{"id":2710,"date":"2017-01-14T16:36:33","date_gmt":"2017-01-14T21:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigredsportsmachine.com\/?p=2710"},"modified":"2017-01-14T16:36:33","modified_gmt":"2017-01-14T21:36:33","slug":"divisional-weekend-afc-saturday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/?p=2710","title":{"rendered":"DIVISIONAL WEEKEND – AFC (SATURDAY)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"nfl01\"<\/a>The playoff games are going to get more exciting, competitive and fun to watch; I promise.\u00a0 After Wildcard Weekend kicked off with a thud….the Machine did go 3-1 SU and 2-2 ATS)….the Divisional Round has much more enticing matchups…..the exception being this dud:<\/p>\n

Houston @ New England (-16), Saturday, 8:15 pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Is it me, or does it feel like New England has finished the last 15 seasons with a 13-3 record (or better), with a first round bye, with home field throughout and inevitably end up hosting the AFC Championship.\u00a0 I\u2019m not even going to bother looking up how close I am, and not because I\u2019m lazy (well, sort of because I\u2019m lazy), but mostly because I know I\u2019m close.<\/p>\n

So instead of doing an analysis of both teams, and how they match-up, and who will defend whom and yadda yadda yadda, I just want to focus on one thing: -16.<\/p>\n

Can this Patriots team really cover 16 points?!\u00a0 Can the Texas keep it within two freaking touchdowns?!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m taking the points, because it is too many.\u00a0 The Patriots will win, make no mistake.\u00a0 But even if they win 27-12, it\u2019s not enough to cover.<\/p>\n

\"money-throwing\"<\/a>Look, we all know the storylines, right?\u00a0 The 9-7 Texans basically slept walked through their game against the reeling Raiders, who were down to their third string rookie quarterback making his first ever start.\u00a0 Not exactly a confidence booster.\u00a0 Speaking of third string quarterbacks, it was the Jacoby Brissett (remember him, yeah, me neither) lead Patriots that shutout the Texans earlier this year in Foxborough.\u00a0 The betting public hasn\u2019t forgotten that game, and has wagered a considerable amount of bank on the Pats this week.\u00a0 Nearly 85% of the money has come in on NE -16.\u00a0 So, if the Patriots do win big and cover the spread, Vegas will take a beating.\u00a0 It\u2019ll be a bloodbath.\u00a0 Guess what, the only thing more bankable than the Patriots in Foxborough in January is Vegas winning money all the time.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/a>

This is getting old<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019m picturing a cold, frozen field.\u00a0 The Patriots win the coin toss and Hoodie defers, because he always freaking defers.\u00a0 Osweiler looks lost and the Texans go 3-and-out.\u00a0 The Patriots start with excellent field positions, because they always have excellent freaking field position.\u00a0 They dink and dunk, complete their first 7 passes, flawlessly execute a hurry-up quarterback sneak on 3-and-1 picking up 3 yards and eventually score a touchdown because they always freaking…..okay, you get the drift.\u00a0 But after they build their two TD lead they start hammering away with Lego Blount.\u00a0 They are effective at running the ball, which shortens the game (and makes a significant blowout less likely).\u00a0 Now, all we need is one or two scoring drives from Brock.\u00a0 I know, it\u2019s a tall task, but not unreasonable.\u00a0 Maybe the Texans defense didn\u2019t forget their embarrassing Week 3 performance and manage to get some pressure on Brady.\u00a0 Maybe they score a special teams touchdown.\u00a0 There are plenty of ways they can be down by 20 points and come up with a backdoor cover (hey-oh).<\/p>\n

So there it is.\u00a0 Any given Sunday (or Saturday Night).<\/p>\n

New England 31, Houston 17<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"ne01\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The playoff games are going to get more exciting, competitive and fun to watch; I promise.\u00a0 After Wildcard Weekend kicked off with a thud….the Machine did go 3-1 SU and 2-2 ATS)….the Divisional Round has much more enticing matchups…..the exception … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nfl"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Bp3y-HI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2710"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2714,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2710\/revisions\/2714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bigredsportsmachine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}