New York Jets (6-9 SU, 7-8 ATS) vs. Buffalo Bills (5-10 SU, 6-9 ATS)
NFL Football Week 17
Date:: Sunday, December 30, 2012, 1:00PM EST
Where: Ralph Wilson Stadium – Buffalo, New York
TV: CBS
by Bob, Football Handicapper, Predictem.com
Point Spread: NYJ +3.5/BUF -3.5
Over/Under Total: 39
The NFL season is coming to a close already! Well, the regular season anyway. We are just a couple of weeks away from the NFL playoffs which I am certain will be action packed this year, but we got to get through week 17 before looking forward to postseason play. Many teams are out of the hunt and are playing for pride, while other teams will be resting players to make sure they are primed and ready for a Super Bowl run. This is the toughest week of the season to place your bets wisely. NFL week 17 in Vegas has always reminded me of the preseason. You take a guess at who you think will make the biggest impact early, then you rest your hopes and dreams on the shoulders of the backup players. Well, this game here isn’t much different. The New York Jets will make a short trip to take on the Buffalo Bills. Neither of these teams are in the postseason, and it is pretty safe to say that the Jets have been more of the let down than the Bills. Of course both squads wanted to make a run at the AFC post season, but the Jets on paper appeared to have the talent to actually do soat least defensively. Vegas opens this line at 3.5 points in favor of Buffalo. This is a tricky line, as I stated earlier, simply because these two teams really have nothing to play for.
The New York Jets are an absolute mess right now. What should really concern the Jets fans isn’t how bad they are right now, but the fact that things will more than likely only get worse before they get better. New York has been the NFL’s biggest circus for the last three or four seasons. Between acting like idiots on HBO’s Hard Knocks, their coach and his foot fetish, and the nonstop QB controversy, New York has slowly become a laughing stock of the entire league. It was ok a few years ago because they found a way to stumble into the AFC Title game a couple of times, but now that they aren’t competitive anymore, things aren’t so funny. This offseason will be another soap opera in my opinion. With Tebow probably leaving, Sanchez being traded, and the rumors that Mike Vick wants to be a Jet, boy oh boy, could this get interesting. Anyhow, enough of the mess that is the New York Jets, let us take a look at this weekend’s matchup against the Bills.
These two teams like I have said a couple of times, have nothing to play for. Heck, in a twisted sort of way, you are better off losing this game to get the better draft pick. I know that will not be the case though, we are talking about paid professionals with huge egos that are extremely competitive. Both the Jets and Bills will come out and want to win this in-state rivalry. From an offensive standpoint, I give the nod to Buffalo. Their QB, Ryan Fitzpatrick, has thrown for 23 touchdowns, and CJ Spiller has rushed for over 1,100 yards and still has this game to go. Early in the year, Buffalo was able to put up some pretty good scoring numbers, but in the last few weeks, finding the endzone has become a little more of a challenge for them. Being held to less than 20 points in their last three games, Buffalo appears to have hit a wall offensively. Defensively, I give the advantage to the Jets. Even though the Jets appear somewhat bi-polar on defense at times, they are still highly talented and can hang with any offense out there when they really want to. I will save you a lot of time and refrain from giving you a page full of stats, how about we just look at what each team will need to do to win this thing? Here are the keys to victory: For the Jets, it is simple, keep the game low scoring. New York will need to make sure to shut down CJ Spiller on the ground and keep this game short and low scoring. If it becomes a shootout, well, the Jets will for sure get left in the dust. Which brings me to the Buffalo Bills key to victory: Offense. The Bills defense isn’t very good, but I have such little faith in the Jets offense, that I don’t think that will matter. If Buffalo can get the ground game going and open the pass game for Fitzpatrick, Buffalo will be able to win this one, and win quite handily I think.
Bob’s Pick to Cover the Point Spread: What a tough call. I really do not trust either team with such a small point spread. I’ll tell you what we need to do here and that is forget picking anyone to cover. Let’s go with the over. Right now it sits at 39 points and I don’t really trust either defense at this point, including New York’s. Take the over. I feel this game will end up being one those 23-21 or 24-20 games. Either way, we will soar past the over. PICK: OVER 39!!
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