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NFL Week 8 Sunday Ticket, Graded: The Anchor Drowns and the Footnotes Cash — Jets -1.5 Loses Outright to the 82% Public, Tennessee +12.5 Covers by Five and a Half, Under 40.5 Lands in a 27-10 Game, and the Over-Divergence Under Read Runs to 6-for-6
The Week 8 Sunday board grades at the prices printed Friday: the ticket goes 2-1 on legs, with the anchor losing outright — the Raiders, 82% of tickets and 82% of money, won 38-33 at the Jets and swept the book that never moved its number. The two small legs cashed: Tennessee +12.5 covered in Cincinnati's 43-36 win, and Under 40.5 in Philadelphia-Washington landed at 37, pushing the season's over-money-divergence under read to 6-for-6 — still a small sample in a larger costume. The 30-point model-market war in Washington resolved for the market, 27-10. Unit sizes were never printed on the card; legs grade win-loss at the printed lines and the unit line follows the slip.
The ticket from Friday's board grades 2-1 on legs, and it grades upside down: the anchor lost, the two footnotes cashed. Legs are graded against the prices printed on that page, wins and losses in the same type, per the pre-commit printed there.
NYJ -1.5 vs LV — LOSS. Las Vegas won outright, 38-33. The week's cleanest fade was the week's cleanest mistake: 82% of tickets and 82% of money had the Raiders, the book never moved off the Jets' -1.5, the model refereed for the book at 53.2% — and the public took all of it. When the public, the house, and the model disagree, somebody is wrong. This week it was us and the house, and the house pays its losses in handle. The pools swept the books this Sunday.
TEN +12.5 @ CIN — WIN. Cincinnati won 43-36, a seven-point margin, and the pool-buster covered by five and a half. The leg's dark twin — the afternoon where 40% of the country's survivor entries get buried — did not arrive: the Bengals won, the national field advanced, and the ticket cashed as a bet instead of a funeral. We will take the money and skip the demographics.
Under 40.5, PHI @ WAS — WIN. 27-10, a total of 37 in a game the public bet to 88% on the over. The season's over-money-divergence read — every total this year where the over-money divergence ran 14 points or better has gone under — runs to 6-for-6. Six is not a law. Six is a small sample wearing a larger costume, and this desk will keep saying so right up until the number says something else. But 88% of the money is 88% of the money, and the costume keeps fitting.
The war resolves
Friday's board printed a 30-point war in Washington: the model had Philadelphia at 61.7%, the market had the Eagles at 31.5% after the week's steam. The market won, 27-10 — decisively enough that the postmortem writes itself: someone knew something Thursday's injury digest didn't, exactly the explanation the board printed Friday when it declined to bet either side. The desk's only winning position in that game was discipline, and discipline pays at par.
The ledger line
Unit sizes were never printed on the card — one anchor, two small legs, "everything sized like insurance rather than conviction" was the whole sizing statement. So this piece grades win-loss at the printed lines, and the unit profit-and-loss follows the slip when it surfaces — the standing convention from the ALDS Game 5 card, where a leg graded the same way. When the fill prices land, the ledger line moves and says so.
Desk legs grade here, in the open, per the house rule; the machine's running number is +18.98u since September at 150-140-9, mean Brier 0.2343 over 299 graded as of Friday — unchanged by this card until the units print.
Monday night carries Chicago at Seattle and nothing from this ticket. Bring your own pencil.