{"id":17196,"date":"2011-08-19T12:43:58","date_gmt":"2011-08-19T17:43:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=17196"},"modified":"2011-08-19T12:43:58","modified_gmt":"2011-08-19T17:43:58","slug":"nfl-preseason-week-2-preview-atlanta-falcons-at-jacksonville-jaguars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nfl-preseason-week-2-preview-atlanta-falcons-at-jacksonville-jaguars-17196\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Preseason Week 2 Preview: Atlanta Falcons at Jacksonville Jaguars"},"content":{"rendered":"

Atlanta Falcons at Jacksonville Jaguars
\nFriday, 8\/19\/11, 8:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 FOX
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Jacksonville -3
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Jacksonville -3
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 36
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 36
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Colts<\/a>
Jacksonville Jaguars QB David Garrard will see his first preseason action tonight<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Atlanta dropped a 28-23 home contest to the Miami Dolphins last week in its preseason opener despite having its first-team offense score 17 points.\u00a0 \u201cI thought Matt played well,\u201d\u00a0 stated Falcons head coach Mike Smith about quarterback Matt Ryan\u2019s performance.\u00a0 \u201cHe executed the offense.\u00a0 We got the work that we needed to get done with that group.\u201d\u00a0 Ryan finished with 90 yards and a touchdown by completing 6-of-10 pass attempts.\u00a0 The former Boston College product is likely to have yet another strong game when facing a pass defense that ranked 28th last season.\u00a0 Atlanta is 3-1 ATS in its last four exhibition contests on the road.<\/p>\n

The Falcons will be playing the Jaguars for the second consecutive year during the preseason, dropping a 13-9 game at EverBank Field.\u00a0 That contest took place in the final week of the 2010 preseason and didn\u2019t have many of Atlanta\u2019s starters on the field, including Ryan.\u00a0 Defensively, the squad has a long way to go in terms of pass defense, after ranking 22nd in the league a year ago.\u00a0 Atlanta\u2019s second-team secondary allowed touchdown passes of 44 and 28 yards last week.<\/p>\n

Jacksonville was humiliated by the New England Patriots in a 47-12 loss in its preseason opener last week.\u00a0 The Jaguars were interested in evaluating their players more than the results, but head coach Jack Del Rio was still unhappy with the team\u2019s effort.\u00a0 \u201cWe aren\u2019t going to play our back-end people that much again in the preseason,\u201d Del Rio stated.\u00a0 \u201cSo, that is more of a relief than a concern because that was pretty ugly out there at the end.\u201d\u00a0 The game was also the debut of rookie quarterback Blaine Gabbert, who completed 9-of-16 passes for 85 yards.\u00a0 Jacksonville is 5-1 ATS against non-conference opponents in preseason action.<\/p>\n

The Jaguars quarterback situation has turned into a competition between Gabbert and veteran David Garrard.\u00a0 It\u2019s quite possible that the next two weeks will decide who starts under center for the season opener against Tennessee.\u00a0 Garrard hasn\u2019t taken an in-game hit since December and will see his first action of the year tonight, as he\u2019s been suffering through a sore back.\u00a0 Defensively, the focus has been placed on creating turnovers, as the coaching staff was impressed with the unit\u2019s physicality early on last week.\u00a0 Jacksonville\u2019s first unit created one turnover and had a four other opportunities to take the ball away from New England.<\/p>\n

Bettors will likely back the Jaguars due to their competitive quarterback situation, while the Falcons are looking ahead to next week\u2019s contest in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on profiting this season and let the NFL handicappers at Maddux Sports go to work for you.\u00a0 Get in the game today!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Atlanta Falcons at Jacksonville Jaguars Friday, 8\/19\/11, 8:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 FOX Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Jacksonville -3 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Jacksonville -3 Opening Total:\u00a0 36 Current Total:\u00a0 36 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Atlanta dropped a 28-23 home contest to the Miami Dolphins last week in its preseason opener despite having its first-team offense score 17 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,132],"tags":[123,5194,5193,297,422],"class_list":["post-17196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nfl-handicapping","tag-atlanta-falcons","tag-blaine-gabbert","tag-david-garrard","tag-jacksonville-jaguars","tag-matt-ryan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17196"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17197,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17196\/revisions\/17197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}