Houston offers value tonight vs. Rams

It's been a lot of baseball around these parts, so let's mix it up with a dive into some preseason NFL action. There are three games tonight, and two offer up some intriguing trends and matchups, enough for us to put our money down on some August football.

40 is the magic number for preseason football — Since 2018, the under in preseason games is 34-18 when the total is set at 40 points or higher. This includes the Bears-Seahawks game last night when we mentioned it in our "Quick Picks" section seen at the bottom of each day's Bark Bets. We can't explain why 40 is the inflection point for these bets, but we're happy to follow a 65% cover rate. The game in question that reaches this total tonight is the Panthers vs. Patriots, currently set at 40 points at time of writing. Both teams saw their first games reach 46 points, so it's understandable why this line was set as such. We're following history and backing the under in New England.

Houston Texans have the quarterback edge over the Los Angeles Rams — There's a sentence we didn't think we'd be typing in 2022, but it's true. Betting preseason NFL games is all about looking down the depth charts, as the backups are playing the vast majority of the game. Matthew Stafford will not be playing tonight as he continues to work through some elbow soreness, leaving the Rams with John Wolford and Bryce Perkins under center. Wolford has appeared in just four games in his career, completing 54.8% of his passes and tossing two interceptions to go along with zero touchdowns. Perkins has never appeared in a regular-season contest, though he did have a nice game last week for Los Angeles.

In comparison, Houston's quarterback group is looking far more reliable. Second-year passer Davis Mills is expected to see an increase in snaps tonight after starting the majority of his rookie season. He has two quality backups behind him in Kyle Allen and Jeff Driskel, both of whom have plenty of NFL experience and should be able to lift the offensive output throughout the game.

This is enough for us to feel good about the Texans tonight, who won their preseason opener 17-13. We're rolling with Houston -2.5.

In other news ...

Some are starting to get a funny feeling about Tom Brady and the Bucs — This might not be anything more than training camp fodder to pass the time before the season begins, but there is some uneasiness growing around Tom Brady returning to the Bucs before Week 1. Head coach Todd Bowles was non-committal about when Brady is coming back to practice, with no firm return date in place. It's curious language because Tampa Bay has claimed this was a pre-planned absence. This all may just be silly speculation, but it's making us wonder if Brady is having second thoughts on returning from his brief retirement. DraftKings removed Buccaneers win totals from their offering, while FanDuel still has their total set at 11.5. Keep an eye on Tampa.

BMW Championship heads to second day — Our boy Tony Finau had himself a rough first day. We don't want to talk about it. Keegan Bradley was the first-round leader out of Delaware with a -7 on the day and his odds to win have skyrocketed to +1100. Justin Thomas is the betting favorite to win at +600 after a -5 on Thursday. This is noteworthy because JT was one of the only golfers to have played on this course before, playing in a 2013 amateur event when he was 20. Thomas might be worth a bet here as the favorite despite the shortened odds.

WNBA playoffs continue this weekend — Up to this point, we've had a solid read on the WNBA action. While there are no games today, we'll have Game 2s all weekend, starting tomorrow with the Liberty and Sky and Aces vs. Mercury. The last four games between New York and Chicago have all been tight. Here are the last four meetings between these teams: Chicago win by two, New York win by three, Chicago win by eight, New York win by seven. That seven-point win was on Wednesday. The Liberty have sported the league's best defense over the past 10 games and continue to get no respect from oddsmakers. We can bet New York at +9.5 for tomorrow's afternoon game. We've already locked it in and recommend you do the same.

Today's Bark Bets is written by Griffin Carroll