Brace yourself, this weekend of preseason action is going to be a mission to get through.
There’s no point in sugar coating it, most teams will be trotting out guys who will be out of a job come Sunday as they make one last desperate push for a roster spot.
Although with teams having to cut up to 37 players over the weekend, this may be the last time on the field for quite a few of these guys, at least until next August.
Sure there’s the occasional wild and wacky game like the Patriots and Giants finishing 40-38 in a game that featured the new Colts starting quarterback Jacoby Brissett.
Anyway, let’s just find some betting plays for the last meaningless NFL game… until the Bengals hit the November part of their schedule.
A random note brought up by Peter King during the week, the Falcons have lost their last 12 postseason games so it’s probably also worth backing them to make it a bakers dozen here. Of course that’s going to involve putting quite a bit of faith in the 0-3 Jaguars so consider carefully, instead, let’s be honest, this is probably going to be a grind anyway so take the ridiculously low under.
Houston may very well be the most top heavy team in the NFL and games like this will show you exactly why that is the case. With little to no offensive line protection being offered to Deshaun Watson he’s probably going to get a week off from taking a beating and leave it in the hands of Joe Webb and Jordan Ta’amu-Perifanos, good luck with that. The Rams backups are a bit better than the Texans but they as a team have managed a grand total of 23 points this preseason in three games so that should explain why the under looks so good.
Yes, there’s a theme to these picks and it’s backing a pretty dull day for offensive enthusiasts. Dallas has been without Zeke Elliott all preseason and they’ll probably be without most key guys here. Tampa on the other hand, hasn’t exactly lit up the scoreboard in the last couple of weeks scoring 16 and 13 in their last two games. Take the under with this one as we see Ryan Griffin and Vincent Testaverde taking on Mike White and Taryn Christion.
Neither the Broncos or the Cardinals have managed to light up the scoreboard this preseason as their new coaching staffs still work to find their feet before week one. Kliff Kingsbury of the Cardinals is telling us we’re not seeing his full repertoire of plays in preseason, he’s saving those for the meaningful games, so chances are that will only get them 14 points at most. As for Denver, you would be forgiven for wondering who most of those guys are and forgetting them before the teams cleared off the field at the end of the fourth quarter.
You are going to see exactly why most of the guys playing in these games are going to be looking for work in a few days. The effort from these backups will be there but the execution… probably not.