Sunday NFL action will see a tough game for the Oakland Raiders as they travel to take on the Atlanta Falcons. The game is scheduled for a 1:00 pm start time and it will be televised live on CBS. Currently the odds for the game have the Falcons favored by 10 points.
It's never easy for a West Coast team like Oakland to have to travel across the country and play in one of the early games on Sunday. To them it's like playing an early morning contest. That's probably one reason the Falcons are favored by 10 points over the Raiders today. That and the Falcons might be the best team in football and are still undefeated. They haven't dominated every team this season, winning close games against Carolina, Denver and last week against Washington.
Today they'll play a Raiders team that has jumped out to a 1-3 start on the season and has gone 1-3 against the number as well. Atlanta, by the way, has covered in four of their first five games on the season. Oakland enters today's game off a bye week, and it looks like it came at the right time. Oakland has been outscored 72-19 in their two road games so far this year.
The Raiders might have the worst secondary in the league, but their front seven is pretty good. However, the Raiders have only been able to snag three sacks all season and haven't intercepted a pass yet. The Raiders are giving up more than 280 yards passing per game this season and more than 7.5 yards per play through he air. Yikes. That doesn't bode well for Oakland today as they take on Matt Ryan and a Falcons offense that can absolutely move the football up and down the field via the pass. Atlanta averages more than 280 (odd enough) yards passing per game this season. They haven't been able to run the football effectively early on, but for whatever reason it doesn't seem to have slowed them down.
Expect Atlanta wide receivers Roddy White, Tony Gonzalez and Julio Jones to have big days. They probably should against that bad Raiders secondary. It will be interesting to see if the Falcons have to/want to run the football today. While they have struggled with that early on, getting a big lead against the Raiders and potentially running it a lot more than they're used to doing.
Darren McFadden might be the best player in the league this season but he's playing on a team that really is going nowhere. QB Carson Palmer doesn't seem to be helping things either. Maybe he'll pan out but as of right now, he's struggled a bit.
We're pretty sure the Falcons are going to be able to win this game. The question is how much will they win by? They're at home and they've won close games this season. Oakland hasn't been able to get key turnovers, well, any turnovers at all. We don't expect that to change in this game either. The Falcons should win big.
Free Pick: Atlanta 31, Oakland 13
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