Free Pick: New York Giants –3

Record: 33-44, -0.10

Today’s free pick will be on the Giants beating Atlanta by more than 3.

Atlanta played a great regular season last year, but when it came to the playoffs they stumbled against Super Bowl Champs Green Bay. This year they did a good job as well posting a 10-6 record which is better than the Giants‘.
They have some nice weapons in RB Michael Turner and WR Roddy White on offense. They put up the score at times but if you look closer at it, you can see they struggled against better teams. The only good teams they beat was Detroit and maybe Tennessee.

The Giants only had a 9-7 record qualifying for postseason play as the worst of then remaining NFC teams. Several weeks ago, nobody (including me) would have bet a cent on the Giants making the playoffs. Since then, however they played very focused and concentrated which reminds me of their Super Bowl run in 2007.
They are very balanced on offense and defense. With Eli Manning they have a very smart playmaker who even showed late game comeback abilities, especially lately. With Jacobs there’s also a good RB as well as a nice receiving staff – among them deep threat Cruz on whom the Falcons defense has to have two or four eyes.
On defense they have a tough line which can put a lot of pressure on Turner. The secondary behind Rolle is also very smart.

In all, the Giants have the home field advantage against a Falcons team that usually plays on turf. The Giants mediocre record shouldn’t scare you as they lost to some bad teams but won or played tough against the good teams as Green Bay when they lost 35-38, the same result they lost to the Patriots in 2007. I don’t believe in such things but when I see them playing a Super Bowl run as in 2007 wouldn’t surprise me that much. Giants –3 is the pick with 3 units at 2.07 or +107.
DG