History was made this week in the world of sports betting. When the opening lines rolled out late Sunday night, for the first time in NFL betting history six teams were favored by 9.5 points or more.

With the way the NFL was shaking down this season, one had to figure this record would be broken eventually. Front office dysfunction, high turnover rates amongst coaches and plain old bad football moves seemed to be in style this year more than ever. And with that, now there is a group of NFL teams all contending to match the Detroit Lions’ dubious distinction of a year ago.

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Through five weeks of football there are four teams still without a win. And then there is a group of one-win teams, who could actually be worse than the group of winless teams.

The heavy favorites this week are, Green Bay -13.5 hosting Detroit, Jacksonville (a team coming off a 41-0 loss a week ago) is 9.5-point favorites hosting St. Louis, the Steelers are two-touchdown favorites in Pittsburgh against the Browns, the Jets and Patriots are also 9.5-point favorites, with the Jets hosting the Bills and the Patriots entertaining the winless Titans. Lastly, the Philadelphia Eagles (on the road no less) are -14 against the hapless Raiders.

By no means do teams like the Packers, Jets and Jaguars deserve the distinction of being heavy favorites. This is not college football; placing a team as a double-digit favorite or close is a huge statement of just how great one team or just how mediocre the other team is.

And in this case, it has a lot to do with a team’s mediocrity.

Do not let the high spreads be a deterrent. So far this season NFL teams favored by 9.5 or more are 12-7 against the spread. And that record has been beefed up thanks to most of the same culprits, the Rams, Raiders and Lions, specifically.

In year’s past pounding the public favorite with the large point spread was not always a smart decision. That great team could have an off day or just play a bad game. In the case of fading the bottom-of-the-NFL-barrel teams, those teams are not likely to have a good game. Actually it is nearly impossible.

This year and perhaps for the foreseeable future, it is becoming a smarter decision to lay the chalk and take advantage of the poor franchises out there.

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A big mistake often made with bettors in this situation is to pick a few of the heavy underdogs and tease them. Entering an NFL game in a bettor’s mindset when you are already getting 14 points and teasing it to get an extra six or seven, is a comfortable feeling. However, so far this season the blowouts have been many and not even getting 30 points on some weeks could help teams like the Raiders and the Rams. Do not shy away from betting the heavy NFL favorites, just think about it as betting against the worst of the worst.