By Spread Astaire (@spreadastaire)
Monday Night Football Wild Card Weekend
The Minnesota Vikings and Los Angeles Rams will take the field in Arizona for this week’s Wild Card edition of Monday Night Football. The Vikings are fighting fan and media accusations of being fraudulent. They have one last chance to prove that they are for real.
After a slow start, the Rams are one of the hottest teams in football. Can the Rams keep their turnaround season going after it looked like they were headed for last place? When these two teams take the field, who will I predict to win on Monday Night Football.
Minnesota Vikings
Everyone, and I mean everyone, thinks the Vikings are a fraud. The only people who believe in the Vikings live in Minnesota. This team has been fighting accusations of being overrated all year and their performance against Detroit in Week 18 in a must-win game did nothing to assuage concerns. The Vikings defense held strong for a while but in the end, the Detroit Lions offense was too much. The Vikings had their worst game on offense all season. Vikings QB Sam Darnold missed many throws in the red zone and the Vikings came up short within the five-yard line multiple times. However, the Lions have one of the best defenses in the league. Will the Rams be able to replicate the Lions red zone defensive success?
Los Angeles Rams
The Rams were off to a slow start but with a great head coach and a great quarterback, you are never out of it. LA has emerged as one of the top teams in the NFC. The Rams are 5-1 ATS in their last six games.
With the Rams you will get consistency and experience. Rams QB Matt Stafford is arguably the best quarterback left in the NFC in the playoffs. Rams coach Sean McVay is a great coach and will have his team fully prepared. The Rams will try to use this huge advantage to get more wins.
One has to wonder how much the devastating fires in the Los Angeles area affected the Rams preparation. It is hard to be focused on football when the city is burning around you. Many players and coaches had family and friends affected by the wildfires. This could be another factor when looking at this game, but there’s not a lot of precedent for a situation such as this. It’s just hard to tell how the team and players will respond.
Key Matchup
Minnesota Vikings Wide Receivers vs Los Angeles Rams Secondary
After a low-scoring output last week, the Vikings will look to get back to their high-scoring ways. To do so, they’re going to need better performance from their wide receivers.
If the Vikings receivers get open and Darnold can make the connection, Minnesota will be a tough out. Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison have been torching opponents. But if the Vikings are not able to move the ball through the air, they will succumb to the greatness of Matt Stafford and Sean McVay.
The Bet
In sports betting, we always talk about buying low and we have a great opportunity to buy low on the Vikings. The Vikings were 14-3 this year and although they look bad against arguably the best team in the NFC. They’re much better than their performance last week suggested. The Rams have played well but they are also doing it against an inferior level of competition. This week everyone will be on the Rams as they watched how bad the Vikings looked against Detroit. But we will see a bounce-back performance from Minnesota. Take the Vikings -2.5.
Best Bet: Minnesota Vikings -2.5 (-108) at Bookmaker
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