Dear Pregamers,
I want to thank you all for being part of this wonderful community and for providing me with an opportunity to interact and engage with you on a daily basis. Thank you for allowing me to do what I love here, by analyzing games, handicapping the lines, and sharing ideas with one another. I want to wish all of you and your families a Happy Thanksgiving!
As a thank you, here are my 2 Premium Plays for Thursday for Free. Hope we get them both!
Good luck as always ,and enjoy your Turkey Dinners with families and friends.
2015 NFL Record
53 – 40 @ 57% for +9.0 Units
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Turkey Day Plays:
#1: Teaser-6.5 points
Green Bay Packers -2 / Detroit Lions +4.5
#2: Teaser-6.5 points
Green Bay Packers -2 / Carolina Panthers +8.5
Green Bay Packers
Death, Taxes, and Green Bay Packers beating up on the Chicago Bears. There aren’t many things that are ‘certain’ in life, but these 3 sure are. Packers were -6 point road favorites in Chicago in week 1, so now they’re only 2.5 points higher? Part of the reason is that the Bears have been playing better ball lately and the Packers just went through a 3-game losing streak. But in my opinion the spread is lower than it should be in this one. One key factor is Green Bay’s D. This is a unit that ranks 26th with a +11% DVOA on the road, but morphs into a top-10 juggernaut ranking 8th with a -13% DVOA at home. They’ve allowed less than 19 PPG at home on the season and I expect them to be as aggressive as they were last week @ Minnesota. Green Bay allowed 13 points and controlled the game defensively against the Vikings. They should do the same thing at home against the Bears. Offensively, expect Packers to score points. Bears have “looked” good defensively against an injury-plagued Chargers team and against bottom-3 offenses of STL and DEN, the last 3 weeks. Against the 5th ranked Packers offense they won’t look as good. Eddie Lacy seemed to have gotten healthy last week, and Chicago’s 31st ranked runD will have a hard time stopping him in this one. If Lacy gets going, it’s game over, as I just don’t see how Chicago can contain this Packers offense without putting 8 in the box to stop the run. On a short week and playing at home, I love Packers’ chances of a strong win. Teasing this one below 7, 6, 4, and 3 provides additional value.
Detroit Lions
The last two weeks the Lions’ defense has registered a -14% and -21% DVOA. That came against the 5th ranked Packers’ and 11th ranked Raiders’ offenses. Now they’ll go up against the 26th ranked Philly offense, starting Mark ‘Buttfumble’ Sanchez at QB. I’m not really sure what the Lions did coming off their BYE, but their D has been excellent. I’m just not sure how Philly puts up a ton of points on a short week and on the road in this one. Remember, Bradford is awful, but Sanchez is even worse. Lions aren’t much better offensively than Philly, but they have two solid WR’s in Johnson and Tate. The weakness of Philly are their CB’s and I expect Detroit to take advantage of that. If Philly D allowed 45 points and over 500 yards to the Bucs at home, I don’t see how they shut-down the Lions on the road on a very short week (12:30 EST start time). This one is going to be close, and teasing Lions past 3 and 4 provides excellent value.
Carolina Panthers
When is the last time you’ve seen a 10-0 team being an underdog to a 3-7 squad. Bookmakers don’t make many mistakes, and though I don’t think this one is a mistake (Dallas is much better with Romo than without of course), I’ll tease this one past 3, 4, 6, 7, and even 8 for additional value. I think Romo will struggle against the elite #2 ranked Panthers D and Carolina’s run-game will have a major advantage against the 25th ranked Dallas run-D. Should be a very close game and getting a ‘better’ team at +8.5 is value.
Good luck everyone and Happy Thanksgiving.