Well… Last night sucked, I was a steaming pile of poop, and can only apologise, in my defence there was a very strange set of events occurred, I was waiting on Devonta Freeman to get a score for the Falcons to land the anytime treble. They decided that using him against the worst run defence in the league was obviously too easy and a bit mean, so they gave him 8 frigging touches all night and worst of all, got Taylor Gabriel a TD after i’d talked him up then chose Freeman instead. The other longer shots for anytime scorers, Humphries for Tampa, 1 rec. for 17 yards, nowhere near, and Robby Anderson, 6 for 99 yards, I was after a yard total on him to go overs on, but they didn’t offer it anywhere so took the anytime scorer and failed. The Seahawks got destroyed, I knew the Packers would do well, but forgot to account for Russell Wilson throwing 5 bloody interceptions! FIVE! Golden Tate finished on 58 yards, 7 short of the target I went over on. And we got 1/3 on the 1st scorer Trixie, Fat Rob getting us an anytime win, Jeremy Hill scored second, and obviously… Freeman did nothing. A very frustrating night, and one i’ve not been used to recently. Left us about 16pts down on the night, down to around 80pts profit on the season still… Unfortunately tonight’s match isn’t the best offensively so it’s going to be tough to win much back.
Edit as I missed my big stat of the week and I thought it was a good one! Brady has faced the no.1 defence 6 times at home. Won all 6 of them with 12 TDs and 0 ints! Well worth the edit…
Strangely enough I haven’t had to write up much on the Patriots this year, they hardly been on TV at all, which is no bad thing, we know they’re good, they’ve got a good fan base, and gain more every year due to their success, we don’t need to see them every week to know that! Tom Brady is apparently the favourite to become the MVP this year despite missing the first 4 games, where they won 3 of the 4…That, to me, doesn’t really make him their most valuable player, they coped fine without him, admittedly not as dominant, but still winning games. To me, Matthew Stafford, Zeke Elliott, Derek Carr, and god forbid, even Leveon Bell are more vital to their teams than Brady is to the Pats. He’s amazing, and became the ‘winningest’ QB of all time last week with 201 wins, overtaking Peyton Manning. I dunno, maybe i’m being a touch cynical. Anyway… Gronk is out… Even he is more valuable an asset to the team, although they will find a way of winning without him. Since he’s been out, Malcolm Mitchell has made a real impact, 8 for 82 last week, 5 for 42 and 2 TDs the week before that, 4 for 98 and a touch before that. Admittedly those three games were against 3 of the worst 5 teams in the league, 49ers, Jets and Rams, but still, he’s built trust with Brady and he’s getting targets and catches. This week will be very different against one of the best defences in the league this year. Edelman had his best game of the year last week too, going over 100 yards for the first time, and he will probably be used a lot again. Chris Hogan is usually still used as a downfield threat, and got a score last week, I’m not sure he’ll be able to this week though. Martellus Bennett will probably be playing but he’s been playing through an injury all season so isn’t too mobile, will probably be used mostly to block again. LeGarrette Blount is having a career year at running back, racking up just shy of 1,000 yards and 13 TDs so far, that was mainly without any competition, but in the last few weeks Dion Lewis has returned to the backfield to add a further dimension to the offence, he’s been mixing in more and more, and looking better each week, he and James White have been sharing the job of pass catching, but i’d expect Lewis to take the majority of that role, before the playoffs. This week they face the best run defence in the league, so I would think it will be more of a Lewis/White game than Blount, Coach Bill Bellichek is a master of targeting a teams weakness and avoiding his oppositions strengths.
The Ravens as i’ve said have the best run defence in the league, and are 7th vs the pass, that’s obviously been the main reason for their 7-5 record this year, and after the Steelers win yesterday, they need the win tonight to keep up with them at the top of the AFC North. Their offence hasn’t been anywhere near as impressive as the defence (obviously) but did somehow spark into life last week against the Dolphins, they’re not awful on defence, so well played them. Flacco threw for 381 yards and 4 TDs, spread around 3 different guys, Dennis Pitta somehow catching two of them despite being allergic to the end zone for the entire season until that moment. Flacco is always capable of a performance like but has been very unreliable for most of the year, so it’s hard to predict which QB is going to turn up. Earlier in the year they fired their OC, and while scoring has improved since that moment, the idea was meant to be to get the running game going, that hasn’t really happened, last week Terrance West went for 50 from 10 carries, the highest on the team, Kenneth Dixon got just the 6 carries, but for 56 yards. They won’t replicate that against a fairly solid Patriots D. Mike Wallace and Steve Smith have been reliable in the passing game, Wallace has been the more productive, gaining 250 more yards from just 3 more touches, and 1 extra TD over Smith, but Smith seems to be used more to move the chains, and despite being 55 and coming off a major injury has looked great this season in the snatches i’ve seen of him. Breshad Perriman has scored two weeks running now, despite only getting a couple of catches in each of those games, he’s got big play ability, height and pace. I was looking at Kyle Juszczuk as a ridiculous long shot for an anytime touchdown scorer at 14/1, but he’s not scored all year, and is even more unpredictable with 2,3,3 and 1 receptions in the last 4 games. He’s a big guy though so if they feel the need to pass from the 1, he may be in the game!
This is a very hard game to call, the Patriots are 6 point favourites, I think the Ravens will probably beat that, but i’ll not be betting on it either way. The total is set to 45, I think it’ll be under that, but not sure I can bet on that with any confidence given it’s the Patriots. As much as I wanted to go back to basics and a simple 10/11 either way bet, i’m just not confident enough on either of those. I think that Blount yardage is the way to go for tonight, against this very solid Ravens D.
- Blount u75.5 – 10/11 – 4pts – NAP (WillHill)
- Perriman anytime – 5/1 – 2pts (365)
- Malcolm Mitchell anytime – 9/4 – 3pts (Skybet)
- Patriots -2.5, U46.5 points, Mitchell 1st TD, o2.5 sacks, and o2.5 field goals made – 40/1 – 1pt (Skybet RaB)
Obviously the last one is ridiculous, but I think the Pats will win by a not large margin, I think it’ll be low scoring, and I think Mitchell will score…sooooo… who knows, I was a 1 TD off a 33/1 on Thursday?!
10 points outlay.
Good Luck if you’re reading and follow anything, hopefully it’ll be better than last night!
TouchdownTips 
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