NFL Football Betting: Oakland Raiders at Jacksonville Jaguars

Important game for the Oakland Raiders on several levels as they head cross country to take on the Jacksonville Jaguars. Oakland is coming off a home loss to Kansas City which dropped them into a tie with Denver for the top spot in the AFC West at 4-2. They’ve also got to worry about the Chiefs at 3-2 and holding a victory over them in a potential tiebreaker. This is also a big game for Raiders’ head coach Jack Del Rio who had the same role in Jacksonville for 8 1/2 years. He was reasonably successful (by Jacksonville standards at least) but was unceremoniously dumped late in the 2011 season with the Jaguars posting a dismal 3-8 record to that point. This is one of those situations where Del Rio will say that he holds no animus against the Jaguars franchise but obviously he wants to beat his old team. It’s just human nature.

Jacksonville is coming off of back to back wins after starting the season 0-3. They’ve yet to win at home this year with their victories coming in London against the Indianapolis Colts and at Soldier Field against the Chicago Bears. Hard to expect Jacksonville to handle their recent success well–the team has only won two or more games in a row once in the last three years and they’re 0-1 SU/ATS in that situation. Raiders on a 4-2 SU/5-1 ATS run off a divisional loss. They’ve been excellent on the road of late with a perfect 3-0 SU/ATS mark this year and a 13-6 ATS record over the last three seasons.

Latavius Murray has practiced for two straight days and is listed as ‘questionable’. His return would give a big boost to Oakland’s running game. The Raiders’ defense is their biggest liability but Jacksonville might not be able to take advantage. Jaguars are ranked #29 in yards per game (320) though they’re better at scoring offense ranked #21 at 20.2 PPG. Still, this team has only scored more than 24 points once this season and has failed to break 17 in three of their five games. This is a good opportunity for the Raiders’ defense to regain some of their swagger and it’s hard to see the Jags trading points with Derek Carr and the Oakland offense.

BET OAKLAND RAIDERS +1.5 OVER JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS