Graded, September 19.Both plays cashed. Kincaid scored, St. Brown scored, and the 54.5 total that looked fat went 41-31 Buffalo — 72 points. Kincaid paid +189 at 33 cents, St. Brown +124 at 43. The case below is the one I made before kickoff, unchanged.
Dalton Kincaid was 33 cents to score, and he was the best number on this board. Detroit had just let a first-time starter throw for 410 yards on them with both safeties out, and Kincaid was coming off 5.65 yards per route run — top three in the entire NFL in Week 1, every position included. That was the article. Everything below is the receipt.
The second one was Amon-Ra St. Brown at 43 cents, running option routes at four yards downfield against a slot corner who graded 65th out of 91 in Week 1. Thinner edge, uglier matchup for Buffalo.
Welcome to the new place, Buffalo. Hope you like points. Highmark Stadium hosted its first real football carrying the fattest total on the Week 2 board — 54.5, up from 52.5 at open — and I was there for exactly one thing. The touchdown board. Not the side, not the total, not a six-leg monstrosity. Just the question of who reaches the end zone and what the exchange is charging you to say so.
Now, about what Detroit just allowed. Three quarterbacks in New Orleans Saints history have thrown for 400 yards in a game: Drew Brees, Aaron Brooks, and — on Sunday — Tyler Shough.
The Lions ran it back with both of their starting safeties parked on the PUP list. Kerby Joseph has a knee that already cost him 11 games last season. Brian Branch tore an Achilles in December. Neither is available for the first four games, and this trip sits right in the middle of that window. Alex Anzalone, the best cover linebacker on the roster, walked in free agency and took Detroit's ability to play base defense with him.
Jahmyr Gibbs is the likeliest man in this football game to reach the end zone, and the exchange knows it — he is 69 cents and there is no argument to be had. I am interested in the two the exchange got wrong. Strongest first, before another word of setup.
Kincaid is the best bet on my board — the only one of these two where the price is genuinely lagging the player. St. Brown is the better football player attached to the worse number, and I'd rather say that out loud than dress him up in a costume. Two tickets, two sidelines, and one of them is carrying more of the load than the other.
If you want the game itself rather than the end zone, every number on it got run in Kalshi NFL Picks: Every Market And AI Verdict. This piece is only about the touchdowns.
Detroit's Secondary Is Currently Held Together With Athletic Tape And Good Intentions
Nobody wants to lead with "a good team is missing its two best defensive backs," but that's the headline and pretending otherwise would cost you money.
Joseph and Branch are both parked on PUP through at least four games. What replaced them is Chuck Clark and Avonte Maddox — 17 combined seasons and 218 games between them, which is the polite way of saying these are seasoned professionals who have been seasoned professionals for a very long time. They are not the guys who left.
Losing Anzalone quietly matters just as much. Detroit's own team site spelled it out: his coverage ability is what allowed the Lions to play more base defense than any team in football last season. Without him they live in nickel, which means smaller bodies on the field and a whole lot more grass over the middle.
Week 1 was the invoice arriving. Shough dropped back 56 times and threw for 410, New Orleans erased a 21-0 third-quarter hole, and Detroit survived 31-30 in overtime only because a two-point conversion fell incomplete. No defense in football gave up more passing yards in Week 1 than Detroit did, along with 469 total yards and an 80% red-zone touchdown rate. One game is a thin sample. It is also the only one anybody has.
Now, the honest counterweight, because there is one and you deserve it: the film graded out better than the box score. Detroit's coverage marks came back average-to-good across the board, Aidan Hutchinson got home twice, and Chris Olave's 182 yards were mostly a terrific receiver beating a good corner rather than a scheme melting down. Fifty-six attempts inflates every number on the page.
But 56 attempts is exactly the point. Detroit's front strangled the run, the game got handed to a quarterback, and the quarterback nearly took it.
Here's the detail that should have been tattooed on that night's card. Both New Orleans tight ends scored, and both scored from inside the 10. Juwan Johnson caught a nine-yard touchdown with 1:07 left to tie it. Noah Fant caught an eight-yard touchdown in overtime. Seven catches, 87 yards, two scores, zero of them from distance. Detroit didn't get beaten deep by tight ends. Detroit got beaten in a phone booth by tight ends, twice, at the worst possible moments.
And this is not a one-week fluke dressed up as a trend. In 2025 the Lions surrendered 88 receptions, 932 yards and eight touchdowns to tight ends. Mark Andrews went for 91 and a pair. That was with Joseph and Branch dressed.
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Dalton Kincaid Touchdown Odds: The Guy Who Just Had The Best Game Of His Life
Dalton Kincaid has spent two and a half years being the tight end Buffalo drafted in the first round and then mostly forgot to throw to. He's been the football equivalent of a gym membership you keep paying for.
