Lions -6.5 over Jets (1u)
Lions -.5 / Under 50 Teaser (1u)
The Lions had a poor preseason leaving many wondering if this will be a step-back season for Detroit and many questioning the hiring of Matt Patricia. At 6.5 this spread looks like a lot but this is the New York Jets we are talking about. There is excitement in New York behind Darnold and how they exceeded expectations last year but lets not forget their season win total last year was only 3.5 games so it's not like they had to do all that much to exceed that, just show up a few times. Not exactly impressive.
Many are high on Darnold as a prospect but I am not, especially not to start the year. Not only does he not have much NFL experience, he doesn't have that much college experience either only playing 24 games at USC. To me that is a big problem because the NFL game is so much faster and this is the first time he will be facing an NFL defense who has game planned for him. Way different than preseason. Darnold had 26 turnovers in his 24 college starts and I just don't see him playing well in his first few weeks as an NFL starter especially when he is lining up behind one of the worst offensive lines in the league. To make matters worse his supporting cast is banged up with prized free agent acquisition Jeremy Kearse out this game due to injury.
Matt Stafford is no great shakes after getting that huge contract and has an absolutely atrocious record against teams who finish with a winning record but there is no way that the Jets win 9 games this season so I think he has a great chance to win this game and put up a decent amount of points in the process.
Sam Darnold is the youngest QB to ever start a game and he is going to have to do it on the road in a hostile environment behind a pathetic offensive line. That has recipe for disaster all over it against this Lions front seven who can get after the quarterback and for a secondary who forced a lot of turnovers last year. I just don't see him playing a clean game and look for him to have a few crucial turnovers which is going to cost the Jets any chance at keeping this close.
The offense wasn't the problem last year for the Lions and I looking for their excitable offense to score early and often against a Jets unit that was pathetic against the pass last year. The Lions said they are going finally try to establish a running game after failing to rush for 100 yards one single time in the past four seasons. I look for the Jets to try to run the ball a lot as well so I look for this to be a lower scoring game especially because I have a very hard time seeing the Jets scoring over 10 points or so.
I think the Lions will score in 20's but there is always a chance with a bad defense of the backdoor so instead of taking the favorite and the under which you need to have the game go perfectly to hit both taking the Lions just to win and getting a slightly bigger buffer on the under is the way to go in this one. I see Detroit pulling away late thanks to some rookie mistakes from Darnold and winning by 10+ in a low scoring game.
Take the Lions and the tease with the under.
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