NFL Week Two

WEEK 2 – NFL

Miami Dolphins at New England Patriots

My Prices – Dolphins 3.20 Patriots 1.43

Vegas Line - Patriots -6.5

Miami were improving at the backend of last season and that seems to have continued after a solid showing against the Seahawks in week one, they really should of won but for some dropped passes and that’s no mean feat against one of the best defences in the league in a hostile environment in Seattle.

Dolphins QB Tannehill doesn’t really convince me but if he keeps things simple with a short passing attack his offensive line will hold up well as the Patriots have no outstanding pass rushers. With Miami’s WR Landry & WR Stills getting open on a regular basis against the stellar Seahawks secondary you’d like to think they can at least do the same to the Patriots.

I’m not too sure how the running game is going to work out as Miami RB Foster couldn’t get going against the Seahawks which is to be expected and the Patriots run defence got torched by one of the best RB in the league in Arizona’s Johnson, Foster for me is only ordinary and the Pats runs defence should hold up a little better unless it’s truly awful.

With the Patriots young QB Garoppolo possibly liable to make some mistakes in the pressure of his first ever divisional game and with a very questionable offensive line in front of him we see a huge mismatch as the Dolphins elite defenders Suh, Wake and Williams will look to absolutely destroy the Patriots extremely dodgy blocking unit, I guess we’ll find out what QB Garoppolo is really made of on Sunday morning.

So with Miami’s fierce pass rush and a young and inexperienced stand-in QB the Patriots will have to resort to dink and dunking and running the ball, which is no bad thing as we know the Patriots can scheme and win against anyone as they probably will here to be honest with you but I don’t think they can cover this spread, for me the Patriots and Dolphins are pretty close right now under current circumstances and giving 6.5 points is a lot to overcome when a very limited offense is battling a talented defence and on that basis I’m backing the Dolphins +6.5 at 1.98 with Marathon Bet.

New Orleans Saints at New York Giants

My Prices – Saints 2.65 Giants 1.60

Vegas Line - Giants -4.5

Last season when these two teams met in the Superdome they racked up 13 touchdowns between them in a 52-49 shootout. I don’t think that’s going to be the case this year, firstly the Saints aren’t nearly as effective outside the Superdome and the Giants have improved their defence, especially the pass rush where new signings DE Vernon & DT Harrison have improved the unit so for me they will be able to exploit the Saints questionable offensive line, I still think the Saints QB Brees will still engineer some scoring drives as he’s that good and they have capable receivers in Cooks & Snead but this won’t be the shootout the books are projecting.

The Giants like the Saints have a suspect offensive line and DE Jordan should be in QB Mannings face all afternoon as New York are very weak at the Tackle position. The Giants don’t have the greatest running game either although the Saints don’t have the best secondary, especially after their number one corner Breaux is done for the season, through the air the Giants could hurt the Saints and WR Beckham, Shepherd & Cruz could all have big afternoons if the line can protect QB Manning.

The line that caught my eye here is the total points and under 53.5 is my play, I can understand the inflated total after last season’s result as I mentioned at the start of the preview but these are two totally different teams to a year ago and they’re not going to rack up a ton of points again, the Giants should of scored more last week if they had a truly potent offence as the Cowboys defence was not healthy and missing some key players, they only managed 20 and would of lost the game if Dallas employed some better clock management and actually had receivers that could catch the ball. I’m backing under 53.5 points at 1.99 with Marathon.

Philadelphia Eagles at Chicago Bears

My Prices – Eagles 2.45 Bears 1.66

Vegas Line - Bears -3

The Eagles rookie QB and number one pick in the draft Wentz made an impressive debut last week but it was against the Browns and they couldn’t bring any sort of pressure on him at all and he had a clean pocket for most of the game, that won’t happen here in Chicago as the Bears have a stout front 7 who rush the QB well, they also limited the Texans rushing attack to small yards last week and Houston have a better ground game than the Eagles. The Bears do have some major issues at safety but I like their corners Porter and Fuller and they should be able to handle Philly’s unproven receiving group when Wentz has time to throw.

Bears QB Cutler was beaten up last week in Houston sacked 5 times and hit another 13 times but the Texans have an elite defence and that is not the case with the Eagles so he should get better protection here and more time in the pocket to find his talented receivers Jeffrey & White who match up well against Philly’s suspect cornerbacks. I would also expect RB Langford to have a better game than last week as he will be running against a defence that surrendered more than five yards per carry to the Browns.

The Bears are underrated and I make this line Chicago -5 so to get -3 is a gift, the Eagles are riding the hype behind the number 1 pick in the draft and his impressive debut but the Browns have possibly the worst defence in the NFL and he couldn’t really have asked for an easier first game. I think the Bears are better than the Eagles at this stage, they own a comparable defensive front seven and a more-experienced quarterback with better offensive play-makers, so on that basis I’m backing the Bears -3 with Betway at 1.91