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Friday’s Best NFL, NBA & College Basketball Bets (1/12)

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No matter your sport of choice, there's always sports betting action to be had. We'll have you covered each and every day with our daily best bets. Here are all of our best bets across each major sport in action today.

Today's Best Bets

Here are today's best bets.

NFL Best Bets

(Odds courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook)

Cleveland Browns @ Houston Texans

The Browns have unleashed a pass-happy offense since inserting Joe Flacco as the starting quarterback. According to RotoViz's pace app, the Browns have had a 62% situation-neutral pass rate since Week 14. In addition, they had a 64% situation-neutral pass rate against the Texans in Week 16, even without the threat of C.J. Stroud putting up points on their stingy defense. Instead, Case Keenum was Houston's starter while Stroud recovered from a concussion.

The pass-heavy approach is suboptimal for Jerome Ford's and Kareem Hunt's rushing potential. The matchup is also brutal. According to The 33rd Team, the Texans have held running backs to 92 rushing yards per game at a putrid 3.4 yards per carry since Week 15. It would be foolish for the Browns to run the inefficient duo of Ford and Hunt into Houston's stout run defense.

Ford had just 25 rushing yards on 15 attempts in the first meeting against the Texans, and Hunt had just 11 yards on seven attempts. Excluding Week 18's meaningless game for the Browns, Ford was under 44.5 rushing yards in four of his past seven games, and Hunt was under 24.5 in two of his last three.

The Texans are underdogs, which could force them to air it out to keep up. In addition, from Week 14 through Week 17, Cleveland's opponents had a 65% situation-neutral pass rate.

Stroud can make the most of a heavier passing workload in his home stadium. The rookie has thrived at home. According to Pro-Football-Reference, he averaged 310.8 passing yards per game at home in eight games. Stroud was held under 242.5 passing yards only twice at home. Finally, FantasyPros is projecting him to have 253.0 passing yards, comfortably over his line.

Parlay Odds: +490

Check out our other NFL Odds, Picks & Predictions:

NBA Best Bets

(Odds courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook)

New Orleans Pelicans @ Denver Nuggets

The Pelicans have been one of the better teams over the past couple of weeks by going 11-4 in their past 15 games. The record is what it is, but so are the underlying metrics. In that 15-game span, they're leading the leagues in net rating and adjusted defensive rating and are second in adjusted offensive rating.

The Nuggets haven't been bad either by recently going 9-3, but two of those losses have come over the past three games. Both came in games in which the Nuggets were favored; the first was in a close matchup at home against the Magic, and then they were destroyed by the Jazz on the road. 

The big thing to look at is the injury report for the Pelicans, as several key players are currently game-time decisions. In a marquee matchup, I expect these players to be active. This total has gone over in Denver's last four and New Orleans's last two; this should be a fun offensive matchup.

Pick: Over 229.5 (-110)

Check out our other NBA Odds, Picks & Predictions:

College Basketball Best Bets

(Odds courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook)

Nebraska @ Iowa

Nebraska earned arguably the biggest upset of the week in its 88-72 home blowout of No. 1 Purdue on Tuesday. However, the Cornhuskers should not be overvalued for that home victory, if not for anything else than Cornhuskers head coach Fred Hoiberg has long had a great game plan when facing the Boilermakers.

Nebraska held Zach Edey to 23 total points on 14 field goal attempts in the two meetings with Purdue last season, and the Cornhuskers are one of just four teams to hold Edey to 15 or fewer points this year. Now they have a quick turnaround to face an Iowa team that is much different than Purdue to gameplan for, namely because it does not have a 7-foot-4 center to run the offense through.

On many occasions this year, it appeared Iowa would be on pace to be the worst 3-point shooting team in the Fran McCaffery era. However, the Hawkeyes are making 36.2% of their 3-point attempts in Big Ten play, an improvement upon their 34.5% season average. Iowa will look to build on Payton Sandfort's season-high 24 points in its last game against a good defensive Rutgers team. The Hawkeyes should not meet too much resistance from Nebraska's defense, especially since they turn the ball over at the ninth-lowest rate in the country.

Iowa is 3-1 ATS when it has the rest advantage over its opponent, which it does over Nebraska by not having played since last Saturday. Meanwhile, Nebraska is just 4-10 ATS as road underdogs since the start of last season, and we are jumping at the opportunity to fade the Cornhuskers when the public will likely rally around them after their high-profile victory over Purdue.

Bet: Iowa -4.5 (-108)

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