Monday Night Football Handicapping Week 11

Monday Night Football Handicapping Week 11 – New England at Carolina

Line: Panthers -3  l  Total:  47

The Carolina Panthers ( 6-3 SU / 6-3 ATS ) host the New England Patriots ( 7-2 SU / 5-4 ATS ) on Monday Night football November 18, 2013. ESPN carries the coverage live from Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, NC at 8:40 ET.  My clients and I are live in this game with both the side and total, and we’ll provide some thoughts and analysis with that in mind.

Rare underdog role for the Patriots, who are 8-1 ATS as road underdog the past four years.  Going back further, Brady and Bilichick are 18-4-2 ATS as road ‘Dogs. Off a week of rest and prep, be sure that master coach Belichick and his staff will be prepared for the Panthers read option attack and QB Cam Newton. Note that New England is 1-3 SU and 0-4 ATS the last four years following their bye week.  The Patriots have already faced a number of teams that use variations of the read option or spread formations. They have also faced three quality passing QB’s in Brees, Ryan and Roethlisberger and were lit up pretty well while allowing at least 23 points to all three opponents. The Patriots offense was far from par early season as QB Brady struggled with new receivers and timing patterns. Fortunately, the Patriots were able to play teams with rookie or less capable QB’s early season in building their win total. Now with TE Gronkowski and WR Amendola back to better health and the starting lineup, the Patriots once-prolific offense may be finding it’s stride. New England has scored 55, 27, 27 and 30 points their last four games, but now they get their toughest test not only on the road, but against defensive dominator Carolina Panthers.  With the marquee match-up of Brady/Manning and New England vs. Denver on deck week 12, we don’t expect the Patriots offense to be their best or have as much success against the superior defense.

The Panthers are the hottest team in the league on a 5-0 SU/ATS run and a big road win at San Francisco last week 10-9. That coming out party was just the start for a national audience Monday to see perhaps the NFL’s best defense. During Carolina’s recent 5-0 run, they are +8 in turnover margin thanks to that strong, aggressive defense.  QB Cam Newton operates out of the shot-gun based option-run formation and should be having more success running the ball.  They lack solid receivers outside of Steve Smith, and we’ll likely see more running by the Panthers vs. the Patriots, as the longer-developing deep rout passing game is not as suited or successful against the Patriots, who allow just 55% completions and only three longer pass plays of 40+ yards.  The Panthers need a win to stay within one game of the Saints (8-2) after New Orleans’ big win over the 49ers Sunday. Carolina allows a league-low 12 ppg and  283 ypg at just 4.8 yards per play.  Over the past three games, the Panthers have allowed just 245 ypg. The run defense is dominant holding opponents to 82 ypg with one of the strongest and fastest linebacker units in the league.  The front four will pressure QB Brady heavily with a strong power rush and stunt schemes. The secondary will face it’s toughest test against QB Brady, and while the Panthers have allowed 65% completions, they hold teams to just 201 passing ypg.  A look at the Panthers schedule shows that they too have faced just one top-tier passer in Giants QB Eli Manning. While they were able to shutdown dual threat Kaepernick at San Francisco last week, the challenge Monday night is far stronger against Brady.

Despite Carolina’s dominating defense, this is the highest posted total in a Panthers game this season thanks to the perceived strength of the Patriots offense and the Panthers scoring surge against weaker teams and defenses.  Not buying that baloney on the Patriots offense, as New England is still not a top-10 offense and we expect the Panther defense to slow down the Patriots and return them to their early season scoring and yardage numbers.  We had four ‘under’ the total games we were involved in Sunday have defensive pic-6 scores.  That just shouldn’t happen.  Barring unfortunate plays and/or TO’s turned into easy scores, we anticipate this Monday night match-up to have less scoring than expected.