into the model. For example, say we love a running back to go Over 14.5 carries and his backup is projected for 5.5 carries, but the backup is questionable and there's a chance he can be ruled out, which surely will change our projection to 16.5 (third-stringer gets 3.5) and the line would likely go from 12.5 to 15.5. If we have value on a side and the only unknown factors that will change are in our favor, we'll consider it our "Best Projection."

AND

2) Best Price: There is an outlier best price that we should take advantage of before it steams in "our direction." In most of these cases, the best-priced book is using "standard odds making logic" to set the line, but our team has identified a unique situation where standard odds rules don't apply. For example, maybe a player is -110 to throw an interception, but in his last three seasons he has averaged just 0.4 interceptions on the road compared to 0.7 at home because the team plays on a fast track at home and averages 5+ more pass attempts at home.

Step 1 provides greater accuracy and Step 2, especially when combined with a nice Profit Boost or Promotion, significantly lowers the bar for being profitable ... which is why we like to feature our best line sportsbooks offer.