The Quick Answer
Two Underdog NFL picks for Monday Night Football, November 9, Bills at Vikings at 8:15 p.m. ET: James Cook (BUF) Higher 18.5 carries, and Carson Wentz (MIN) Higher 211.5 passing yards. One is a workload bet against a defense that invites the run, the other is a backup quarterback whose first start of the season came in a game the weather decided. Both plays are off my Monday card, and both assume the same thing: Buffalo runs on this blitz, that forces Minnesota to throw, and the two plays rise or fall together.
The Picks: Week 9 Monday Night, November 9
| Player | Stat | Line | Call |
|---|---|---|---|
| James Cook (BUF) | Carries | 18.5 | Higher |
| Carson Wentz (MIN) | Passing yards | 211.5 | Higher |
James Cook Higher 18.5 Carries
Cook is coming off 25, 22 and 21 carries in his last three games. That is bellcow usage, as long as he holds onto the dang ball, and the market is handing out a Minnesota discount on it because the Vikings' defense has 25 sacks in seven games and a reputation to match. I am not sure the discount is deserved. The run defense is the softer half of that unit, and the volume it allows comes in two buckets. Four of Minnesota's seven opponents ran it 17 to 21 times, all in games the Vikings controlled. The other three ran it 31, 33 and 39 times, and the last two of those, Indianapolis with 33 carries for 154 yards and Detroit with 39 for 230 in a win last week, dragged the season figure to 4.5 yards a carry, per ESPN box scores. Buffalo, favored on the road, is built for the second bucket. The cleanest answer to a blitz-heavy defense is to pound the rock and keep the quarterback out of third-and-long. Buffalo is also down two receivers, with Joshua Palmer (BUF) and Tyrell Shavers (BUF) out, which thins the passing menu, and the honest risk on the other side of the ball is the line in front of Cook: tackles Dion Dawkins (BUF) and Alec Anderson (BUF) are both questionable. Even so, with the extra day of rest a Monday game buys, the Bills have every reason to lean on their running back from the opening drive.
| Date | Opponent | Carries | Rush yds | Rush TD | Fum (lost) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sept. 13 | at HOU | 13 | 57 | 0 | 1 (0) | W 36-31 |
| Sept. 17 | vs DET | 21 | 135 | 1 | 0 (0) | W 41-31 |
| Sept. 27 | vs LAC | 24 | 154 | 1 | 1 (1) | W 24-16 |
| Oct. 4 | vs NE | 12 | 75 | 1 | 0 (0) | L 29-26 |
| Oct. 12 | at LAR | 25 | 111 | 2 | 2 (1) | W 37-34 (OT) |
| Oct. 18 | at LV | 22 | 95 | 1 | 0 (0) | W 33-30 |
| Nov. 1 | vs BAL | 21 | 80 | 1 | 0 (0) | W 36-10 |
James Cook's 2026 game log, per ESPN box scores, dates in Eastern time. Buffalo had its bye in Week 7.
The Patriots game is the row that matters. Cook got 12 carries in Buffalo's lone loss, a three-point game against New England, and it is one of only two misses on the log. The other was the Week 1 opener in Houston. Every other week he cleared 18.5 with room to spare, including the Baltimore game coming out of the bye, a 36-10 blowout where the Bills could have taken the ball out of his hands and chose not to. The one miss that worries a bettor is a game Buffalo is not controlling, and Monday's spread says Buffalo is the team expected to be protecting a lead, not chasing one.
The ball-security line is not a throwaway either. Cook has put the ball on the ground four times this season and lost two, including a two-fumble night in Los Angeles that could have cost him touches and did not. He ran it 25 times anyway. The Bills have shown they will keep feeding him through the mistakes, which is the whole bet.
Sportsbooks post the same market, so compare the number before you enter: the live NFL rushing attempts prop odds board on the OddsShopper live odds screen lines every sportsbook up side by side, and the NFL Underdog picks strategy guide covers how to weigh a pick'em line against the books' numbers before you take a side.
Carson Wentz Higher 211.5 Passing Yards
Kyler Murray (MIN) is out with a hamstring strain, per ESPN's injury report, which hands the Monday night start to Wentz. Minnesota is 6-1 despite its quarterback play, which tells you how good the defense has been: Murray cleared 211.5 passing yards in only two of his five full games, and the two he did clear came against Miami and New Orleans. The Vikings have been winning on the strength of a defense that has allowed 13.3 points a game. Monday asks the offense to do something different, and it asks Wentz to do it without Jauan Jennings (MIN), who is out with a calf injury, and without running back Demond Claiborne (MIN), out with a knee. Losing a receiver is the honest argument against this play. The reason it survives is that the number is a volume number, and the script is what drives the volume. At the 7.1 yards per attempt Wentz has averaged on his 39 throws this season, 212 yards takes about 30 attempts. Minnesota threw between 24 and 37 times in Murray's five full games, so 30 sits inside the range, and a home underdog with a backfield injury pushes toward the top of it.
That is where the Bills secondary comes in, and it has been atrocious, with cornerback Jordan Hancock (BUF) now on injured reserve. Six of Buffalo's seven opponents have cleared 211.5 net passing yards against it, with the lone exception a Ravens offense that threw only 26 times in a 36-10 Bills win.
| Week | Opponent | Net passing yards vs BUF | Comp-Att |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | HOU | 257 | 26-38 |
| 2 | DET | 289 | 26-38 |
| 3 | LAC | 217 | 20-34 |
| 4 | NE | 262 | 22-37 |
| 5 | LAR | 377 | 40-54 |
| 6 | LV | 313 | 23-41 |
| 8 | BAL | 68 | 12-26 |
Net passing yards allowed by Buffalo through Week 8, per ESPN box scores. Net yards subtract sack yardage, so in any game where Buffalo recorded a sack, the gross passing-yards figure Underdog grades on is higher than the row shown.
The bet in one line: about 30 attempts at Wentz's yards per throw clears 211.5, and a home underdog with its running back out gets to 30 on volume alone.
The Rams row is the one I keep coming back to. Los Angeles put 377 net passing yards on this defense in a game Buffalo still won in overtime, which tells you the Bills do not have to lose for a quarterback to go off against them. Wentz does not need anything close to that. He needs 212 gross yards, in a game script where his team is the home underdog and cannot count on the defense to win another low-scoring game by itself.
Then there is the one start Wentz already has. He went 11 of 20 for 143 yards in Chicago on September 20, a 9-3 win in terrible weather where nobody on either side threw the ball well. Judge that start by the weather, not the box score, and add that he also threw for 133 yards and three touchdowns on 19 attempts in relief of Murray in Week 1 against Green Bay. Indoors at U.S. Bank Stadium, that is a quarterback the market is pricing off one weather-ruined night.
This is why the two plays belong together. Buffalo methodically moving the ball on the ground against the Flores blitz is the first half of the story, and it produces the second: a Vikings team forced into a pass-heavy script as a home underdog. There was no correlation downgrade on this combination when the card went up, so the combo is the way to play it. Multipliers move, so check your entry screen before you submit. With the game total sitting in modest territory, this is a volume bet, not a shootout bet, and that is the risk to price in.
The books post the passing-yards market too, so check where each one hangs the number on the live NFL passing yards prop odds board before you enter. Two minutes of line shopping is the cheapest edge in this market, because a book that hangs a lower number than the pick'em is a different bet on the same quarterback. If the pick'em format is new to you, player props betting explained covers how a yardage line is graded and why a stat line on Underdog is a different bet than the same number at a sportsbook.
Watch the full breakdown of both plays:
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