chi ml +103 (2x)... been waiting to bet this gm all week figuring the line would flip, hopefully im not being to impatient now as maybe it goes up more? either way i feel good with anything plus is great in a gm i am pretty confident that the bears win..
yes bears stumbled last week and the much improve oline got whipped by a incredibly talented defensive front in a very noisy environment..yes saints defense is much improved as i been talking them up more every week but they have no where near the talent up front that det has, they beat you with scheme as ryan does a incredible job using the personal he has and showing teams a lot of looks..
i think tessman's offense is built to deal with this, 1st off saints allow a league worst 5.5 ypc and tressman uses forte as the weapon he is, id expect him to have a monster gm. despite getting beat mono a mono in the dome last week this oline has been coached up wonderfully (coincidentally by saints former oline coach) and the rookies are playing great.. i believe the bears can be successful enough on the ground that it will force saints to give cutler more defined looks as the will have to either continue getting gashed or stop moving guys around. i think the oline is working well as a unit and will be able to pick up the pressures saints bring as again saints guys arnt just lining up and beating your man..if the line can work together and not let open rushers free cutler has some big time mismatches with those 2 big boys on the outside and bennett in the middle, that some serious size saints corners cant handle...
on the other side i mentioned last week how much i felt the bears d has dropped off, they been giving up too many yards per play and #1 wrs have killed them in a few matchups, they still making plays but they allowing teams to move far to easily...they need to get back to a little more bend but dont break and i think they will against the saints, the run gm shouldnt scare them too much as saints not running the ball all that well, saints gonna drop back and pass. the dline has to get some pressure and i think they will at times but brees will get his, the key here is lettign him get his between the 20s and force him to take a lot of plays doing it which i believe bears can. once saints get to the red zone bears hold the adv as they typically one of the better red zone defenses in the league and saints red zone execution has been lacking the majority of the season..
bottom line is saints have never been as good away from home on grass, soldier field isnt exactly the place id wanna be if i had to play on grass, bears coming off a bad loss in a tough place in a gm i expected them to lose. saints coming off doing what they do best and whipping the shit out of someone in the thunderdome monday night, so now of coarse everyone thinks saints so much better than the bears, in superdome they prob are, however this bears offense is a big step up in class compared to what the saints have seen thus far and i expect a d i like to get exposed a little bit here..while bears go back to playing bend but dont break, force some fgs, and maybe even get a turnover..i like bears in a close one 27-23..
den/dal ov 55.5 (1.5x)...square me up with den overs, while sure they are inflated i think books prisoners right now as they cant reasonable line these gms where they should be imo, last week i made the number 66.5 and that was low thanx to a garbage time td. i made it slightly lower this week but 64 is my number so once again even with this jacked up line i see a lot of value in the over (1st time in my life i recall having totals that i think are more than a td off!)..opponents pass a lot on both these teams and both these teams like to pass avg right around 40 attempts per gm, maybe kiffen's cover 2 forces den to take a little longer but peyton knows this defense well and will pick it apart, just cant envision broncos not scoring 30+.. romo a gunslinger and i think he and dez will be gm here to try and hang with den for a while anyway, i put dal in the 27-31 range, add that to den and think we talking about another gm that is played in the 60s..playing it now cause cant imagine this doesnt tick over 56..
sd/oak ov 45 (1x)... when you look at the horrific defensive numbers both these teams sporting it makes ya think the only reason this number isnt 49 is cause the offenses arnt all that highly thought of, understandable in oak case but sd has proven me wrong enough to believe this number is very attainable..
