Atlanta Falcons @ Carolina Panthers
Atlanta Falcons (5-3) needs to win in order to get a good seed position for the postseason with a Wild Card, they are currently tied with the same record as Arizona and Philadelphia, while Carolina Panthers (3-5) has at least 5 teams in front of them for the NFL 2009 Playoff Race, has all the pressure one team can have if they still want to have a slight chance to win a spot on the playoffs.
QB Matt Ryan on the last weeks has dropped a bit his rhythm and has suffered some interceptions but I rate this sophomore as a great quarterback who makes good calls and knows how to make this offense work properly. Matt Ryan tools at his disposal are many, on the wide receivers positions we have WR Roddy White who has a 14.3 yards per catch average and WR Michael Jenkins (12.8 AVG), plus the one of the best tight end of the NFL, TE Tony Gonzalez.
If the Falcons' passing game is very powerful with all this weapons, the Atlanta offense becomes much more dangerous when we have a RB Michael Turner who has been excellent on the last weeks, doing great quality performances and I believe that he will do a great game this afternoon, because on the other side, the best Carolina player is injured (OLB Thomas Davis) and surely Michael Turner will have his holes and gaps to exploit on that Panthers defense and repeat the great last weeks' games.
The Falcons' D has some shortcomings, mainly against the passing game, which by the way is not the strong spot of the Panthers, since they are an 80% rushing team, which helps us a little bit, because the Atlanta defensive unit is much better when you need to stop the opponents' running game, which is good news for us.
As I already said, Carolina relies too much on their rushing game and I'm not surprised with that since QB Jake Delhomme is doing a horrible season and is afraid to throw deep, because he knows he runs serious risks of suffering a few more interceptions, he already has 13 interceptions this season. It is true that on his last 2 games he didn't throw any interceptions, but almost all the Panthers offense plays where done thanks to the running game and therefore, he couldn't harm his team anymore on this subject.
Jake Delhomme has WR Steve Smith to pass the ball, but rarely he uses him, the same happens with WR Muhsin Muhammed or TE Jeff King. I can't entirely blame Delhomme, because almost all the offensive game of the Panthers is based on their rushers RB DeAngelo Williams and RB Jonathan Stewart. De Angelo (5.2 YPC) is undoubtedly one of the best rushers of the NFL and his 7 touchdowns show that. I'm know that despite his keen "limitations" we will play this game and certainly will do a good performance, but anyway Carolina will have a predictable offense.
Talking about the Panthers D, they don't have a bad passing game defense, but they will a lot of problems to stop the Atlanta offense. Carolina rushing defense was average and the only one standing out is Thomas Davis, who's sidelined due to injury for this game and I see a lot of problems for the Panthers in stopping a Falcons' Michael Turner in great form.
Again, this is an important game for both teams, maybe a little more for the Falcons, I believe that Matt Ryan will play better on this match and will do a good performance, because he has a lot of good options to choose from in order to win this game and with Michael Turner in great shape playing against a bad rushing defense which has their best player out, I believe the running back will be one of the key players for a road win of the Atlanta Falcons.
Pick: Atlanta Falcons PK -120 (1.83) 5Dimes
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