Thursday Night Football Picks & Preview — New England Patriots at Atlanta Falcons (11/18)

NFL Network, Amazon Prime and Fox Network will carry the game, and here’s the great news – you can go through Ultimate Lines, Premier Lines and Super Lines to place real-time wagering while you’re watching it.

Over the last seven games, the Patriots have won five, three of which came by double digits, with losses to Tampa Bay and Dallas where the outcome wasn’t decided until the final seconds.

The big story for them involves the play of Mac Jones, who has really adapted to the NFL well. Belichick knew he was going to be careful with Jones, and not ask him to do too much. But now he’s getting to the point where he is ready to let him do anything in the playbook.

It’s not so much that his yardage figures or accuracy rate is better. But his command is better now. And he has more than won Belichick over. And the coach’s decision to cut Cam Newton and award the starting QB job to Jones has proven to be rather prescient.

The Falcons (4-5 SU, 3-5-1 ATS) have come off as a failure in some ways, although they are just one game worse than New England, and in their own conference (the NFC) they are not out of the playoff race by any means. They’ll be looking to rebound in a big way from a 43-3 pasting they took last week from the Dallas Cowboys, who themselves were looking to bounce back from a bad loss. But New England’s defense presents a challenge for their offensive attack, without question.

In the odds for our Thursday Night Football preview as they are posted at BetAnySports, the Patriots are laying quite a price:

New England Patriots -7 (+100)

Atlanta Falcons +7 (-120)

Over 47 points -110

Under 47 points -110

Reduced juice might give you a better price than this, so by all means, check it out!

The Falcons traded Julio Jones to Tennessee during the summer, and they did so with the expectation that they would have Calvin Ridley assuming the role as the #1 receiver. And they had already drafted highly-touted tight end Kyle Pitts with their first pick.

Pitts may indeed turn out to be a superstar in the NFL (Belichick definitely believes it). But Ridley, to the shock of everyone, announced he was leaving the team indefinitely to work on his mental health issues. And that was a killer.

Now Matt Ryan has a real challenge when it comes to stretching a defense out. And you can see it in the numbers; this season his yards per throw is just 7.1, which is 2.1 yards less than it was when Atlanta played (and lost, of course) to New England in Super Bowl 51.

And if Cordarrelle Patterson, who was shifted from wide receiver to running back so that the Falcons could at least have a ground attack, was able to play despite a high ankle sprain, it would surprise us.

All this should play into the hands of the Pats, who are dedicated to dropping a lot of people back in coverage, so they can cover that which is both short and deep.

And with New England also focused on the ground-and-pound more and more as the season progresses (57% running plays over the last three games), we think the best play under the circumstances might be to go UNDER the total of 47.

Making your Thursday Night Football picks is a lot of fun with BetAnySports, which has Prop Builder with extra bets in abundance, as well as reduced juice for better prices, and Ultimate Lines, Premier Lines and Super Lines – all of which let you make wagers during the game……. Remember that you can open your account with Bitcoin, which is fast and easy with their automated system, and NEVER incurs a transaction fee!