NOW for some fun, I have a playoff spot locked up so this week isn't a make or break on one of my teams so I will play a consensus lineup from you guys.
To make this a real gamble, I would take Fitzpatrick and pray for another crazy game from him. Brady will put up some numbers, but nothing huge I think. Chiefs run defense is terrible and I think Bill will exploit that and run all day on them. As I wrote earlier, the secondary of the Jets is pretty decimated with Poole and Adams out and Maulet being doubtful as of now. Odds suggest that the Dolphins will have to play catch-up, so some more throwing from Fitzpatrick is to be expected, although we might be in for a low scoring affair. The rest is fine I think.
Decided to have two plays this week.
First is the 49ers ML over the Saints at around 2,15. Saints didn't impress me recently. The results are ok, but they are struggling with a thumb-injury plagued Brees. 49ers have the best pass defense by far, so I don't see much happening through the air for the Saints, which has always been their bread and butter with Brees. Saints already struggled mightily against the Panthers and that win at the Falcons on Thanksgiving was kind of weird too. Saints had to settle for a lot of field goals in that one and that might not be enough against these 49ers. It has to be noted, that they had some more days to prepare for this one.
The 49ers otoh did impress me a lot. They were close to winning at the Ravens, who are arguably the best team right now in the NFL. They will have RB Breida available again, which should help a lot against a good Saints run defense. What worries me is that SF is in some kind of letdown spot here. Coming off such a tough loss at the Ravens and then having to play on the road again the week after against a very good home team, could cause some issues. But this is already priced in and the 49ers are the better football team overall for me.
Second bet is the Panthers ML over the Falcons at around 2,70. Hard to find some arguments for this bet, it's mostly some gut feeling. Panthers sacked Rivera and Fewell has taken over as interim coach. I got the feeling that Rivera somehow lost the locker room and the players wanted Rivera gone. They were successful. Now everything is set to zero and it's up to the players to prove themselves again. Afterall they are still alive for a wildcard spot and should try to keep those hopes alive. During that stretch to get rid of Rivera, they had some embarassing losses, which included a 3-29 home loss to the Falcons. So even though there is already some hate in a divisional game anyway, the Panthers will seek some revenge on top and show that the loss at home was just a tank job. I might be totally off with my gut feeling, but the Falcons are no world beaters this season as well. Both teams are a bit unpredictable, so lets see which team shows up for whom.