1st the defenses, oak is dead last in opponents completion percentage allowing teams to complete 72% of their passes while sd is a much better 29th allowing 68%! both teams rank in the bottom 7 in the league allowing teams to convert 3rd downs well over 40% of the time. once you drive the field on these scrubs oak allows you to score tds 69% of the time on red zone trips and sd rather generous themselves letting teams walk in right bout 60% of the time..if that isnt enough sd allows a pathetic 5.2 yards per carry..
the nice thing about these defensive numbers is they just so happen to play into the offenses strengths,, chargers are 2nd behind den completing 73% of their passes and convert 3rd downs at a 50% clip. so we have a prolific charger passing attack vs a miserable oak pass defense..it gets better cause with pryor returning oak has a strong run gm (no matter who the back is), perfect to take adv of chargers run defense, once oak forces sd to put 8 in the box chargers allow one of the highest yards per completion in the league so id expect moore and streeter to be able to do some damage over the top as well as pryor with his legs as sd doesnt create any pressure on the passer either!
bottom line is neither defense can get off the field and both offenses do a good job of prolonging drives, while it could be concerning that we get long time consuming drives that dont end in points that isnt very likely considering how generous both defenses are when teams get down close.. not counting any kind of defensive or special teams plays i think we see a minimum of 8 scoring drives that will result in 6tds and a few fgs which puts us at 48 with the possibility of more....
Bungals ml -103 (1x)....again might be able to get better number in morning but i dont have time to do all this then
alright lets see if pats can get me again, last week they took it to atl but you will never be able to explain to me wtf atl is doing in the red zone these days? horrid play calling and execution (more playcalling)..that neither here nor there but i bring this up cause atl had several red zone trips on this pats d and just settled far to often to stay in the gm,,,
now pats get a cincy team who is very efficient in the red zone and with good reason as the power run gm sets up other options, to make matters worse for the pats is they lost one of their most valuable players in wolford, dude a beast and makes it incredibly difficult to run and he gets push up the middle to help the pass rush as well..with him gone i believe now the time for cincy to re establish a run gm, and use gio a ton as he a matchup nightmare once he gets to the second level and pats lbs arnt exactly fast.. this gm is due to be played in crappy weather, wind, rain, some thundershowers and this is all gonna play into forcing cincy to play the kind of gm they need to..in this type of gm you gotta love the bungals defense, that front 7 is stout and wont let pats run on them, in good conditions they dont allow 300 yard passers, and quite frankly they the more physical group..
looking for this to be a slop fest grind it out type gm with lots of running, plenty of punts, a few mistakes, in a gm like that i want the team i feel will have more success running, the team with the better defense, the team that has the weapons to take a few shots deep once pats over commit to the run..cincy isnt as bad as they played last week and i continue to stick by my story that while pats a solid team they not as good as their record..think this is rather low with cincy winning somewhat easily..23-17
balty ml +127 (2x).. one of these gms that was tough for me cause i like the phins, of coarse ya know i also feel like balty underrated and hold firm on that despite that miserable performance last week (just happy i laid off)...
i have to believe that harbaugh is gonna sit that idiot caldwell down and devise a gm plan that not only involves running it more than 16 times but in fact think they will have more rushes than passes this week,, couldnt be a better time to make this adjustment than against a phins team that is much better vs the pass than run. atl gashed this team with the run gm and controlled the entire gm and mai had no answers. the addition of former top 10 pick monroe cant do anything but bolster a ravens rushing attack that has been miserable. this is the week that changes as i believe balt comes with a attitude in the run gm and dominates the los.. if that not enough you may have noticed sproles in mismatches all over in the passing gm and id expect rice to cause similar problems...
offensively fish really dont do anything especially well, they make plays when they need to but overall the run gm has been a disappointment going against a stingy balty run d, they have tennenhill throwing way to often which puts pressure on a oline that is far from elite, id call them bad but i think a lot of the sacks they give up are on the qb, obviously it a combination of both but allowing 4.5 sacks a gm kills a lot of drives. enter tsizzle and his band of monsters up front and think tennenhill could be in for a long day
balt is still the defending champs with a lot of good players that have a lot of pride coming off a miserable performance...i like the phins, think they a year away and this a gm the defending champs get to stay in the mix of upper echelon teams.
2 team 6 point teaser of the week.
bal+8.5
pack-1.5
sorry i liked a lot. lol..