Debating Monday Night Football
Giants (-4.5) at Atlanta – This is a particularly interesting game to evaluate because it seems a bit too good to be true. The Giants looked rough early last week against the Jets, but they came back nicely to deliver their third straight solid win. Atlanta looked terrible last week in a loss to Tennessee which came a week after a win against Houston that gave team observers a bit of hope. The veterans on the team are speaking out against the new coach, and the offensive line is full of injuries, forcing two youngsters to start against the fierce New York pass rush. Quarterbacking is clearly an issue for Atlanta – Harrington is wildly inconsistent, but Byron Leftwich looked unprepared in relief last week.
That all looks like it should lead to an easy game to handicap, but then you see that the line only opened at 3.5 and is moving up, but slowly. If I were to pick a line in this game I would have said at least seven. Why is the line so low? The public is jumping all over the Giants, which is a predictable result, so the oddsmakers must have less faith in the Giants than seems obvious. There are a couple of explanations for the fact that the Giants are not more heavily favored – Plaxico Burress, their chief passing threat, is playing on a sore ankle, and the team has struggled to stop kick returns. The kick return, thanks to Jerious Norwood, is the one aspect of the game that Atlanta is actually doing well in.
The signs point to avoiding the Giants because it seems to easy. I’m going to tempt fate here, though, and I’ll see how that turns out. I see the Giants harassing the Fallcons offense every time the ball is snapped, and I see New York continuing on the offensive confidence they built in the second half of the Jets game to punish the inevitable mistakes Atlanta will make. I don’t think that this will be a terrible blowout, but I do think that the Giants will win by more than 4.5. Pick: Giants.
UPDATE: It’s games like this that make sports betting challenging. The Giants were the obvious pick and they got an easy win, but there were more than ample reasons out there for a bettor to talk themselves out of making that bet. I’m just glad I didn’t do that. Atlanta looks terrible. They just can’t drop that any passes in a game. It’s nice to end the football weekend with another win.
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