Crazy! For the Sunday early game pitting the Green Bay Packers at the Detroit Lions, bookmakers opened Detroit as week 5’s fourth home underdog, getting 1 to 1½ points when the lines were set on Monday. Lots of action subsequently flipped that +1 to the Detroit side, making the line on this Lions -1 vs the Packers.
No matter, the NFL bettor may say, -1/+1 is essentially equivalent to a pick ’em, because the Packers certainly can’t tie twice in a single season. (Or can they…?) Great! So choose your winner and make a money line (ML) bet, right? Now you’re thinking: NFLbets’ Pick of the Week for NFL week 5 says to take the Detroit Lions to win SU vs Green Bay at +100 -- even a line of -105 or -110 would wagering on a Detroit W worth it.
Over in daily fantasy land, players are snapping up and starting Golden Tate, Marvin Jones and even Kenny Golladay this week and why not? The Lions are top-10 offense in terms of passing volume, i.e. attempts, completions and yardage. Opposite this is a Green Bay pass rush which has produced 13 sacks already, though we’d argue that Matt Stafford is more mobile and skilled at improvisation than any of the opposing QBs this suspect Packers secondary has faced thus far: Mitch Trubitsky, Kirk Cousins, Alex Smith and Josh Allen. Plus, again, Stafford is working with more talent in the receiving corps right now that those four guys combined.
So how about that Green Bay receiving corps? Well, remember how Aaron Rodgers was complaining about the younger additions to the Packers’ WR lot this past offseason? If not, please feel free to review with this pair of bombasts ranting.
Today, Rodgers is gonna have to depend on those guys. (Marquez Valdes-Scantling, I presume…?) Randall Cobb and Geronimo Allison will not play, due to hamstring injury of two weeks ago and concussion from last week, respectively. Davonte Adams is questionable as of Sunday morning, but likely won’t be 100%.
Cobb, Allison and Adams have accounted for just abou 65% of all receiving yards. After this is TE Jimmy Graham, who contributes four catches per game. The position-less Ty Montgomery has 11 grabs as well. Then it’s ... um ... well, it’ll be interesting.
Sure, sure, Aaron “The Greatest Quarterback In Stephen A. Smith’s Lifetime” Rodgers is out there – and aside from his AFC counterpart Tom Brady, no quarterback in the 21st-century NFL has been able to do more with less. And he’s going against a bottom-5 passing defense in Detroit. But jokes, kidding and miracle-making aside, the truth is that these Packers just ain’t going 14-1-1 SU.
Considering the greater picture, this is a divisional game against a team that scores points in bunches despite a nigh-clueless rookie head coach. This is an away game in a dome (bit of a level playing field, so to speak). Detroit will definitely put up some points and Rodgers will find some way to keep pace, but NFLbets is thinking that the Lions will do just that wee bit more.
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