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#1
Hello Everyone! Hope you all had profitable weeks as always. I was able to have my 6th straight winning week, and the Top 3 went 2-1 last week to put us at an incredible 12-3 over the last 5 weeks. Also a 3-0 perfect sweep ATS on Thanksgiving day helped to make the Holiday happy.
Well here is the Week 13 Top 3. As always input is appreciated as I love talking football with all of you guys.
Philadelphia @ Atlanta
In this match-up we have two teams who both need this game for the playoff race. In week 1 Philly made it into the Top 3 @ Carolina. In that writeup I said I believed that the eagles would sweep the NFC south this year, that wasn't the case with New Orleans of course but aside from the Saints, the Eagles have done a great job against NFC South opponents. I was looking forward to this match-up prior to last week and thought this would be a good spot for Atlanta to have a rare loss at home. Last week Matt Ryan was injured as well as Michael Turner being re-injured. I enjoyed watching Atlanta win the game at the very end, but my thoughts then were if Philly was less than a TD favorite they would be the top play. But anyway on to the football talk...
QB Chris Redman isn't anywhere near the QB Matt Ryan is, though he was serviceable enough to win the game vs. TB, I've seen a lot of his play (mainly the 07 season) and there is huge drop-off from Ryan to Redman. The Eagles will be effective with the Zone blitz (much like they were against Car week 1), this stems from there ability to stop the run. Eagles are a consistent Top 5 run D team this year. While the drop-off from Turner to their other RB's isn't as big as the QB position its a drop-off nonetheless. On the other side of the ball, Atlanta's Defense has been far from impressive this year, they don't get a lot of pressure and they don't have a great secondary.
The Eagles should be able to achieve balance between the run and pass and make some big plays on Offense. D. Jackson will be out, but there are plenty of other options for McNabb in the passing game. Lastly, as I've mentioned several times in these write-ups I hate taking the Eagles as a big favorite, I'm very hesitant to take them if they are favored by more than a TD, as was the case with Washington +9 being on Top 3 last week. The number here is right in striking range especially with 2 huge leaders out for Atlanta. Not to mention that a loss wouldn't be the end of the world for ATL, I think they might would feel fortunate to have at least won that game vs. Tampa without Matt Ryan & Turner
Pick: Eagles -6
Eagles 31
Falcons 16
Tampa @ Carolina
I've been flirting with backing the Bucs here, even though Carolina usually plays Tampa well, they have been very unimpressive when favored ATS. However its not entirely impossible to imagine the Panthers beating the Bucs by a TD which would give them the cover. Therefore for the first time this season a total will break into the Top 3...
Carolina has not been able to put up the kind of points they were the latter half of the 08 season, but the D has been playing much better than last year especially against the pass, basically this team has flip-flopped their problems. Last season they were a good bet to put up 30+ every game, but could not stop anybody. This year there has been tons of problems, with Jake mainly, but there Defense especially Pass D has vastly improved. It hasn't made ESPN or the like at the time of this writing, but Jake Delhomme has a minor fracture in his finger and will be day to day for practice this week and could miss this game.
As always Carolina will mainly try to run the ball against the Bucs and control TOP. This is what has worked for them in the past and they won't get away from it here. They will play a lot of cover 2 D and try to contain TB's ground game with there front four. This is a hard game to figure because TB has been competitive in some games and in other games only score 7 or so pts. Jake has been terrible this year and his deep balls just look wrong, I'm confident if he plays he won't turn into Brees overnight, and Carolina will be all about running the ball. If Jake does not play and it is Feely or another backup its a safe bet that they will play the game manager role and eat up clock, not turn the ball over etc...
Between Carolina's conservative style and there much improved Pass D, I expect a decent amount of FG's in this game. Whether Tampa keeps it to a close last second field goal type of game, or Carolina blows TB out, its a safe bet this won't be a barn burner.
Pick: Under 41
Detoit @ Cincinnati
A few weeks ago the Bengals were on the Top 3 quite often, they haven't made it lately because I felt they were in let down spots after beating the Steelers and Ravens for the 2nd time. I was hesitant to back them against Oakland and again last week against the Browns. This is the week where it will be important for this team to start firing on all cylinders again as we head into the last stretch of the regular season and into the playoffs. Marvin Lewis and Co. know that there is a risk of getting stagnant pretty quick and they need to build momentum and stress improvement and not get complacent. This non-conference game against Detroit is a great spot to do just that. Usually the Lions rebound pretty well from their annual Thanksgiving loss, but the Bengals need to prove they are a major contender in the AFC after being somewhat forgotten lately.
While its a big number to cover this week, I think the Bengals will perform a little better Offensively than in past weeks and I wouldn't be surprised at all if Carson Palmer has one of his best games this year against the Detroit secondary. But more importantly the Bengal Defense continues to impress me, and I don't think Detroit will have much success on the ground or through the air against this D iat their house. I'm looking for some flashes of the way they played in the blowout of Chicago, and also think Detroit will come down from there high of beating Cleveland last minute, two weeks ago, some of that mojo carried over into the game last week vs. GB, but at the end of the day the lost and failed to cover the large number.
The Lions have lost every single road game this year by Double Digits, and none of those were non-conference games like this one where a blowout is statistically more probable, especially against a talented team like the Bengals who get out of letdown mode this week.
