Thursday, February 9th, 2012
The Philadelphia Eagles will hit the highway to face the Atlanta Falcons in an NFL football game on Sunday afternoon. Kick off time is scheduled for 1PM Eastern Time with regional television coverage provided by Fox. The LVSC NFL odds makers have set the opening point spread in this contest and the road team Philadelphia Eagles opened as a 5 ½ point favorite with the over under coming in at 44. The early money from the NFL betting public has come in on the road favorite, as the Philadelphia Eagles are currently a 6-point favorite. The total has seen early action towards the under, as the over under is currently lined at 43 ½. NFL money line gamblers can make a play on the favored Philadelphia Eagles at –255 with the home underdog Atlanta Falcons bringing back +215 to win without the points on their side.
The Atlanta Falcons are 6-5 on the season and are need of a win to keep pace in the NFC wildcard race. The Falcons suffered a major injury last week as Matt Ryan left the game with a toe injury last week against Tampa Bay. Ryan’s toe injury has forced the second year pro to miss this week’s game with the Eagles. In relief of Ryan will be veteran Chris Redman. The 7 year pro in relief last week led the Falcons to a winning touchdown last week against Tampa Bay in the final seconds of the game. Redman hit on 23 of 41 for 243 yards two touchdowns and no interceptions in the Falcons 20-17 victory. Redman last saw considerable action at the end of the 2007 season. Falcon’s running back Michael Turner sprained his ankle in last week’s game and is questionable for the game this week. Turner missed the Giants game and could only gain 33 yards on 12 carries last week. Third year pro Jason Snelling is Turner’s back up and the ball carrier has averaged 4.0 yards a carry on the season. Defensively the Falcons are struggling. The team allows 373 yards per game. They are very poor against the pass allowing 252 passing yards per game ranking 27th in the league. Philadelphia is 7-4 on the season and survived a scare last week against the Washington Redskins winning 27-24. Prior to that was another scare at Chicago with a 24-20 victory. So the question for the bettors in this game is will Philadelphia play down to their competition here or will they finally win by good margin? The team needs to play with more sense of urgency because there is no guarantee at 7-4 that Philadelphia can make the playoffs. So will this be the game Philadelphia puts it all together and give us a glimpse of what they are fully capable of? Donovan McNabb is hitting on 61% of his passes with 15 touchdowns and 6 interceptions. He passed for 260 yards last week in victory. With Brian Westbrook sidelined with a concussion it has been rookie running back LeSean McCoy getting the bulk of the carries. The back has averaged 4.3 yards a carry this season and performed better than average over his past two games on his combined 37 carries. McNabb may be without his leading receiver on Sunday as wide receiver DeSean Jackson suffered a concussion last week and is questionable for this game. Defensively the Eagles allow 20.7 points per game. Their secondary does not give up many big plays allowing just 9.6 yards per pass completion ranking third in the NFL.
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NFL Trend: Philadelphia Eagles is 8-1-1 ATS in their past 10 meetings with Atlanta Falcons
The Wagerline consensus has 60.0% of the NFL bettors on Philadelphia –6
The Wagerline consensus has 61.7% the NFL bettors playing over 43 1/2
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