NFL Betting Preview: San Francisco 49ers at Carolina Panthers

Added on Oct 19, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

NFL

Sunday NFL betting presents a game between two teams with 1 win between them as the 0-5 Carolina Panthers host the 1-5 San Francisco 49ers in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Niners got their first win of the season this past weekend and despite it being an ‘ugly’ win at this point any victory is a good one. Carolina is off a bye week, having been beaten 23-3 by Chicago at home.

San Francisco 49ers at Carolina Panthers
October 24, 2010 10:00 AM Pacific

While these teams have similarly dismal records there’s really not much comparison beyond that. One team has underachieved this season but has solid talent particularly on the defensive side of the ball. The other team is just a mess and will have to be almost completely overhauled in the offseason. Guess which team is which?

If you picked the San Francisco 49ers as the overachievers, go to the head of the class (or the betting line in this case). The Carolina Panthers are in bad shape. They didn’t have much going for them coming into the season and its only gotten worse. They’ve pretty much thrown in the towel on this season as evidenced by naming Jimmy Claussen the starting quarterback. Claussen may be a good pro football player at some point, but now he’s just treading water at best. Of course its not like Matt Moore was doing any better so why not give Claussen the playing time? For that matter, the Panthers might as well get the talented but equally inexperience Tony Pike out of Cincinnati University some real game experience. Reports suggest that Moore may get his old job back which may be a slight positive for the team, but not much.

In some situations we like teams coming off a bye week, but its hard to see how it would have any significant effect on Carolina one way or the other. They may get Steve Smith back for this game (he’s listed as ‘probable’) but it doesn’t look very likely as high ankle sprains take a lot of time to heal. It also doesn’t look likely that Moore’s return will jumpstart an offense ranked last in the NFL in total offense, passing yardage and scoring. The Panthers have some decent running backs but as anyone who knows anything about football can tell you its hard to leverage that when a team has zero passing game to speak of. It also plays into a Niners’ strength–they can stack the line and challenge Moore and his receivers to beat them through the air. Moore’s receivers have been charitably called ‘a pair of rookies and a couple of castoffs’ by one NFL columnist and considering his limited effectiveness when he had Steve Smith at his disposal early in the season the passing game should continue to struggle.

San Francisco couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start to the season, but since they’re in the weak NFC West they still have a realistic shot at winning the division if they can string together some wins. Arizona and Seattle currently hold down first place with matching 3-2 records so its not like they’re trying to run down a dominant leader. They’ve got 6 games remaining with conference teams–4 at home–and the rest of their schedule isn’t overly formidable with the toughest games at Green Bay and at San Diego. Alex Smith is still not where he should be as a starting QB, but against Carolina he doesn’t have to be. Frank Gore running the ball against the #26 ranked Panthers rushing defense should be enough. Statistically, the Panthers rank #5 in passing yards per game but that’s because no one needs to put the ball in the air against them.

Even with a 1-5 SU record the Niners have gone 3-3 ATS this year which suggests a decent effort on most days. Carolina, meanwhile, is 1-4 ATS with the only cover their spirited effort on the road against New Orleans that resulted in a 2 point loss as +12′ point road dogs. The Niners don’t need to do anything fancy to win this game going away–play good defense and let Frank Gore run the ball and the result will be similar to Chicago’s 23-3 victory.

Bet San Francisco 49ers -2′ over Carolina Panthers