Then Week 1 happened: five catches, 130 yards, a career high, in his fourth season, on six targets.
The number underneath it is the one that actually moves me. 5.65 yards per route run — top three in the entire NFL across every position in Week 1. He ran those routes on 42 snaps, most of any Buffalo tight end, at roughly 70% route participation. Compare that to 2025: 60% before a knee injury, 44% after it. He is on the field in a way he has simply never been on the field.
And look at where the ball was going. Ninety-eight air yards on six targets — better than 16 yards downfield per look, from a tight end. New coordinator Pete Carmichael spent 17 years in New Orleans under Sean Payton, and he did not come to Buffalo to hand this man dump-offs.
Kalshi has him 32 bid, 33 ask on 1+ touchdowns. Add the 1.55-cent fee, you're in at 34.55, and that's +189.
Here's the base rate, which is the whole ballgame. Kincaid scored in 5-of-12 games last season. That's 41.7%. All five were single-touchdown games — he's not a multi-score guy, he's a once-in-a-while guy who happens to be once-in-a-while at a much higher clip than his reputation. Fair value on a 41.7% outcome sits right around +140. You're being charged 34.55 cents for it.
Eight points of probability, sitting in the open, on a night when the defense across from him just gave up two short touchdowns to tight ends and is missing both safeties.
Dalton Kincaid — YES on 1+ TouchdownsPrice: 33¢
After fee : 34.55¢
Effective : +189
Take it to : 38¢
The fine printJosh Allen is the single biggest threat to this ticket and it isn't close. In Week 1 he took both short scores himself — a 21-yard run and a one-yard sneak — and he's rushed for 12 or more touchdowns in back-to-back seasons. Every keeper inside the 5 is a Kincaid target that never gets thrown. Also worth knowing: those five scores in 2025 came on his lowest target volume as a pro, after two-touchdown seasons in 2023 and 2024. And this price has run hard, from 21 bid on Tuesday to 32 bid now, so somebody got here before me.
Amon-Ra St. Brown Anytime Touchdown: The Corner Buffalo Forgot To Replace
Amon-Ra St. Brown opened his season with 14 targets, 10 catches and two touchdowns, including the four-yard game-winner in overtime, on 69 of 77 snaps. His target share was 35.9% and he was targeted on 0.36 of the routes he ran — better than one out of every three. Zero drops.
He is also, on the raw base rate, priced about where he belongs. St. Brown scored in 7-of-17 games in 2025, or 41.2%, and the exchange wants 44.72 cents after the fee. I'm not going to stand up here and tell you a number slightly north of a man's historical rate is a screaming bargain. It isn't, and anybody who says otherwise is selling you something.
What makes it playable is the matchup, and the matchup is ugly for Buffalo.
Taron Johnson — the slot corner who anchored that defense for years — got traded to Las Vegas because he didn't fit Jim Leonhard's new 3-4. His replacement is Dee Alford, a 28-year-old who came up undrafted out of Division II Tusculum and spent last season in Atlanta allowing a 67% completion rate and four touchdowns in coverage. In Week 1 Alford graded 52.4 — 65th out of 91 corners — and the write-ups on him were about miscommunication and handing out too much separation.
Buffalo's own beat writers said this week that Alford "will need to keep St. Brown in check" and called it a harder job than the one he just botched. That's their guys saying it, not me.
Now stack the scheme on top. Buffalo played 76.7% zone against just 13.7% man in Week 1, in sub packages on 59% of snaps. Loads of nickel, loads of zone, against a receiver whose average depth of target was 5.2 yards. Option routes versus soft zone at four yards downfield is the exact meal this man has eaten every Sunday for four years.
Amon-Ra St. Brown — YES on 1+ TouchdownsPrice: 43¢
After fee : 44.72¢
Effective : +124
Take it to : 45¢
The fine printThis is the thinner of the two and I've told you why. Two things can sink it. One: Detroit is starting a patchwork offensive line. Rookie right tackle Blake Miller and left guard Christian Mahogany are both out, and center Cade Mays is on IR with a fractured wrist — three starters, on the road, in primetime, against a front that produced three sacks and nine quarterback hits in Week 1. Two: his Week 1 line was 67 yards on 14 targets, which is enormous volume at almost no depth, and his yards per route run fell from 2.48 last season to 1.72. The touchdowns rescued an otherwise quiet afternoon. If Detroit has to keep bodies in to protect Goff, the volume goes with them.
How I'd Size It
I put a quarter unit on each, which is where I land on almost everything that misses more often than it hits. Two quarter units, two sidelines, done.
