Monday Night Football: Best bets for Falcons-Eagles
Is Atlanta’s offense a case of season-opening rust?
Overreaction week concludes on Monday night with another example of a point spread that is drastically different than what it was projected to be just 60 minutes of football ago.
Some team rating adjustments proved to be right on Sunday (Panthers anyone?). Others proved to be a panic move (virtually everyone else). Which category will this game fall into? Of course, we don’t know, but, like many bets so far weekend, it’s an easy call on which side to bet on, even if it won’t likely be as easy to win.
Falcons @ Eagles (-6, 46.5)
The lookahead line for this game was Eagles -3.5… and then the Falcons played.
Kirk Cousins looked awful, leading the Falcons’ to just 226 yards of offense, and Atlanta lost to the Steelers without Pittsburgh scoring a touchdown.
As a result, the line for Monday night’s game seemed like it might hit -7 before the market thought better of things and sent it back down to -6 - potentially on news that A.J. Brown tweaked his hamstring in Friday’s practice.
Brown’s been ruled out, but whether the Falcons are going to cover this number is on the shoulders (or perhaps Achilles) of Cousins and whether Week 1 was an aberration. If Cousins was simply rusty, thinking about his repaired ankle area, and/or understandably tormented by T.J. Watt, then there’s hope that none of those things will apply to Monday’s game and it will feel a lot easier to move the ball.
Especially, since what Cousins will be facing should be different too.
Despite a renovated secondary, hopes that the Eagles’ defense would show improvement this season will have to be put on hold, after allowing 7.1 yards per play to Green Bay, and having numerous coverage breakdowns.
For the third straight season, Cousins will be spending Week 2 in Philadelphia. Last year, the first half could not have gone worse. Cousins’ Vikings got down 27-7 (a year after losing 24-7), and then they started testing Philly’s pass defense, throwing on virtually every play. Despite being in a position to rush the passer with abandon, the Eagles were gouged repeatedly.
Lost in the head-shaking about Cousins’ Falcon debut, is that Atlanta’s defense played pretty well, dealing with a mobile quarterback on somewhat short notice. We’ll hope they hold up their end of the bargain, and the cobwebs are shook off of Cousins for a competitive night in the City of Brotherly Love.
Pick: Falcons (+6, -115 at Bet365)
Saquon Barkley: Under 77.5 rushing yards (-113 at FanDuel)
Last week, Saquon Barkley’s rushing yards closed at 65.5. It was in keeping with how he was lined throughout his final season with the Giants. Barkley ran for 109 yards against the Packers and scored three times and the market has moved his yardage total up 11 yards.
Barkley’s night in Brazil consisted of 24 carries and a run of 34 yards. Last year, Barkley had four games with a carry of 34 or longer. In just one of the four following games did Barkley have a carry of 20+ yards. Plus, Barkley only had five games with 20+ carries last year.
Maybe he’s going to revert to a workhorse in Philadelphia, consistently getting 20+ carries, and breaking long runs more often than not. However, there’s nothing in his recent career to suggest that’s probable. With this rushing total adjusted up this dramatically, facing a defense that allowed just 80 rushing yards on 26 Steelers’ carries, I’ll bet Barkley doesn’t jump over this heightened bar.
Drake London: Anytime touchdown (+230 at FanDuel)
“We didn’t get Drake London the ball enough.” - Raheem Morris
When your new boss speaks, you should probably listen. Whether that applies to Kirk Cousins or Falcons’ offensive coordinator Zac Robinson, either way, we should expect London to be a bigger focus in the gameplan.
It will help to get him away from Joey Porter Jr., who seemed to think he had more than a little to do with holding London to just two catches for 15 yards. The Eagles’ revamped secondary is more about added depth, preventing injuries from making them terminally vulnerable. However, they don’t have a shutdown corner for someone with the size of London, particularly in the red zone.
At 6’4, London should be targeted more than three times on Monday. In Week 1, London was priced at +185 to score, so we’ll bet that Week 1’s version of the Falcons’ offense is the worst it’s going to get, and that a +230 payout is worth a shot on someone the Falcons intend to go out of their way to involve.