Minnesota Vikings (1-4) at New York Giants (0-6)

The Giants have yet to win a game this season, but they played their best game of the season last week in Chicago. They moved the ball easily against, admittedly, a Chicago defense that is a shell of its former self thanks to injuries, age, and departed coaches. They still lost the turnover battle by 3, including a pick six that turned out to be the decisive play on the final score. However, turnovers shouldn’t be as big of a problem going forward.

The Giants are a league worst -16 in turnovers, an average of -2.7 per game. That has them on a pace of -43 on the season, which would shatter the modern day record of -30. Even if they are all-time bad (which I don’t think they will be), they could still see their turnover margin cut in half going forward. This type of thing is inconsistent on a week-to-week basis, as teams who have a margin of -4 in a given game average a margin of +0.0 the following game. The same is true for teams who have a margin of +4 in a previous game.

Their poor turnover margin is the result of two things, an unsustainably low fumble recovery percentage and an uncharacteristically high interception rate from Eli Manning. They are recovering just 26.7% of fumbles on the season. That won’t continue going forward. Eli, meanwhile, is throwing a pick on 6.5% of his attempts, a stark contrast from his career rate of 3.4%. I don’t expect that to continue. They are also -30 in points off of returns, thanks to two punt return touchdowns allowed and 3 defensive touchdowns allowed. That probably won’t be an issue going forward.

The Giants still aren’t moving the ball great on the season (66%), while their opponents are moving it at an 80% rate. However, they get by far their easiest opponent of the season this week in the Vikings and they get them off of 11 days rest, after playing the Bears on Thursday Night the previous week. The Vikings are 1-4 on the season and they’ve been every bit that bad.

They have benched both Christian Ponder and Matt Cassel for Josh Freeman, who will make his debut for the team this week, roughly 2 weeks after being signed. That’s not a good sign, especially considering he was completing less than 50% of his passes in Tampa Bay before being cut. The Vikings are also going to be without Harrison Smith in this game, which won’t help matters at all defensively, where they are already allowing opponents to move the chains on a 79% rate.

Of course, the line does suggest that the Giants will get their first win, as they are favorites of 3.5 points, but I think they have a very good chance of covering the spread as well. The Vikings are in a tough spot as non-divisional road underdogs before being divisional home underdogs, facing the Packers next week. Teams are 49-74 ATS in that spot since 2002. I wish this line was -2.5 or -3, but I still like the Giants to win by about a touchdown.

New York Giants 27 Minnesota Vikings 20

Pick against spread: NY Giants -3.5

Confidence: Low

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