Here are this weeks fixtures and Laddies odds on the games without handicaps - remember Home team is listed second.
Sunday Games
18:00 Oakland Raiders 17/10 Kansas City Chiefs 1/2
18:00 Tennessee Titans 10/11 Cincinnati Bengals 10/11
18:00 Indianapolis Colts 5/6 Minnesota Vikings evens
18:00 New Orleans Saints 10/11 Washington Redskins 10/11
18:00 Green Bay Packers 20/33 Detroit Lions 29/20
18:00 Chicago Bears 13/8 Carolina Panthers 1/2
18:00 New York Giants 2/9 St. Louis Rams 7/2
18:00 Buffalo Bills 2/1 Jacksonville Jaguars 5/12
21:05 Atlanta Falcons 27/10 Tampa Bay Buccaneers 5/17
21:05 San Francisco 49ers 27/10 Seattle Seahawks 5/17
21:15 Miami Dolphins 23/10 Arizona Cardinals 5/14
21:15 New England Patriots evens New York Jets 5/6
21:15 Baltimore Ravens 9/5 Houston Texans 5/11
21:15 San Diego Chargers 20/23 Denver Broncos 20/21
Monday Night Games
01:15 Pittsburgh Steelers 5/14 Cleveland Browns 23/10
01:35 Philadelphia Eagles 5/2 Dallas Cowboys 1/3
What we should be looking for here are the hot teams with an attractive matchup, as well as the teams who we expect to be doing well at the business end of the season to come back strong from Week 1 losses or poor performances.
First one you would suggest would be Jacksonville at home to Buffalo, but the manner of the Bills win, coupled with the way the Jaguars struggled on offense screams to leave this one alone - the Jags are pretty banged up currently after getting pounded by the Titans and need to be watched only at the moment.
Next up though is the Chargers - San Diego suffered a last second loss to the Panthers in week 1 that 95% of the time they would have won, and more importantly QB Philip Rivers showed some consistency and range meaning they wont be reliant on LaDanian Tomlinson and their explosive defence. They are away in Denver, and whilst the Broncos had a great week 1 win, it was against the shockingly poor Raiders. San Diego will know if they lose this game they will already be 2 games behind the Broncos in their division, and whilst the Broncos will be their main competition and fired up for it, the Bolts will be too strong and equal up their record. At pretty much evens i dont think you can argue.
Indianapolis have a hard game away at Minnesota, who again will be anxious not to lose their first 2 games with so much expected from them. But the same can be said for the Colts - they will need their offense to click though and last week it simply didnt. The Vikings are strong defensively and this one is too close to call - leave it be.
My next selection is very difficult to say, because i have to say that I fancy the New Orleans Saints to beat my Washington Redskins, especially at 10/11. Although the Saints have lost their #1 WR this week to injury for 6 weeks, i fear they will still have far too many offensive weapons for the Skins, who themselves will struggle to put points on the board. Unless Washington can find their passing game and quickly, and be able to bully Drew Brees (the Saints QB) when on defense, it could get very messy. Only home field advantage for the Skins, outdoors on grass, and my unshaking adulation for Washington stops me from napping the Saints here....but i cant ignore them either.
I cant remember the last time the Patriots have been EVS for a game without a handicap start for their opposition....if the injury hadnt happened to Brady they would be about a 1/6 shot away at the NY Jets - but such is the impact of Brady's loss that the Jets are now favourites, albeit very slight, to win the game off level. The Jets won last week against the poorly Dolphins, but this is all about how New England will perform without Brady. Everything is still there but him....can Matt Cassel keep them going though? The truth is no one knows - one thing is for sure the Pats will run the ball more which will slow their offense down and keep the opposition in the game for longer. This will be very much a litmus paper test for the Pats and one to note for future reference against a team that they would normally beat out of sight even with Brett Favre. If the Pats win, even narrowly, we can tip them with confidence in future. A loss though, and we may find alot of value in their opposition in future weeks.
Cannot see anything but a win for the Giants and the Cowpats, though they wont have it as easy against the Eagles as they did against the Browns, and will be nice little fillips for the coupon, whilst Pittsburgh should do something similar to Cleveland as Dallas did.
MY WEEK 2 SELECTIONS
3pts accumulator on :
San Diego WIN @ 20/23
New Orleans WIN @ 10/11
Pittsburgh WIN @ 5/14
N Y Giants WIN @ 2/9
Dallas WIN @ 1/3
Good luck...and this week if one result lets me down...PLEASE let it be the New Orleans game............
