Week 5

SF TT Under 19.5 -110

Personally, I think this is 2.5 points too high and I would have played it at 17. Cardinals are 1-3 yes, but they still have a good defense. The reason they are 1-3 is more about facing two good defenses (NE, LA) with Palmer’s arm declining and a terrible spot, playing at BUF in Rex Ryan’s Super Bowl. This is an all in game for ARI and with Bowman out, they are probably going to pound the rock a lot more. Zeke had awfully huge running lanes after Bowman went out.  More running means less opportunities for SF. SF offense is TERRIBLE. They scored more than 19.5 in two games so far. Against the Rams they got 7 first downs alone by penalty and the Rams weren’t able to do anything on offense. Rams still held the Niners to 4.2 yards per play which would rank dead-last in the league-wide table. At Carolina, SF scored 13 points off drive starts at CAR’s 22, 17 and 1-yard lines. Those weren’t average situations, we always have to cap a team’s performance to average standards, because we want to eliminate random effects as far as we can. The Niners won’t score many points if they get an average drive start: they rank 31^st in yards/drive and 29^th in drive success rate. Their slightly below average pts/drive rate of 1.78 tells you they live off short fields to get anything going. The Cardinals defense is good and Chip Kelly has an history of struggling against good defenses. He got shut down by those defenses in the past such as Stanford, SF (under Harbaugh), Seattle. Gabbert isn’t a starting caliber QB and he will struggle mightily again vs. he Cardinals who have their season on the line. Would be shocked to see the Niners scoring 17 or more.

BAL -4 -110

Made this line a -4 for Ravens on a neutral field. The Redskins are complete trash. They played 3 of their first 4 at home, barely won at New York and won late vs the worst team in the league talent-wise. In fact, Giants outgained the Skins by 1.6 yards per play and the Browns had a lead going into the 4^th quarter. Sample size is just 4, but the Skins offense ranks #11 in total DVOA after playing defenses ranked #18, #23, #21 & #25. The Ravens rank 4^th and they have the best run defense so far. They didn’t play a tough schedule either, but their performances are stellar. They gave up 14 points to OAK on drives of 29 and 7 yards. They rank 1^st in yds/drive and 4^th in drive success rate. Unlike Cleveland, Ravens will be able to shut down the run game and put the QB with the worst cost-benefit ratio in the NFL (after Assweiler) into difficult passing situations. Kirk Cousins is just awful, he consistently over- and underthrows his receivers. They saved him a lot last week. I truly expect Cousins to throw 2-3 picks in this game. The Ravens offense isn’t something to be afraid of, but with Ronnie Stanley coming back (“good shot”), Flacco should have more time this week. Also I expect their running game to go off on a terrible Redskins run defense. Seeing this game as a 27-13 kind of game in favor of Baltimore.

GB O47.5 -110