Pick: Cincinnati -13
Bengals 27
Lions 6
Well here is the Week 13 Top 3. As always input is appreciated as I love talking football with all of you guys.
Philadelphia @ Atlanta
In this match-up we have two teams who both need this game for the playoff race. In week 1 Philly made it into the Top 3 @ Carolina. In that writeup I said I believed that the eagles would sweep the NFC south this year, that wasn't the case with New Orleans of course but aside from the Saints, the Eagles have done a great job against NFC South opponents. I was looking forward to this match-up prior to last week and thought this would be a good spot for Atlanta to have a rare loss at home. Last week Matt Ryan was injured as well as Michael Turner being re-injured. I enjoyed watching Atlanta win the game at the very end, but my thoughts then were if Philly was less than a TD favorite they would be the top play. But anyway on to the football talk...
QB Chris Redman isn't anywhere near the QB Matt Ryan is, though he was serviceable enough to win the game vs. TB, I've seen a lot of his play (mainly the 07 season) and there is huge drop-off from Ryan to Redman. The Eagles will be effective with the Zone blitz (much like they were against Car week 1), this stems from there ability to stop the run. Eagles are a consistent Top 5 run D team this year. While the drop-off from Turner to their other RB's isn't as big as the QB position its a drop-off nonetheless. On the other side of the ball, Atlanta's Defense has been far from impressive this year, they don't get a lot of pressure and they don't have a great secondary.
The Eagles should be able to achieve balance between the run and pass and make some big plays on Offense. D. Jackson will be out, but there are plenty of other options for McNabb in the passing game. Lastly, as I've mentioned several times in these write-ups I hate taking the Eagles as a big favorite, I'm very hesitant to take them if they are favored by more than a TD, as was the case with Washington +9 being on Top 3 last week. The number here is right in striking range especially with 2 huge leaders out for Atlanta. Not to mention that a loss wouldn't be the end of the world for ATL, I think they might would feel fortunate to have at least won that game vs. Tampa without Matt Ryan & Turner
Pick: Eagles -6
Eagles 31
Falcons 16
Tampa @ Carolina
I've been flirting with backing the Bucs here, even though Carolina usually plays Tampa well, they have been very unimpressive when favored ATS. However its not entirely impossible to imagine the Panthers beating the Bucs by a TD which would give them the cover. Therefore for the first time this season a total will break into the Top 3...
Carolina has not been able to put up the kind of points they were the latter half of the 08 season, but the D has been playing much better than last year especially against the pass, basically this team has flip-flopped their problems. Last season they were a good bet to put up 30+ every game, but could not stop anybody. This year there has been tons of problems, with Jake mainly, but there Defense especially Pass D has vastly improved. It hasn't made ESPN or the like at the time of this writing, but Jake Delhomme has a minor fracture in his finger and will be day to day for practice this week and could miss this game.
As always Carolina will mainly try to run the ball against the Bucs and control TOP. This is what has worked for them in the past and they won't get away from it here. They will play a lot of cover 2 D and try to contain TB's ground game with there front four. This is a hard game to figure because TB has been competitive in some games and in other games only score 7 or so pts. Jake has been terrible this year and his deep balls just look wrong, I'm confident if he plays he won't turn into Brees overnight, and Carolina will be all about running the ball. If Jake does not play and it is Feely or another backup its a safe bet that they will play the game manager role and eat up clock, not turn the ball over etc...
Between Carolina's conservative style and there much improved Pass D, I expect a decent amount of FG's in this game. Whether Tampa keeps it to a close last second field goal type of game, or Carolina blows TB out, its a safe bet this won't be a barn burner.
Pick: Under 41
Detoit @ Cincinnati
A few weeks ago the Bengals were on the Top 3 quite often, they haven't made it lately because I felt they were in let down spots after beating the Steelers and Ravens for the 2nd time. I was hesitant to back them against Oakland and again last week against the Browns. This is the week where it will be important for this team to start firing on all cylinders again as we head into the last stretch of the regular season and into the playoffs. Marvin Lewis and Co. know that there is a risk of getting stagnant pretty quick and they need to build momentum and stress improvement and not get complacent. This non-conference game against Detroit is a great spot to do just that. Usually the Lions rebound pretty well from their annual Thanksgiving loss, but the Bengals need to prove they are a major contender in the AFC after being somewhat forgotten lately.
While its a big number to cover this week, I think the Bengals will perform a little better Offensively than in past weeks and I wouldn't be surprised at all if Carson Palmer has one of his best games this year against the Detroit secondary. But more importantly the Bengal Defense continues to impress me, and I don't think Detroit will have much success on the ground or through the air against this D iat their house. I'm looking for some flashes of the way they played in the blowout of Chicago, and also think Detroit will come down from there high of beating Cleveland last minute, two weeks ago, some of that mojo carried over into the game last week vs. GB, but at the end of the day the lost and failed to cover the large number.
The Lions have lost every single road game this year by Double Digits, and none of those were non-conference games like this one where a blowout is statistically more probable, especially against a talented team like the Bengals who get out of letdown mode this week.
Pick: Cincinnati -13
Bengals 27
Lions 6
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