Well, well, well, after having a rare stinker last weekend, I simplified a little this week and lo and behold, we had a cracker! 6/10 landed, including the TV treble, at 5.88/1. Obviously the singles in that treble all landed, The Giants game was comfortably under, Siemian attempted 40 passes, and the Buccs v Dallas game went to the wire, but landed by 0.5 of a point, they all count! Add to that the lovely big odds of Ty Montgomery anytime at 11/4 (he was 7/4 at best at kick off) I should of gone for 2 or more at 14/1… Damn. And round it off with Iron Mike Gillislee got into the end zone again! All in all, a great evening, and 24 pts profit (will update the P/L page after tonight’s match)
A quick pre-warning there’s a lot of games on a lot of nights this week, the usual Thursday night game, the main slate is Christmas Eve, there’s a couple on Christmas Day, and one of Boxing Day night as well. I’ll try my best to do some write ups and get some tips up, should be able to do Thursday night and Christmas Eve, but may be a struggle on Christmas Day for obvious reasons! I’ll probably be on twitter though so set your notifications!
Anyway, on to tonight, when they chose this match for the TV they must of imagined both teams would be fighting for their divisions, or at worst a wild card spot… Oh how the Panthers have fallen, after losing the Superbowl last year, they’ve won just 5 games this time around and sit last in the NFC south, behind the Falcons, the Buccs and the Saints. Their season is over, it’s done. They have nothing left to play for. Nada. So what’s happened to them? Well, Cam hasn’t been happy all year, he seems more intent on dressing like a complete ass hat than playing the game, he got dropped for the first drive against the Seahawks and didn’t seem to give a crap, in fact it seemed more of a punishment making him finish that game than leaving him out. He does seem to have been carrying a knock to his throwing arm, and is listed as questionable to play, I can’t see him missing out though, and in fairness, his arm has been a cannon a couple of times in recent weeks throwing bombs to Ted Ginn. Ginn has been his usual hit or miss self, more hit recently, he scored a few weeks running, and i tipped him for 2 of those weeks 😉 He’s had a minimum of 4 targets in his last 10 matches, with varying results. I’d argue he’s the Panthers biggest TD threat at the moment. Greg Olsen at tight end started the season well, but has dropped off recently, as has Kelvin Benjamin who looked an absolute beast at certain points in the opening weeks, he’s now as good as useless and i’m tempted to take under 52.5 yards on him tonight, he’s questionable as well at the moment, but again i’d imagine he’ll play. Devin Funchess was promising coming into the year, but hasn’t done much either, although he did score last week against the Chargers, somehow his fourth on the season, I don’t remember seeing him do anything at all?! Even running back Jonathon Stewart can’t really be trusted as you don’t know how much of the ball he’ll be getting or whether Cam will take the scoring plays. I’d guess with Cam down as questionable that Stewart should get more attempts, and probably the goal line carries to reduce the risk of any further injury to Cam. That’s about all i’ve got on the Panthers. I don’t trust them, but they have talent. I wouldn’t be shocked to see Stewart get multiple TDs, but at the same time, I wouldn’t be that shocked to see the Panthers score 3 points.
The Redskins on the other hand are indeed in the fight for the wild card spot, they’re 7-5-1 at the moment, and realistically need to win tonight to keep their hopes of a post-season alive. They are however, a fun team to watch, Kirk Cousins is going to get paid next year after taking the franchise tag this year, and proving himself deserving of a big contract, he’s in the top 5 for passing yards this year, and has a lot of targets to play with. Jamieson Crowder started off the season as his favourite target, and he’s proved worthy of that, he’s on 7 TDs for the season, and has hauled in 60 of his 87 targets, a pretty good percentage. In recent weeks DeSean Jackson and Pierre Garcon have been getting a bit more of the ball recently, Jackson has scored 3 in his last 4. He’s essentially the Redskins version of Ted Ginn. He’s the deep threat, and if they click with him, you’re not going to catch him. Garcon has averaged pretty much 5 catches in each of his last 6 games, 43 yards is his lowest yards in that time, and he’s got 2 TDs in them too. Jordan Reed was a beast last season, and has disappointed a little this year, he was looking back to form before, and in fairness after smashing his shoulder against the Cowboys, it was a significant injury, and has put him out for this last month, but he came back into that match with essentially one arm, and scored 2 TDs. That was impressive. He’s likely to play tonight, but not at full strength. That should give a chance to Vernon Davis, but without the distraction of Reed he’s been getting more attention and less of the play. He only got 1 catch for 1 yard last week from 2 targets. Not great. Their run game has come to life since “Fat Rob” Kelley took the main role, he looks good running the ball, and has impressed me since Matt Jones was dropped. If they can establish the run against a tough Panthers run defence then that will also open up the choice to use Chris Thompson from the backfield as well.
I’ll be honest i’m at a bit of a loss what to tip on this game, it’s a tough one to call, the Panthers are capable of putting up points if things click, they’re also capable of stopping teams, on their day… The handicap has the Redskins as 6.5 favourites, at home, they should beat that, and the Panthers away form is awful, they’re conceded 35+ in 4 of their 6 aways, only the Rams and Broncos scored less and they don’t really count. The total tonight is 50.5, I’d lean under, but again, I’m not taking it, as it could easily be over that.
After the success of the weekend, I think i’ll just have to go with a couple of longer shot double TD scorers… There’s nothing there sticking out to me on the player props either to be honest, J Stewart o65.5 will be close, if Cam is out of the run game then he should get them.
Putting these on, more as something to make it interesting than having much confidence in anything. There’s a relatively good chance of Jackson scoring down the field, the Panthers secondary isn’t exactly great.
1 point on each of the following, they’re long shots, and the multiple TD scorers aren’t a good way of building money, but we won well yesterday so I don’t mind throwing a few darts at some big odds
- Kirk Cousins anytime TD – 13/2 (PP)
- Jackson and J Stewart TDs – 11/2 (Skybet)
- Jackson, Crowder and Ginn to score – 18/1 (Skybet)
- Garcon, Ginn, Stewart – 16/1 (Skybet)
Just the 4 points outlay for me, apologies for the poor write up, but there’s just nothing jumping out at me that i’m willing to put more than a point on. If I was being forced then probably under on Benjamin, but I can’t go for that.
TouchdownTips 
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