Week 16 round-robin underdog parlay: 5 golden wins?

We gave back a couple of doubloons from our pot of gold last week. In classic NFL fashion, the woeful Carolina Panthers were the lone team to come through.

Profitable underdogs are harder to come by late in the season. We've got 14 games of information about who is good and who isn't, and the bad teams largely lack self-belief at this point. As a result, this might be the last edition of our weekly guilty-pleasure bet. As we've warned in the past, the nature of the final two weeks of the NFL regular season lends itself to a "wait and see" approach when it comes to anyone capable of a surprising win.

Usually, all we hope for is to catch three or four big underdogs to get a decent payout. This week, we'll have to go five-for-five since there's not much to pick from at longer odds.

How it works

We parlay five underdogs together - which we also bet against the spread - in 10 different three-team parlays. Using every combination of a three-team parlay is called a round robin, so we'll use a total of 1.1 units to make 11 different bets: 10 three-team parlays and one five-team parlay, each for .1 units. You'll likely double your money if three teams pull off the upset. If four teams win, you're connecting on four separate parlays and will be very pleased with the return. If all five teams win, you'll be diving into a gold-doubloon silo like a young Scrooge McDuck.

Who to play

Texans (+120) over Browns

It's not looking good for C.J. Stroud, as the line flipped from Texans -2.5 to the Browns as the favorite on reports that Stroud won't play Sunday.

We'll target that as a market overreaction. Case Keenum struggled early on the road in Tennessee in his third start since 2019 (he won the other two), but the Texans' offense found enough rhythm late to pull off a comeback win. Back at home this week, and facing a Browns defense that's been much worse on the road, the Texans should look better from the start.

Joe Flacco - on the injury report with calf soreness - threw three interceptions last week, which was overshadowed by a comeback win.

Vikings (+140) over Lions

It took me five days to get over Nick Mullens' performance on Saturday. Two unimaginable interceptions prevented the Vikings from blowing out the Bengals, and two of the saddest quarterback sneaks you've ever seen prevented Minnesota from salvaging a win in overtime. Also, if Tee Higgins hadn't saved the day for Jake Browning, the Vikings would be returning home for this game in much higher regard.

The Lions mauled the Broncos, who were playing their third straight road game and who provided a good matchup for Jared Goff with intermediate throws underneath coverage. This week, Goff will see all the blitzes he can handle, forcing him him to get the ball out early, which the Vikings should be ready for. The Vikings also boast a top-three run defense, similar to Chicago's, which Detroit struggled against twice recently.

Cowboys (+105) over Dolphins

The Cowboys are no big underdog, but including them here shows how much we like them to bounce back from getting pummelled by the Bills last week. Conditions should be comfortable in Miami, and the Dolphins are so ravaged by injury that their whole offensive line missed practice Wednesday. The Cowboys have passed the illness that went through their locker room on to Buffalo, so expect Dak Prescott to look more like himself this week and Micah Parsons to be a problem for Tua Tagovailoa.

Cardinals (+175) over Bears

Are the Bears suddenly worth being -200 to beat another NFL team? This line's higher than when Chicago played Carolina. Admittedly, Tyson Bagent played in that game, but Kyler Murray can do a lot more than Bryce Young.

Weather shouldn't be an issue for the dome team from the desert, and the Cardinals handled messy conditions well in Pittsburgh three weeks ago.

The best thing the Bears do is stop the run, but the Cardinals are used to not being able to rely on their ground game. And while the Arizona defense gets abused through the air, it's been satisfactory against quarterbacks not named Joe Burrow, Matthew Stafford, and Brock Purdy (twice).

Ravens (+195) over 49ers

We try to avoid betting against the fully healthy version of the 49ers. However, if we can get three wins out of the four Sunday games above, that would add up to much better than 2-1 odds for John Harbaugh and Lamar Jackson (11-2 ATS as an underdog) to pull off a Christmas night upset.

With the 49ers' market rating historically high, we've been waiting for a team that can take advantage of San Francisco's banged-up defense (allowing 6.0 yards per play to the Seahawks and Cardinals) with an effective enough defense to make Purdy sweat. No one has a better defense than the Ravens, who are already talking about how they're the underdogs. We should be in for a close game that may come down to special teams - Baltimore's bread and butter.

How the odds look this week:

Who are your five underdogs for a football betting lottery ticket?

Matt Russell is the lead betting analyst for theScore. If there's a bad beat to be had, Matt will find it. Find him on social media @mrussauthentic.