Jacksonville at New England

It's funny how public perception changes. Six weeks ago, the public would have given any amount of points to any team, and backed New England against that line. No line was too large. Now we have one of the shortest spreads for the Pats in a while, in their most important game year-to-date, and the public squares are lining up on Jacksonville. It's not too hard to figure out why and it has to do with short memories. New England has (relatively) struggled of late. They started off 8-0 ATS but they lost six of their last eight games against the number. Guess who took it in the shorts on those games? That's right - the public squares. Meanwhile, Jacksonville covered the spread in seven of their final eight regular season games. The only ATS loss was in the meaningless season finale. The talking heads on TV say that Jacksonville has the best shot at knocking off the Pats. How can you not take this hot team getting nearly two TDs? That's the thinking at least. But, we haven't sold out on the Pats. It's rare to find value on a -13 favorite but we have it here! One thing we have to remember is that when a team literally clinches their division halfway through the season, there just simply isn't anything to get excited for until week 19, which is now! The process in-between involves taking everyone's best shot, while you have a difficult time giving yours. But New England is so good that they didn't fall victim to what so many other teams have. They perservered to pull off the unbelievable 16-0 season. New England found themselves in three games (Baltimore, Philadelphia and the Giants) which all could have gone bad, and into the loss column. But when they needed to score, each and every time, they did! If you think something has changed with this offense, your going to be on the wrong side of this game. Jacksonville has played much better in the second half of the season, no doubt. They are a very good team playing good football. The problem we have is they were up by 18 against a Pittsburgh team devastaed with injuries, and allowed them to not only make it back in the game, they gave up the lead! New England is going to pile up points on this team the way you saw earlier in the season. Just wait and see. What we also saw was David Garrard, flawless during the regular season, play very nervous in this playoff game. He was 9-21 with two INT's after throwing three picks all season. You know New England and the coaching staff took notice, and he will see some schemes he has never seen before. If Belichick can scheme to shut down Peyton Manning, with two weeks to prepare, and on a mission, you can bet they can scheme to handle David Garrard. The Jags will not get the mistakes from this New England team that they needed to beat Pittsburgh. Statsitically speaking, the wrong team won last week's game. We would not be surprised if this one is not put out of reach by halftime, and New England, finally playing a meaningful game, will answer big. Jacksonville is not a team built to come back from a deficit. The craziest thing about this weekend, bar none, is that we are getting a 16-0 team, arguably the best team EVER, with arguably the best QB ever and arguably the best coach ever, at a bargain! Take this bargain and run with it.