With two of the NFL’s more celebrated quarterbacks getting together on Sunday night, the respective secondaries had better be ready. More importantly, they better be healthy. And in that regard, both the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants have major question marks. They will meet at Lambeau Field at 8:30 PM ET, and while NBC is televising the game live, folks with accounts at BetAnySports will be able to place wagers while the proceedings are in progress, through the magic of Live Betting Ultra.
The Packers are coming off a bye week, and that gives them a break, because they were missing a number of starters on defense in their 34-27 victory over the Detroit Lions. Now they will get some people back, including Clay Matthews, the guy who is the key to Dom Capers’ stop unit. Also on track to return is linebacker Datone Jones and safety Morgan Burnett. But their top cornerback, Sam Shields, is still dealing with the NFL’s concussion protocol, and that creates difficulty against a team like the Giants, because now the team will have to put its second best corner against Odell Beckham.
The Giants were so thin in the secondary going into last week’s game against Minnesota that they were thinking of bringing in Spider Lockhart for a tryout. Fortunately Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and Eli Apple look like they are on the road to returning. But they did not have enough back there to deal themselves a winning hand against the Vikings, and could not make much headway against Mike Zimmer’s defense either. Ben McAdoo, New York’s first-year head coach, had top running back Rashad Jennings out as well, and there was a problem achieving balance because of that.
In the Sunday night NFL betting odds posted on this game at BetAnySports, the Packers are favored:
Green Bay Packers -7 (-120)
New York Giants +7 (+100)
Over 48 points -110
Under 48 points -110
Capers is rather inventive in terms of his defensive schemes, but McAdoo knows quite a bit about him from his long tenure as a Green Bay assistant coach. But the Packers appear to be very much for real when it comes to stopping people on the ground; in fact, their 1.8-yard per carry average is best in the league by quite a margin.
We doubt Eli Manning will try to establish much of a ground game anyway, not when he can hammer away at a Green Bay secondary that has shown itself to have some big problems with big-play receivers. Let’s face it – when Stefon Diggs (Minnesota) and Marvin Jones (Detroit) go off for a combined 387 yards against your defensive backs, you know you’ve got some holes.
And so if Shields isn’t available, the Packers have to hand the assignment of covering Odell Beckham over to Demarious Randall, and that might not be the place they want to be. Perhaps the best posture here is to get under Beckham’s skin – the star receiver was cited for another unsportsmanlike conduct penalty last week and has been making rants about how the officials are singling him out. There is no question that everybody’s eyes – including the referee’s – will be on Beckham and whoever has to shadow him.
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