New York Giants (1-6) at Philadelphia Eagles (3-4)

One powerful trend is that teams who lose as divisional home favorites are 49-24 ATS since 2002 as road dogs in the rematch. It makes sense. Matchups where the team who is favored is dependent on the location tend to be matchups between very even teams and very even teams tend to split the season series no matter what. If you’ve lost as home favorites, you have to win as road underdogs in this situation to split the season series. Teams do win as road underdogs at a .500 rate since 2002 (38-38) and an even higher percentage, as previously mentioned, about 2/3rds, cover the spread. The Giants have room to play with here because they are 5.5 point underdogs so they can easily cover even if they don’t win.

However, I question how even these teams are. Philadelphia isn’t as good as their record at 3-4 as the 3 teams they’ve beaten have a combined 3-17 record. They have a terrible defense, which allows their opponents to move the chains at a 78% rate, despite the easy schedule. Their offense is strong, moving the chains at a 76% rate, but not enough to keep pace with what their defense is allowing.

However, the Giants are even worse in that aspect. They are allowing opponents to move the chains at a 77% rate and they are only moving the chains at a 66% rate. Part of that has to do with their terrible turnover margin though. Their turnover margin is a league worst -14, but Eli Manning probably won’t throw an interception on 5.6% of his passes going forward, considering his career rate is 3.4%. The Giants also probably won’t recover just 40% of their fumbles going forward. Turnover margins tend to be very inconsistent, so this might not kill them going forward like it has thus far.

That being said, they didn’t look good against Minnesota, despite winning the turnover margin by 2. They looked much better against the Bears, when they lost the turnover margin by 3, but only lost the game by 6 and would have probably won in Chicago if not for a pick six. On paper, they are the more talented of these two teams, but games aren’t played on paper and there’s a chance they just are a marginal and inconsistent team all season. That being said, I’m afraid to go against them with the trend on their side given that I do believe they’re the better team on paper. They’re also a dangerous team as road underdogs in the Eli Manning/Tom Coughlin era, going 33-19 ATS as road dogs since 2004. I’m taking the Giants, but I’m not confident.

Philadelphia Eagles 27 New York Giants 23

Pick against spread: NY Giants +5.5

Confidence: None

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