I’ll be sticking mainly around the NFC East with this week’s picks. Considered to be one of the weakest divisions this year, I feel the handicaps aren’t doing the teams justice because of this and good bets this week.
In the non-divisional match, I like the Philadelphia Eagles -3 to beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Despite Tampa having a pretty good pass defence this year, having only given up 5 TDs through the air and grabbing 6 interceptions on the way, I feel that Eagles’ #1 ranked rushing attack led by RB LeSean McCoy will be the difference in this game.
On the other side of the ball, there are concerns with Philadelphia’s defence but Tampa’s rookie QB Mike Glennon didn’t show me enough in his first start last week (posting a poor 55.8 paser rating) to think he’ll be able to exploit this effectively.
Conversely, Eagles QB Nick Foles had a nice game last week standing in for the injured Michael Vick, making some nice throws in their win over the Giants. If he’s able to have a repeat performance and avoid any mistakes, I feel the Eagles should have more than enough to cover the line.
Next, in the NFC East divisional match, I’ll be backing the Dallas Cowboys -5 to beat the Washington Redskins.
In the Cowboy’s loss against the Broncos last week, Dallas QB Tony Romo was playing a fantastic game until the late interception that cost them the game. If he plays like that this week then Dallas should have no problem covering the line against the Redskins – Washington are no way near as potent offensively as Denver is and shouldn’t be able to keep up with the Cowboys.
This is especially true if Redskins’ QB Robert Griffin is still no way near back to his best after his injury. This season he hasn’t shown he can effectively drive the ball of his back foot while passing from within the pocket, nor has he shown the speed on the outside that we saw from him last season.
Finally, outside the NFC East, I like the Indianapolis Colts to travel down to California and beat the San Diego Chargers at around 20/23.
As ever, the Chargers will go how their QB Philip Rivers goes and despite having a great start to the season he had a down week last time out against the Raiders. If this dip in form continues then it isn’t likely that San Diego will be able to pull out a win against Indy.
This is because the Chargers defence has been struggling this year, allowing the sixth most yards a game against the pass and the ninth most yards against the run this year. With Colts QB Andrew Luck up against them, along with newly acquired RB Trent Richardson, this could be another long day for the Chargers defence.
