Inside the Lines Bengals vs. Broncos MNF: Back Bo Nix over 1.5 passing TDs, fade the public's Under

The Inside the Lines team uses its proven NFL model to identify our best SportsLine player projections versus the best available odds to build our best bets.

By Stephen Oh

& Inside the Lines Team

Sep 25, 2025 at 10:23 am ET • 4 min read

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. These are just a fraction of our best bets, which are all free on our new blog.

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 in the NFL.

Here are our picks for Monday Night Football, Cincinnati at Denver.

Over 43.5 (-115 FanDuel)

The line was 47.5, but between the Bengals' offensive debacle in Week 3 without Joe Burrow and Bo Nix's slower than expected start to the season, the vast majority of the public is taking the under and the line has steamed down 4 points. I see a big opportunity to capitalize on this line movement with a 65% chance the game goes over.

The Bengals offense can't play worse than they did versis Minnesota with under 200 total yards. Clearly Jake Browning was not used to live action. He has enough of a sample size to know that Week 3 represented his 1 to 2 standard deviations below his average performance. He is by no means guaranteed to have a 1.5 to 2 standard deviation above average performance but it's unlikely he'll be so obscenely bad two weeks in a row.

Denver surprisingly struggled versus Tennessee in week 1 only scoring 20, but they did put up 28 versus the Colts and 20 versus the Chargers is actually a good number when you consider the Raiders only put up 9 versus LAC. The Bengals technically only allowed 16 to Cleveland in week 1 but that was entirely due to missed kicks and interceptions that hit WRs right in the hand. Cincinnati's bad defense that allowed 25.5 last season is trending even worse right now allowing 16, then 27, and then 48.

Bo Nix Over 1.5 Passing Touchdowns (+105 BetMGM)

Our model projection for Nix is 2.3 so we'd price this line at -200 or more. Even with his 'slow start' he's still averaging 1.67 passing touchdowns per game. In his career Nix has averaged a full pass TD more at home (2.2) than on the road (1.2). If this were a week 1 matchup I believe the line would be set at -130 and oddsmakers are being too influenced by his low yardage totals.

The big reason for Nix's slow start in terms of yards is the lack of production (and week 3 injury) to newly-acquired tight end Evan Engram and receiver Marvin Mims, who ended 2024 on a tear with 13 receptions, 154 yards, and 4 TDs in weeks 17 and 18. We're a month into the season and it's time for at least one of these two to give Nix the third big play receiving threat that will make it impossible to double team Courtland Sutton.

Props Cheat Sheet

The table below was updated on 9/25 at around 10 am EST so the lines may not match what you see above. If you're not feeling the picks above these are the ones that have projection value versus the best line / price. The projected value is in [brackets] and the sportsbook with the best line is in (parentheses). The cover rate since the start of 2024 and the current season are displayed. Many lines have not posted yet so the current list of picks is pretty thin. Check back later in the week for a full update.

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.