The NFL in the Moment – Friday @ 18:00 – Week Three 2017
It is hard to find a reliable Money Line when the Tampa Bay Bucs visit Minnesota on Sunday. The Vikings need this win to stay in the thick of things in the NFC North.
5/8 Atlanta Falcons @ Detroit Lions 7/5
The Detroit Lions could very easily go to 3-0 with a home victory over the Atlanta Falcons. The Bears would have beaten the Falcons Week One if the officials had called the blatant hold on Josh Bellamy in the games final minute, and if not for some pick-play nonsense calls and non-calls, would have fallen to the injury-decimated Packers last week to sit at 0-2 in the second-weakest division in the NFL. The Lions themselves are coming off victories of no consequence over the dead-duck NY Giants and the burnt to a crisp Arizona Cardinals, who better get on that rising from the ashes thing real quick before 2017 becomes a bad memory. The 7/5 Lions are definitely the bet here.
3/1 Cincinnati Bengals @ Green Bay Packers 1/4
Aaron Rodgers hain’t never beat the Bungles and Sunday may not turn out to be his fun day this week either. The Packers depleted post-Free Agency Offensive Line is down both Offensive Tackles, one of whom may play, and a Guard with a groin, so how well is relevant? Jordy Nelson is also dinged up. Cincinnati meanwhile is a desperate team, and people have already started to be fired. Green Bay has been losing strings of games early each season as Rodgers gets older. Conventional wisdom has Green Bay pulling even with Detroit. We have 3/1 Cincinnati as an upset.
2/7 Pittsburgh Steelers @ Chicago Bears 11/4
The Steelers always find a head-scratcher to lose early in the season on the road. The Bears may have allowed that Falcons loss that should have been a win get to them, which may have been reflected in last week’s ugly loss to Tampa that we believe made Tampa look better than they truly are and Chicago worse than they truly are. The Bears Defence is going to need to hold and the return of Kyle Long has to help the Chicago run Offence enough so that Mike Glennon need only manage a well-planned patient attack for the entire 60 minutes for the 11/4 to pull the upset.
(8/11) Tampa Bay Buccaneers @ Minnesota Vikings (13/10)
We question this Money Line and expect the Vikings to go up. If the Vikings don't beat the Buc's, it is highly unlikely that it will be Keenum's fault. After last week, it cannot come as a surprise to Shurmur that Keenum is going to be the Quarterback. Last week the Vikings were down two [2] touchdowns to the Steelers before Shurmur opened up the playbook. Dalvin Cook is no Adrian Peterson, so if the Offensive Line doesn't get him anymore room against Tampa than they did against Pittsburgh, the Song Remains the Same.
The key here is for the Vikings to play great Defence, frustrate Jamies Winston into making mistakes and then pouncing. Maybe try to get Latavius Murray running early so as to work off of play-action passes in the second quarter. Shurmur needs to call the plays that Keenum can execute, which they better have practiced during the week. All this doom and gloom about Keenum, yet we don’t even know if he is less effective as the Quarterback for the Vikings than Bradford yet.
Projected Standings Post Week Three
NFC North W L T Pct
Lions 3 0 0 1.000
Vikes 2 1 0 0.667
Pack 1 2 0 0.333
Bears 1 2 0 0.333
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