As you may know by now, we went 8-5 for +10 units in Week 1 Premium Plays! Hit me up on Twitter or Instagram if you have any questions and consider a premium NFL season package by clicking this link! Here’s my take on Thursday Night’s NFC East battle:

Giants/Football Team 1H under 20 (-110), 1.5 units: The Giants are all over social media because of how few wins they’ve had over the last 3 years. In fact, the Giants haven’t had a winning record since 2016. In fact, in fact, in fact (and as a fan it literally pains me to type this), the Giants are the ONLY team in the NFL to not have a winning record the last 3 seasons. And 2021 started the same way. My feelings and hopes for the Giants are not high, if that’s not abundantly clear, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be competitive Thursday night. Despite all their failures in recent history, NYG has won 5 straight games against Washington. That means they haven’t lost against the Football Team in about 3 years. Now the Football Team has had mediocre QB play for awhile– Kyle Allen, Dwayne Haskins, and Kirk Cousins didn’t often succeed against Big Blue either. But the Giants defense, as we’ve seen over their last 17 games, is very formidable. Last week’s game got away from them– Denver scored at will in the second half and gained over 400 yards, but that has me thinking NYG’s defense will experience some positive regression. They have a lot of talent on that side of the ball. Washington’s defense should experience the same thing. I was less than impressed by the Football Team’s front 7 and secondary against Justin Herbert last week. Of course Herbert is, in my mind, easily a top 10 quarterback already, so playing against the 2nd year star is no easy task. Washington should dominate the line of scrimmage against the Giants’ O-line (so please, for God’s sake, don’t start Saquon this week) and make life very difficult for Daniel Jones. Taylor Heinicke looked pretty good replacing Fitzpatrick in Week 1, but we’d be silly to think he’s going to run amuck over the Giants defense. My mind (not my heart) wants to go with the Giants at +3.5 since they’ve owned Washington in recent history, but I just can’t do it. NYG just looked so BAD last week. The under is 14-3 in Giants last 17 games overall and this is an NFC East rivalry; typically NFC East battles are notorious for back-and-forth, boring defensive battles, and I suspect TNF won’t be much different. Both teams historically start slow but they could pick up their tempo in the second half, so that scares me away from a full game total sitting at 40.5. I’ll grab the first half under for 1.5 units.

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Raiders +4 (-110), 1.5 units: There’s a lot of reasons to like the Raiders tonight, and much of it has to do with the Ravens. Before we get into that, let’s look at some sharp angles that automatically have us favoring Chuckie’s (Gruden, to the layperson) team:

• The game is at Vegas and Allegiant Stadium will have full fans for the first time ever. Like the Golden Knights, one should expect a rather raucous and unique atmosphere and also like the Knights, I expect it’ll make a difference.
• The Raiders are yet another home underdog. Home dogs went 4-2 ATS Sunday.
• Home crowds usually help a defense– the Raiders will need that tonight.

I’m not one to understate what Lamar Jackson is capable of. All the Ravens QB does is win– he’s 34-12 all time as the Ravens’ starter; that’s a 74% win rate over the past 3 seasons. Needless to say, that’s freakin’ impressive. The issue with the Ravens’ offense is that we’ve seen it before. Everyone has seen it before. And although it’s mostly worked, I think their offense is less talented heading into the 2021 season.

Baltimore’s receivers are small. Sammy Watkins (is he considered their #1 receiver? Honestly, we’re not sure..) is their tallest guy at 6’1″ and it drops off from there. Of course big Mark Andrews is 6’5″ 250 plus, but he can’t catch every ball in the red zone, can he (maybe, he’s a beast)? Watkins and Marquise Brown and Duvernay and others are all long-ball guys. Oh and in case you haven’t heard, they’re absolutely depleted at running back. Ty’Son Williams, the undrafted RB from BYU, will apparently start for Baltimore Monday night. He’s the only RB who’s been on their roster before last Wednesday. Le’Veon Bell and Latavius Murray will back him up, but I can only imagine how little they know the playbook at this point. Baltimore is typically built to run the ball and dominate time of possession, but I’m not sure that they can expect the same production early this year.

Now let’s talk about the Raiders. For all they have to improve upon, and it’s a lot, this is a perfect setup for Jon Gruden. Gruden loves to motivate his players for big games at the start of a new season. The Raiders have hope and they’re in a huge market with a lot of fanfare in that new stadium– I have to think Chuckie will capitalize. And for what it’s worth, Vegas has won the past two season openers under Gruden. The Raiders’ defense will have issues defending Lamar tonight, no doubt, but I think their offense can keep them in the game. Baltimore’s #1 Cornerback, Marcus Peters, went down with an ACL tear in practice earlier last week. Anthony Averett, a 3rd year corner out of Alabama with limited experience, will replace Peters. Expect Derek Carr and Gruden to expose that matchup.

The Raiders were top 10 in nearly every offensive category this year. Their defense is their weakness, but if they can improve that even slightly and limit Lamar for moments during this contest, they’ll have a legitimate advantage with a wild Vegas crowd, an inspired head coach, and a very capable offense. The Raiders are 5-1-1 ATS in their last 7 Monday games; I’ll take the home team in the new Black Hole!