Week 7 Pro Football
Panthers -7 vs. Buffalo: DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart got the Panthers running rejuvenated last week against Tampa Bay when each ran for over 100 yards and they get a chance to face the Bills run defense that got chewed up by the Jets last week for 318 yards.
Through the first four games of the season the Panthers had gone overboard with Jake Delhomme and the passing game trying to get Steve Smith the ball with no success. Last week the run-pass ratio was 48 to 17 in favor of the run and they got a win. Seems like a good winning strategy to continue. Look for the Panthers to keep that winning formula going this week.
Steelers -5.5 vs. Steelers: To give a little back ground of how tough this game may be for the Vikings, consider that only one dome team has won at Pittsburgh since 2004 and that the Steelers haven’t allowed a 100-yard rusher in 28 straight games, home and away.
Further past evidence of possible struggles by the Vikings this week lie with the fact that they’re coming off a win against the Ravens. Since 2004, only the 2005 Bengals (among 13 occurrences) have won back to back games in consecutive weeks against the Steelers and Ravens.
This is obviously a different Vikings team and have shown they are one of the best in the league. The Ravens have been one of the top run defenses in the league forever and are allowing 91 rushing yards per game this year, but Peterson didn’t seem to have any problems going for 143 yards.
On two occasions this season, week 3 and 4, Peterson has been held in check. Steelers legendary defensive guru Dick Lebeau will have a big target on Peterson this week as the focal point to beating the Vikings and a healthy Troy Polamalu should help in executing that game plan.
As for Brett Favre, he’s only faced the Steelers four times in his career (2-2), including his first NFL start, and lost in his only game at Pittsburgh. This will be his second game of the year outdoors with his first coming in week one at Cleveland when he wasn’t so orientated with the offense yet.
Dolphins +6 vs. Saints: It hasn’t been a good idea to bet against the Saints this season, and if you have in every game, you’ve lost all five games. But this week presents a good spot for an upset based on the Dolphins running game being able to run the bal, kill the clock, and keep the Saints high powered offense off the field.
The Dolphins new QB, Chad Henne, looks as poised and confident as ever showing why he was the only four year starting quarterback in Michigan history. The Dolphins defense at home should be able to put some pressure on Brees and force him to make some errors, something that no one has been able to do with any consistency this season. It should be a close game!
I like the Panthers pick, but it's scary to bet against the Saints right now. I think this a situation where I won't pick against them until I get burned.
ReplyDeleteI am thinking of going with Oakland plus the points against the Jets. After Antonio Pierce called the Giants-Raiders game a scrimmage, Oakland really rallied around that and surprised the Eagles in Philly.
Now that they'll be back home, with some confidence they might be able to hold down the Jets. Plus with Tom Cable not getting charged with any crimes, the organization can move past this.
I think Darelle Revis can neutralize Zach Miller, and Nmandi can do the same to Braylon Edwards.
right on with saints observation, thanks for checking in.
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