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After two weeks of the NFL season, we now have some clarity on which teams are coming to play and which look like disappointments.
Sportsbooks started releasing lines for Week 3 shortly after the Sunday games concluded, and we've dug into them to find value that you should lock in now before lines move as we get closer to kickoff.
You can see all of our current and historical NFL picks in our Best NFL Bets & Picks Guide. You can also compare NFL lines and odds by sportsbooks here.
Below you'll find our opening line picks for Week 3 of the NFL season.
Miami Dolphins -6.5 vs. Denver Broncos – 1 pm ET
The Miami Dolphins improved to 2-0 on the season with a second consecutive road victory in Week 2, this time defeating the New England Patriots 24-17. The Dolphins have shown in the opening few weeks they clearly have the offensive firepower to keep up with nearly any team in the league.
The Dolphins also showed their defense can be a factor as well, holding the Patriots to under 300 total yards, sacking Mac Jones 4 times and forcing 2 turnovers in the win.
Now they get to come home for their home opener against a Denver Broncos team that has not been able to get out of their own way to start the 2023 season. They have lost back-to-back home games to start the season, including a 35-33 game in Week 2 to the Washington Commanders after blowing a 21-3 lead.
If the Broncos cannot stop the Commanders offense, they will be hard-pressed to stop the Dolphins explosive offense, and the Broncos have not shown they have the offensive consistency to keep up with the Dolphins.
This line opened at -5.5 and jumped to -6.5 pretty quickly, grab it before it gets to the key number of -7 and play the Dolphins to continue their hot start on Sunday afternoon.
Cincinnati Bengals -1.5 vs. Los Angeles Rams—8:15 pm ET (Monday Night Football)
This is case of buying low on some injury news to a key player. This line opened Bengals -6.5 and very quickly got bet down on the news Joe Burrow re-aggravated the calf injury that kept him out the preseason.
The Bengals said had Burrow needed to re-enter the game against the Ravens he would have, which leads me to believe that while the injury in there it may not be as bad as it seems and there is a chance he plays Monday against the Rams.
The good news is the with the Monday game, Burrow does get an extra day to recover. If Burrow can’t go, it would journeyman Jake Browning taking snaps for the Bengals.
The Bengals are really in an almost must-win situation very early in the season, falling to 0-3 with 2 home losses would not be a good spot to be in. Even if Browning is the QB he still has an extremely talented receiver group to work with and the Bengals have a veteran backfield to help ease the workload on Browning.
The Rams looked a little better than expected in a loss to the 49ers last week, but continue to be without top WR Cooper Kupp.
Play the line now with the Bengals, it won’t be going any lower even if Burrow is out. If Burrow does play it will be -3 or higher come game time. If he doesn’t play, I still like the Bengals chances in this one.
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