NFL Preseason Betting Free Picks: New England Patriots at Atlanta Falcons

Added on Aug 19, 2010 by Jack Thurman in

NFL

NFL preseason betting action resumes on Thursday night as Week 2 of exhibition play gets underway. We’ll head south of the Mason Dixon line and take a look at a game involving the Atlanta Falcons as they host the New England Patriots. Falcons had no trouble with the sputtering offense of the Kansas City Chiefs in the opening game, while New England took care of business at home over the New Orleans Saints. This game will be televised nationally in the US on the Fox TV network.

New England Patriots at Atlanta Falcons
August 19, 2010—5:00 PM Pacific

The Patriots opened up a sizable lead over the New Orleans Saints before holding on for a 3 point win that fell right around the pointspread. Were it not for the late game defensive swoon this would have been a pretty convincing victory for New England and the first and second string defenders for the Pats played reasonably well. They should have an even better showing this week as Bill Bilichick has made pass coverage a priority at practice this week.

Atlanta is also trying to upgrade their defense, and held Kansas City to 3 points until the final offensive play of the game. Unfortunately, their first team offense didn’t do much either putting up only 3 points themselves. What the Falcons’ offense did well was sustain drives, which obviously makes things easier for the defense. Obviously, the Patriots have more to bring to the table offensively than the Charlie Weis led Chiefs.

The biggest ‘x’ factor in the game is the Pats’ special teams play. They got great kickoff return play (Devin McCourty had two of 50+ yards) but allowed a 97 yard TD return to New Orleans. Those are hard things to handicap, but based on the situational dynamics between the offense and defense on the two teams this should be a fairly low scoring contest. Atlanta missing a couple of key players on offense (Dunta Robinson and Peria Jerry) but they wouldn’t have played much anyway. Besides, in preseason games we like situations where reserves are forced to fill in—Robinson and Jerry are obviously in good shape relative to their roster position but the backups and the backups behind them can play themselves onto the team and/or into a better situation. RB Jerious Norwood has just been upgraded to ‘probable’. For New England, WR Wes Welker is most likely out.

Falcons are loaded at running back and even when the starters go out they’ll be giving a lot of carries to former San Diego Charger Jason Snelling (who backed up a pretty fair running back named Ladanian Tomlinson there). Snelling is in a position where he could raise his stock significantly with a strong performance in the preseason and has the skills to do it.

Overall, we’ve got a pair of defenses motivated to put up a good effort against offenses that should keep it fairly conservative. Looks like an Under from this vantage point.

Bet New England/Atlanta Under 37

We’ve also got a play on the other Thursday night NFL game as Indianapolis takes on Buffalo at the Rogers Centre in Toronto.