That said, I would be more than fine scaling Kincaid up and I would not blink at anybody who did. He is the one where the exchange is genuinely behind the market — 34.55 cents against a man who scored in 5-of-12 games, with the books themselves 35 cents apart on him. St. Brown at 44.72 is a fair number in a great spot, and a fair number does not earn extra money. If you are adding anywhere, add to the tight end.
The downside, stated plainly: both of these need the game to look like the number says it will look. A raw September night in Orchard Park, two good defensive fronts, a 20-17 final, and you have two dead tickets and a legitimate complaint about the total.
One Touchdown Play Worth Noting For Its Absurdity
Before we get to the card, one row on this board is doing something genuinely strange, and it is the cleanest lesson in the whole article.
Jared Goff to score a touchdown is five cents on Kalshi and +2200 at BetMGM. Same bet, same night, and the exchange is the worse price by more than four dollars on the dollar.
Jared Goff has rushed for two touchdowns in his entire career. He is 31 years old and runs like a man carrying a full cup of coffee. If you want that ticket — and it is a perfectly fine dart at 20-to-1 — take it at the book. Five cents plus the fee puts you in at 5.33, which is +1776. A hundred dollars comes back as $1,876 on the exchange and $2,300 at the book — $424 gone for the crime of not opening a second tab.
That is this article in one row. The exchange is not automatically the better number; it is the better number usually, which is not the same thing, and the only way to know which night you're having is to look. Here is the rest of the board.
| Contract | Kalshi ask | Effective |
|---|---|---|
| Joshua Palmer 1+ TD | 13¢ | +625 |
| Isaac TeSlaa 1+ TD | 15¢ | +529 |
| DJ Moore 1+ TD | 35¢ | +173 |
| Sam LaPorta 1+ TD | 29¢ | +229 |
| Josh Allen 1+ TD | 49¢ | −103 |
| James Cook 1+ TD | 55¢ | −131 |
| Jahmyr Gibbs 1+ TD | 69¢ | −239 |
| Keon Coleman 1+ TD | 17¢ | +456 |
| Jared Goff 1+ TD | 5¢ | +1776 |
Kalshi asks re-pulled Thursday, September 17, 11:50 a.m. ET; effective odds are fee-adjusted at the published taker rate. Seven of these nine were the better number on the exchange than at any book I could find; two were not.
And if you want a longshot off this board, it's Joshua Palmer. Thirteen cents on the exchange is +625 against +475 at the book — a dollar and a half of difference on the dollar. Buffalo's third receiver, in a game carrying the fattest total on the board, at better than 6-to-1 when the book will only go 4.75. That's the bonus ticket. The quiet corners are where the money is. They always are.
The Card, With The Fee Math
| Contract | Price | After fee | Effective | TD’s In ’25 | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dalton Kincaid Yes 1+ TD | 33¢ | 34.55¢ | +189 | 5-of-12 | Scored |
| Amon-Ra St. Brown Yes 1+ TD | 43¢ | 44.72¢ | +124 | 7-of-17 | Scored |
Kalshi bid/ask re-pulled Thursday, September 17, 2026, 11:50 a.m. ET. Fees at the published taker rate of 0.07 × price × (1 − price). "TD’s In ’25" is the number of games in which the player scored at least one touchdown.
Final Thoughts: The Thursday Night Football TD Card
Two tickets on a night the market has already told you should produce a pile of touchdowns.
Here's the part that makes the whole thing work: Kincaid scores in about four of every 10 games, and the exchange is paying you +189 for it. Fair value on that rate is +140. You are getting paid like a 35% shot for a 42% outcome, and that gap is the entire bet.
Which is exactly why you keep them small. Quarter-unit stakes. No chasing if the first one dies in the second quarter. No hero sizing because the broadcast told you Buffalo can't stop anybody.
The tell in this game isn't complicated. Detroit is starting two backup safeties, no longer has the linebacker who let them play base, and in their only game so far a quarterback making his first real start threw for 410 yards while both opposing tight ends scored from inside the 10. Buffalo's tight end just posted the best game of his career and is running routes at a rate he never has before.
The exchange has that man at 33 cents. It also has Jared Goff — two career rushing touchdowns, age 31 — priced worse than BetMGM does.
People are silly.
— Lindy
Kalshi prices quoted were re-pulled from the exchange on Thursday, September 17, 2026 at 11:50 a.m. ET and will move before the 8:15 p.m. ET kickoff; confirm the bid and ask before trading. Sportsbook prices are from BetMGM and FanDuel at the same read and should be re-checked at the book. Statistics cited are 2025 regular-season and Week 1 2026 figures from NFL.com, PFF, SumerSports, Sharp Football Analysis and nfelo; single-game 2026 samples are small and are labeled as such. The edges here are model estimates, not predictions of fact; nothing here is financial advice. Trading involves risk and contracts can settle at zero. If you or someone you know has a gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER.
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