NFL Betting Picks: Minnesota Vikings at Philadelphia Eagles

Added on Dec 28, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

NFL

Week 16 of the NFL season finally concludes on Tuesday night with the rescheduled game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Minnesota Vikings. This game was originally scheduled for Sunday but postponed due to an impending blizzard–a decision that few in the city of Philadelphia seem very happy with. In any case, the 10-4 Eagles will take on the hapless 5-9 Vikings.

Minnesota Vikings at Philadelphia Eagles
December 28, 2010 5:00 PM Pacific

At least the weather shouldn’t be an issue here–game time forecasts call for clear skies and temps in the high 20′s. The wind will be fairly brisk, but nothing out of the ordinary. The best storyline in advance of this game has been the controversy over the NFL’s decision to postpone it in the first place. The move did bring about this great tirade from Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell:

“It goes against everything that football is all about. My biggest beef is that this is part of what’s happened in this country. I think we’ve become wussies.”

“We’ve become a nation of wusses. The Chinese are kicking our butt in everything. If this was in China do you think the Chinese would have called off the game? People would have been marching down to the stadium, they would have walked and they would have been doing calculus on the way down.”

“What do you think Vince Lombardi would say? He would say that we’ve become a nation of wusses.”

Maybe not the most nuanced take, but I basically agree with his point. The Eagles management have tried to extricate Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter from blame for the postponement which they maintained was the NFL’s call. Nutter did call a state of emergency for the city six hours before kickoff.

Anyway, the game itself looks interesting only from a pointspread standpoint. The Eagles should win outright, but laying 14 points isn’t exactly an insignificant number in the NFL. Philadelphia clinched their division this weekend thanks to the Giants’ loss and although they still have home field advantage to shoot for at some point the bigger concern will be keeping Michael Vick and the other starters healthy for the playoffs.

The Vikings will most likely start Joe Webb at quarterback although Brett Favre is continuing his weekly mindless rant about trying to play. He hasn’t passed any of his concussion tests, so that’s highly unlikely. The Vikings have been a horrible pointspread team this year and particularly in spots like this–they’re 0-6 SU/ATS against teams with winning records, 0-8 SU/ATS as an underdog and 1-5 SU/ATS on the road. They’re also 3-7 ATS against conference opponents. At this point in the year this all gets factored into the line which is why Minnesota is getting two touchdowns.

If we had to play this game, we’d take the points. Even if the Vikings rolled over completely it wouldn’t take a monumental effort to get the backdoor cover. The Eagles may experience a slight letdown now that they’ve clinched the division even if Andy Reid doesn’t start resting his starters. For all their success this season, Philadelphia is just a .500 pointspread team and the combination of a Vikings team the public hates and an Eagles team with a full bandwagon of fans makes the points the only logical position in this game.

Bet Minnesota Vikings +14 over Philadelphia Eagles