NFL Thursday Night Football Best Bets (9/17/26)
Author: Dylan Lieck | September 17, 2026 | 3:04 P.M. CST
Buffalo Bills -5.5 vs. Detroit Lions (54.5)
Tonight, the Buffalo Bills will play their home opener at their brand new stadium, Hallmark Stadium. Both teams are coming off an opening week win, both in dramatic fashion. The Bills trailed the Texans a large portion of the game, before seizing control late. The Bills’ defense came up big late, forcing a fumble on a strip sack of C.J. Stroud to seal the win for the Bills. The Lions, on the other hand, led the entirety of the game, yet probably should’ve lost the game. They led 21-0 late in the third quarter, before absolutely imploding. The offense was OKAY in stretches, but they had trouble protecting Jared Goff, just as they did last season. To make matters worse, one of their best lineman, Blake Miller, sustained a season ending knee injury in the eleventh snap of their game against New Orleans, which is a huge factor in tonight’s game. The Lions gave up 21 straight points to the Saints, as Tyler Shough threw for 350+ against the Lions defense. The game headed to overtime after a 65 yard missed field goal by New Orleans as time expired. Even in overtime, the Lions could never get the stop they needed, which made the game come down to one play - a two point conversion that they ultimately did stop, giving them a week one win.
All of what we saw week 1, going along with what I believed these teams were heading into week 1, leads me to believe the Bills are the far superior team. This line opened 3.5, which is insane, because these teams are not close to even on neutral field. That said, it got bet up to 5.5 pretty quickly, which is where we sit now. I hate taking a bad number, which is why I really don’t want to lay 3.5. I also believe we could see a game where Buffalo gets up early, and we have to sweat out a backdoor cover late. As bad as the Lions OL has been over the past year, they still have insanely good weapons all over the field. Because of that we’re going to look to the team total market.
The Bills offense is ELITE because they have Josh Allen. It was elite last year, and now they added DJ Moore, who looked tremendous week 1. Maybe more importantly, though, Dalton Kinkaid looked phenomenal week 1. He stepped up and looked like a clear number two option for Allen. He’s always had the talent, and it’s finally coming together. It makes some sense, as many say Tight End is the toughest position to acclimate to when transitioning from college to the NFL. The Bills were awesome last week offensively against what many believe is the best defense in the NFL in the Houston Texans. Allen absolutely shredded them for 334 yards and 4 total TDs. As a team, the Bills put up 409 yards of total offense, but even more impressively a staggering 7.9 yards per play, all of which led to 36 points. It really could’ve been more too. It was an incredibly impressive performance. Now you have that offense going back home to play a defense that was bottom 10 last year, who comes in with a ton of injuries? We must back the Bills in this spot.
So we’re going to make two bets here. We’re going to take the Bills team total over in both the first half and the game. The game took some sharp money at 29.5 and has been bet up to 30.5, while the first half total sits at 14.5. I think we go over both with ease. I’m going to take the first half too, because I think we’re just getting a good number. I don’t believe the first half total for this Bills team should be any less than half the game total, and it is. So let’s go two Bills team totals over, and we don’t have to worry about who wins. We can just enjoy the Bills put up 50 on the Lions.
Official Pick: Bills Team Total 1H Over 14.5 + Bills Team Total Over 30.5
Play Rating: 3% each
