NFL Picks Week 10: Redskins vs Vikings Pick ATS

NFL Picks Week 10: Redskins vs Vikings Pick ATS

The Minnesota Vikings are 2.5 point underdogs when the Washington Redskins come to town Thursday.

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By: MaChez, TSZ Expert

It’s become almost routine for the NFL to include at least one terrible team in their Thursday night games.  This week we get the pleasure of watching two of them when the Redskins travel to Minnesota to face the 1-7 Vikings.  It’s one of those match-ups that just about no one is excited to watch, but that’s why we have betting.  Let’s do what we can do spice things up a bit.

The Spread

The Redskins come in to Minneapolis as 2.5 point road favorites after pulling off an overtime win against the Chargers while the Vikings were blowing a late lead to the Cowboys to keep their win column at 1.  With both these teams playing terrible D, the total has been set at 49.

Washington Redskins

RGIII and Washington have had a tough time trying to live up to the expectations Griffin set for himself and the team during Operation Patience.  Sitting at 3-5, though, they’re surprisingly only 1.5 games out of first in the terrible NFC East with four more division games left this season.  Additionally, they only have two tough interdivision matchups (SF and KC) so it is entirely possible that we will see Washington in the playoffs again this year.

Washington’s three wins have come against the Raiders, the injured Bears, and the traveling-from-the-west-coast-for-a-10am-game Chargers, so it is questionable how good they actually are.  RGIII is definitely a shell of former self - his 80.0 passer rating is good for 22nd in the league and he isn’t running the ball nearly as confidently.  The real problem, however, is Washington’s defense which is giving up just under 400 yards of offense per game (30th in the league) and 31.6 points (31st).

Minnesota Vikings

Fortunately for the Redskins, the Vikings are only slightly better on defense.  Giving up 395.5 yards per game (29th) and 31.5 points per game (30th), the Vikings are just as porous as Washington.  A heavy does of inexperience in the secondary isn’t helping things, nor is the endless carousel of quarterbacks who can’t keep the offense on the field long enough for the defense to catch a breather.

First it was Christian Ponder, then it was Matt Cassel, then it was Josh Freeman, then it was back to Christian Ponder.  And as the saying goes, when you have two three quarterbacks, you have no quarterback.  Together, the three of them have managed to average only 202 yards passing per game (despite playing from behind a lot) and with Adrian Peterson regressing from his ridiculous 2012 pace, it hasn’t exactly been a winning equation up in Minnesota.

Prediction

Both of these teams are pretty bad, but we saw some life from both last week.  The Redskins showed what they were capable of on offense while keeping up with Chargers and the Vikings were this close to beating the Cowboys in Dallas as 9.5 points underdogs.  It makes it hard to take a side in this one, but I’m going to have to take the points and pick the Vikings as home underdogs.

Ponder knows that if he slips up he will lose most likely lose his job as a starting NFL QB forever so he will be on top of his game.  Griffin on the other hand is very prone to overconfidence - after their past two wins the Redskins lost their next game by an average of 19.5 points.  On top of all that it’s always safer to take the points at home in a close game like this.  With the way both these defenses play, though, the OVER is the safest pick.

MINNESOTA VIKINGS (+2.5) vs. Washington Redskins

OVER 49