NFL Week 2 Teasers: A shallow basket to choose from

Last week's teaser basket had plenty of options - 12 of them, in fact. Those went 8-3-1, which is right at the 73% win threshold needed for teaser legs to be profitable long term. However, there aren't as many choices in Week 2.

Remember, this is about which clubs you should tease from a mathematically correct standpoint. So, you can generally assume that each leg of a teaser comes at a price of -270, or the price of teasing a 6-point favorite down to PK. Let's use the upcoming battle between the Raiders and Steelers as an example.

Each teaser leg will cost you -270, slightly shorter than -110 when parlayed together. Adding another leg looks appetizing when the payout moves up to +160, but that's just plugging in another -270 piece to the parlay.

Not all teaser legs are created equal. The biggest mistake novice bettors make is teasing through 0. You're wasting valuable price points on a number the game probably isn't going to land on. So, how can we maximize the 6-point move? How can we get what we're paying for at -270 per leg?

This week, there are nine games between -3 and -4. Since we don't fully capture enough key numbers by teasing those up, neither side is an option in those contests. Three games have double-digit spreads, and we're not looking to tease big numbers down to -4.5 or -6.5 for fear of a win-but-don't-cover situation. That leaves just four matchups eligible.

These aren't recommendations, but rather mathematically sensible options thrown into the "Teaser Basket" to use if you like that team in its game. Take as many legs as you want from this week's admittedly limited basket.

Teaser Basket

What's interesting about these games is they're all within the same point spread. With a small move, the Patriots and Seahawks - who play the Jets and Titans, respectively - could go to -6, thus triggering some teaser value by dropping them to PK.

The Steelers and Broncos legs are basically no different than a moneyline parlay. So, if you can find those prices at better than -270, you'd be better off going that route, especially if either favorite moves to -5.5. If that happens, the Raiders and Jaguars, respectively, become the more valuable teaser side, moving them up to +11.5.

While you don't have a lot to choose from in this week's basket, you do have a couple of ways to play each of the four games, depending on when you make your bets.

Matt Russell is a betting writer for theScore. If there’s a bad beat to be had, Matt will find it. Find him on twitter @mrussauthentic.