NFL Week 16; Boxing Day games

NFL Week 16

Best Spread.

Another potential division decider is the main Sky game for the evening as the Bills take on the Pats in much more favorable weather than they faced off against each other in just a couple of weeks ago. A win for the Pats pretty much secures the division and takes them to double-digit wins but a win for the Bills will put them above their rivals thanks to divisional records (that opening day loss to the Dolphins could cost the Pats).

These are the top 2 rated defenses according to DVOA, the Pats have had the 27th toughest schedule, the Bills the 31st. So it’s safe to say they’ve not exactly had a tough time of it this year.

The Bills have made a season of destroying terrible teams and struggling against the better teams they’ve faced. The win against the Chiefs in week 5 the highlight for their season, but losing to the Jaguars really showed anything can happen.

They needed to get a run game sorted out as the lack of that for a lot of the season has really hurt them and it looks like they’ve landed on Devin Singletary as the main man after 22 carries from him last week, admittedly under 4 yards per carry, but still, they needed to get some threat on the ground other than Josh Allen running it.

It was inevitable that Allen dropped off from his form last year and it’s happened, he’s still pretty good but the connection with Stefon Diggs hasn’t been the same this year. He has enjoyed playing with Gabriel Davis in recent weeks but he’s out with Covid this week. Emmanuel Sanders started the season well, he’ll be back here and looking to bounce back to some form, while Dawson Knox gets a lot of endzone targets and should get the same here.

Obviously, the Pats are one of the best coached teams in the league and constantly running in a tornado the last time these two met won the match then, it should be a different case here, but Mac Jones has been fine in his debut year, 17th in yards, 16th in TDs, 13th in QBR. He’s fine.

The run game has been the main point of attack for them and they’ll have Damien Harris back as Rhamondre Stevenson steps out due to Covid. Harris should get the bulk of the load with Bolden and Taylor mixing in a little if needed.

They’re without Nelson Agholor in the passing game but Kendrick Bourne has got through protocol to become available. Bourne has come on in recent weeks so is an important piece for them. If you want to take a TD scorer though it has to be Hunter Henry with 9 TDs this year including 2 last week. He and Jonnu Smith have about 40% of the teams redzone targets this year as they hit the big lads near the endzone.

They have been good defensively, playing the Bills in fair weather will be interesting.

As you might have noted I’m still not really buying the Pats. I think the Bills win, therefore cover the spread. Bills Moneyline – 1/1 (most)

Best Total

Defense should be on top in Kansas City as the Chiefs host the Steelers. The Chiefs have only allowed 20 points once in their 7 game win streak and that was last Thursday against the Chargers. A far, far, farrrrr better offense than this stinking heap of dung that the Steelers are putting out there week in, week out.

The Steelers have somehow reached 7 wins, thanks mainly to their defense which isn't as good as it used to be, but turned over the Titans 3 times in 5 plays last week and that was enough to shut out the game for a win.

The Chiefs should have Kelce and Hill playing here, they are essentially the offense, accounting for over 2/3 of Mahomes' completions and yards last week. They have both been on the Covid list this week but should clear protocol and be available, even still it can't have been easy for the team in camp this week with so many disruptions.

Even if the Chiefs score 30, which they could, I can see this ending under the total. UNDER 45.5 – 10/11 (Most)

Best TD Scorer.

I have a TON of tight ends I like the prices on this week, so trying to narrow it down to a few selections here is the toughest thing for me, on my site (TDTips.com) I've listed 4 or 5 at the price. Cole Kmet is being hyped up by Fantasy-folks this week having had a ton of high-value targets for them this season. He's a best price 11/2 on 365 which is a nice look despite not having the best success in scoring this year, the worry for me is that they're changing QB once more, Nick Foles getting the start and we don't know who he'll target. I would assume it'll be the tight end but could be Jimmy Graham or Jesper Horstead for all we know.

Main short price TD scorer is James Robinson for the Jags, available at 11/10 against the Jets at William Hill. After Urban Meyer was finally sacked last week they said they'd load up Robinson and that's what they did, 21 touches for him and a TD. Going up against a Jets run defense which is better than their pass defense, but allows a TD each week to a running back. I think he finds the endzone again tonight at plus money I'll take it.

So, trying to pick the right tight end scorer tonight… I think I'm down to either Knox or Henry in the Bills v Pats game. Both of them are over 2/1 and I've said before I can't say no to either at that price. Hunter Henry has 9 TDs this year, Knox has 8 and should have had one in the game between these teams when they met a couple of weeks back. I'll take Knox at 13/5 on Betfair.

I'll leave it at that today folks, hopefully we'll be coming into this one with some cash in our accounts from the Boxing Day horse racing and the odd football game that's survived the blitz, and we'll provide some more here.

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