NFL Week 6 Betting – Pats Out for Revenge at Indy

New England Patriots (-9, 54.5 o/u) at Indianapolis Colts

The New England Patriots (4-0, 2-0 Away), and more specifically their QB Tom Brady, have been waiting for this game for about nine months. Brady has a bone to pick with the Indianapolis Colts (3-2, 1-1 Home), the team that alerted the league to New England’s under-inflated balls in the AFC Championship Game. Brady barely escaped the “DeflateGate” scandal unscathed, and now has the chance to exact some revenge on the Colts when the teams square off on Sunday Night Football in Week 6 (8:30 PM Eastern).

For his part, Brady is treating the matchup like any other game, at least outwardly.

“I’m always pretty motivated so it will be an exciting game,” Brady said this week during a press conference. “They’ve got a good team, they’ve won three straight, they’ve made some changes this offseason, so they’re a confident team. It will take a great effort to beat them.”

The Pats would come into this game as massive favorites even if the entire betting public wasn’t convinced of the revenge factor. Not only are they undefeated on the season, but they’ve dominated the Colts of late, winning six straight, including all four against Andrew Luck. None of Luck’s starts against New England have even been close; the Colts have lost by 35, 21, 22, and 38 points.

The fourth-year pivot is battling a shoulder injury at the moment, an ailment that kept him out of Indy’s past two games. The team was able to pull out both contests (16-13 over Jacksonville and 27-20 over Houston) on the strength of solid performances from 40-year-old Matt Hasselbeck. But they need their preseason MVP contender to return, and return in form if they hope to make any noise this season.

The latest reports listed Luck as questionable for Sunday Night, but all indications are that he will be ready to go.

New England received some bad news of its own on the injury front this week; left tackle Nate Solder was ruled out for the season with a biceps injury. But with Brady getting the ball out of his hands faster than anyone in the league (2.15 seconds according to Pro Football Focus), opposing teams will have a tough time taking advantage of Solder’s absence.

The betting trends look a lot like the straight up trends for this series. The Pats are 4-0 against the spread since Luck took over in Indy (which can’t come as a surprise given the point differentials I listed above).

Whether Brady and company are out for vengeance or not, New England has looked virtually unstoppable this season, while the Colts are playing well below expectations and will have a less-then-100-percent Luck under center (at best). Take New England as big road favorites.

Pick: Patriots (-9). 

(Photo credit: Keith Allison (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/legalcode]. Photo has been cropped.)