Take the Eagles minus the points (but plus the karma) vs Washington on Monday Night Football

03 December 2018

Now *this* is why they call it gambling. NFLbets wouldn’t normally bet this particular edition of Monday Night Football most weeks, but dangerously feels compelled to better our current 3-3 mark on official Best Bets for week 13. So yeah, we’ll be plunking a few more Moneys (NFLbets preferred form of currency) on the Eagles versus Washington tonight. (Though we’d advise you to read on, for a few hundred words might just flip our script.)

Obviously, our confidence isn’t exactly off the charts on the 2018 Philadelphia Eagles. In fact, the strongest argument for covering Philly on MNF this week relies on backward-working logic. It goes something like this: The pretty awesome-looking Eagles of 2017 who snatched away a sixth Lombardi Trophy from the New England Patriots can’t have devolved in one season so much that they’ll miss the playoffs altogether, right? Far more likely that a SU win this week gets them to 6-6 and right back in the running for that no. 6 NFC playoff spot, right?

Wellllllllllllllllllllll … let’s just see what else we’ve got.

Washington feels particularly good to bet against right now with QB Alex Smith out for the year. After getting off to a nice 5-2 start ATS (then third-best in the NFL), they’ve cooled off to go 2-2 ATS since. The team has topped 23 points in a game just once this season (in week 3 against Green Bay) and is a measly 1-3 SU/2-2 ATS against teams above .500.

Of course, that last point again requires backward logic, assuming that the Eagles are a team of above .500-level quality despite the record showing otherwise…

Meanwhile, Washington’s only name player in Adrian Petersen has gone south with the rest of the team in the past four weeks, not once topped 70 total yards once in that span. Philadelphia’s run defense hasn’t suffered nearly as brutal a dropoff from 2017 as did some other aspects of the team, and oddly enough is not only no. 10 in rushing yardage allowed but is also no. 1 in rushing attempts against. Weird. Some may rightfully argue that Peterson hasn’t been notable in years – fair enough – but we bring him up here solely as a poster boy for the deserved karmic woes crippling this fetid franchise again.

While this team dropped several winnable games on the field, the Racists brain trust picked up alleged thug Rueben Foster and had franchise VP Doug Williams dismiss Foster’s alleged barbaric behavior as “small potatoes.” Nice. (Hey, wasn’t that expression once used in conjunction with another dipshit’s involvement in football…?)

Gah. The Eagles may not have much to speak of in the plus column here, but combined with the bad juju again amassed by the Washington football club, NFLbets maintains that Philadelphia’s a decent bet, if only so as their current 3-8 ATS record trends upward a bit to the norm; disappointment or no, few teams in the past 10 years have gone 5-11 or worse ATS, the Eagles’ current pace.

But the one factor that seals the deal on a pro-Eagles bet? These two teams meet again in week 17 in Washington, and we’re gonna hedge the f&^#&^ out of that game is we lose this one. Take the Philadelphia Eagles -6 at Washington.