NFL Football Betting: Minnesota Vikings at Washington Redskins
Now that the US electoral dumpster fire is over (I’ve been working day and night setting political betting odds for the past couple of weeks) we can get back to business. With ‘Canada’s NFL team’ aka the Buffalo Bills idle this week we’ll take a one hour flight down to Minneapolis, Minnesota. Actually, we’ll take a much longer flight to Washington, DC to check in on the Minnesota Vikings who will try to end a three game losing streak against the Washington Redskins.
Among the many reasons that ‘squares’ lose money betting the NFL year after year: they continually ask the wrong questions about the teams they’re betting on. That gives them the wrong answers which leads them to the wrong conclusions. Today’s case in point–the Minnesota Vikings. The ‘square’s’ are of the opinion that the Vikings are being ‘exposed’ as ‘phony’. Their offensive issues are now taking their toll and revealing what is a mediocre team. To be fair, this is the narrative that the mainstream sports media spoon feeds to them.
To some extent, they’re right. The Vikings’ offense is very pedestrian with a bigger issue being their weak offensive line and poor pass protection. To write off the team entirely based on that alone, however, is foolish. Take a look at the other side of the ball–you’re looking at an elite level defense. You can make a pretty compelling case that the Vikings’ defense is the best in football. They’re definitely up there, ranking in the top three or four in all major defensive categories. They allow 15.8 PPG. The offense clearly needs work but the needs are obvious. It remains to be seen whether the problems can be fixed this season but they certainly can in the off season. Once head coach Mike Zimmer gets any kind of consistency out of the other side of the ball the Vikings’ defense makes them a legit Super Bowl contender.
The ‘public’ knows that there are few coaches as dangerous as Bill Belichick in certain situations. You can add Mike Zimmer to that list. Actually, Zimmer has been a pointspread monster in most situations. 29-12 ATS overall, 16-5 as an underdog, 5-1 ATS as a road underdog of 3 or less. 5-2 ATS with 2 or more losses. 20-11 ATS against conference opponents. 14-7 ATS in road games, 11-4 ATS against opponents with winning records. A team can succeed in certain situations for a variety of reasons. Teams don’t succeed in virtually every pointspread situation by accident–it’s a validation that they’ve got an excellent head coach.
BET MINNESOTA VIKINGS +2.5 OVER WASHINGTON REDSKINS
