Well, here we are, just two weeks left of the regular season already, it’s bloody flown by. First of all. thanks to all the new followers, and the msgs i’ve received off a few of you, when I started doing this in September, I was hoping for a couple of people to read it, and maybe help a few people out, well, this week I helped someone make £700 from the tips I put on this site! No pressure on me at all…Just to make sure people know, I had a good week last week, around 30 pts up over the weekend. That doesn’t always happen, I was about 20 pts down the previous week, so thank you for following, be aware that I don’t always win, although I am about 110 pts up on the season after starting with a bank of 100pts. Check out the P/L page at the top, it should be up to date from this last weekends matches, has everything i’ve done since the start of the season.
Anyhoo, on to a lovely looking week 16, we’ve got matches tonight, Saturday, Sunday and Monday this week, the main slate on the Saturday, with my Bengals at 130am vs the Texans (TOM SAVAGE IS REAL!), going to be tough staying up for that on a hectic Christmas weekend, but I’ll give it my best shot. The most best match of the week has to be the Ravens visiting the Steelers on Christmas Day, it’s a bitter rivalry, and it couldn’t be more vital for both teams, the Ravens win and they take the division, the Steelers win and it goes on another week. Dolphins at Bills is the first TV match on Christmas Eve, Dolphins need the win to keep their playoff push rolling on, Vikings at Packers is a big one in the AFC North, both teams theoretically in with a chance of the post season still. Falcons at Panthers could be the highest scoring of the weekend, i’ve got a few thoughts on that already. Colts at Raiders is the second TV match on Xmas eve, Colts need to win to keep their hopes alive, should also be a high scoring match after Indy stuff the Vikings last week. Late Boxing day sees the Broncos at Arrowhead to take on the Chiefs, they’re both (probably) battling for second in the AFC West and a wild card spot behind the Raiders. All in all, so massive matches. As I mentioned last week, I’ll do my best to sort some write ups for all the matches, but as you can imagine it’s going to be a busy time at home so i’m not sure how much time i’ll be getting. Although my cohort @jayhatton49 is staying here for the weekend so we should be able to sort something out. (He’s my brother-in-law which should explain that possibly strange sounded statement a little better)
So.. finally… first match of the week. The Giants are 10-4 and are somehow still in with a chance of winning the division, they’re 2 games behind the Cowboys and have handed them their 2 defeats so hold the tie-breaker with them, you never know in this game! At the start of the season most people thought it would be their offence that was winning them games, they drafted Sterling Shepard who looked promising and a few of us thought that Eli Manning could of been one of the best QB of the year stat-wise, but as it turns out their highly paid defensive players have made the difference this year. My pre-season prediction had the Giants at 10-6 and the Eagles at 5-11… Now we can’t have both of those, but i’m amazed at how close I actually was, and my write up on the Giants was pretty accurate as well. They’ve been winning the close games this year as opposed to losing them last season. 12 of their 15 games have been within one score either way. I am surprised to see the Giants as underdogs for tonight, they’re set at +1.5 points by the look of it? The general rule is 3pts on the handicap for the home team, and add a little bit more for being at home on a Thursday night match, so Vegas think the Giants are a couple of points better, in theory… That’s probably about right on the season. I’ve talked about the Giants a lot recently, they’ve been on most weeks, this week I think i’m sticking safe and going for their pass attack, Beckham and Sterling both scored last week, and I they should have good games again this week vs a pretty poor set of corner backs at the Eagles. Beckham has scored 10 TDs since week 5, doing the same as he did last year in the second half of the season, and he’s dragging this team through week in, week out… Well along with their defence which has been very impressive. Rashad Jennings has done OK, I can’t trust him enough to bet on him, but his yards totals are low, and 365 has his rush attempts set at 12.5 which is also very low. 5 of the last 6 games he’s had over 15 rush attempts, the one outlier there was the Steelers where they went behind early, I don’t think they’ll be behind early here, so that should keep him in the game. My one worry about that would be that Paul Perkins has been getting more and more chances recently and has looked the better runner, it is enough to stop me going big on that selection.
There’s not a lot to say about the Eagles, they’re better at home, that’s for sure, but in recent weeks, Carson Wentz has fallen off, teams seem to have figured out how to play against him, and he’s been making a lot of mistakes. It doesn’t help that he has had no running game recently, and his pass catchers can’t catch. That’s never a good combination. Ryan Matthews had a good week against the best running defence (statistically) last week with 128 yards from 20 attempts, and a TD, you can’t argue with that, and he makes a real difference to this team, his yards this week are set quite low, but I would assume that’s because Sproles should be returning from concussion and he’ll take a bit of the play from him. They could of won last week if they’d taken it to overtime, but their season is done, and they wanted to show they trusted Wentz as their QB so gave him the chance to win the match, he didn’t, but it should give him a boost if he needed it. The only guy who’s been reliable for Wentz in recent weeks in the passing game is Zach Ertz, he’s got himself 79,112 and 80 yards in the last 3 games, and you can get as low as 55.5 yards at Paddypower (5/6) on him tonight. I tipped up Jordan Matthews last week and he let me down, again, it’s what he does. I don’t think I can trust any of the other Eagles players to be honest. I took a punt on Bryce Treggs a few weeks in a row, but he did nothing, so well… I’ll avoid everyone else I think.
I’ve actually got quite a few to choose from on this match, i’ve been put off a little by the movement of the line in recent days. The Eagles started as underdogs, but have swung all the way to be the favourites which means people somewhere are putting a LOT of money on the Eagles in this. The points total is higher than it was earlier in the week, which for me is good, but again means that people are putting money on the overs…I still don’t think that will happen. I can’t see past this being unders. I think the Giants will win a close one.
Stick to 2 pts a bet.
- Ertz o55.5 rec. yards – 5/6 (PP)
- Jennings rush attempts – o12.5 – 8/11 (365)
- Beckham anytime – 10/11 (Skybet)
- Giants win and under u42.5 – 13/5 (PP)
- Beckham and Shepard – 9/2 (Skybet)
- Tribet – any other results – 7/4 (365)
Can I really go with 6 bets on a dull Thursday night game?! – I’ve put them in order of confidence if you don’t choose to follow all of them, which you probably shouldn’t seems unlikely i’ll get all 6 to land tonight, that’s the way i’d go on them. I’ll be recording them all for the blog obviously.
Good luck, and thanks for reading/following
TouchdownTips 
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