The season is already over for Carolina as they have made it very clear that they are not going to bounce back from their abysmal start to the season. They went into this game vs. the Atlanta Falcons as much less of an underdog than I expected at +220. I think that the bookmakers were being a bit generous as far as that and the 6-point spread. You can tell by the bet tallies that the betting world is already banking on Carolina to lose every time they hit the field.
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You wanna make money in sports-betting this year? Just bet $100 against Carolina in every single game. They might pull out a surprise win a couple of times but rest assured, you will make money over the course of the season. The fact that Atlanta was only given 6 points in this game was a real shock to me seeing as how they are number 1 in the NFC South this year.
I expected Carolina to lose, I bet on them to lose. I was, on the other hand, quite impressed with how they played for a lot of the game and most of this has to do with QB Andy Dalton.
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Andy did really well this game despite the fact that he doesn't really have anyone to pass to and his offensive line gives him oh so few seconds to get rid of the ball before getting smashed. He threw 2 interceptions in this game and that isn't great, but when you consider how little time his offensive line is giving him I'm honestly surprised he didn't throw that many INT's in the first half.
Defensively, Carolina looked as bad as they always do and I don't know what a Defensive Coordinator can possibly do with the group he is dealing with. They run pass prevention defense most of the time because the secondary is just horrible with the Panthers who regularly leave receivers wide open without a defender within 10 yards of them or so.
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Once we get to within 30 yards of a TD the defense does a bit better dealing with the decreased amount of space but since the defensive line just doesn't put enough pressure on the QB any team playing against Carolina can just stand back and take their sweet time contemplating about who they are going to pass to. It's tragic but hell, there is nothing more they can do, they simply do not have the talent in their ranks.
Something that really irritated me about this game is dumb crap like this
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That was a punt by Carolina and for crissake what are the Panthers' special teams doing? They are seriously just going to stand there and watch the Atlanta receiver pick the ball up? This should have been a 1 yard return or even a loss of yardage from the pickup point but instead, Carolina is just standing around and he launched to the sideline and picked up more than 20 yards on this return. He nearly returned it for a touchdown and this is just inexcusable. Are they just not trying anymore? There's still a lot of season left so if they are already giving up I think it is time to give a lot of them their walking papers. One person just standing there would be ok, but ALL OF THEM?
Once again Carolina gave me false hope because they kept it close for the entire first half with the score being 22-17 at the break. This is a single TD difference and well, I should have known that Carolina would let me down and of course that is exactly what they did. In the 2nd half other than a single field goal, it was all Atlanta, all the time. The game ended 38-20 and I think that for most Panther fans, that they are extremely surprised in the 20 points that are almost entirely because of the magic of Andy Dalton who gets almost zero protection but does some threading the needle passes to his horrible receivers.
Carolina has the Washington Redskins next week - I refuse to call them by their new name - and at the moment Washington is favored by 8.5 and also are -400 favorites. Do yourself a favor and bet on Washington. I'm going to.