{"id":18183,"date":"2011-10-01T13:03:00","date_gmt":"2011-10-01T18:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=18183"},"modified":"2011-10-01T13:04:32","modified_gmt":"2011-10-01T18:04:32","slug":"pro-football-picks-preview-patriots-hoping-to-bounce-back-at-oakland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/pro-football-picks-preview-patriots-hoping-to-bounce-back-at-oakland-18183\/","title":{"rendered":"Pro Football Picks Preview: Patriots hoping to bounce back at Oakland"},"content":{"rendered":"

New England Patriots at Oakland Raiders
\nSunday, 10\/2\/11, 4:15 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 CBS
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 New England -4.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 New England -5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 52
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 55
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Raiders
Oakland RB Darren McFadden leads the NFL in rushing and will try to run over the Patriots on Sunday.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The New England Patriots proved they are far from unbeatable last week and will try to get back on track on Sunday when they visit the Oakland Raiders.\u00a0 The Patriots (2-1) suffered a disappointing 34-31 loss at Buffalo and will be playing on the road for the second consecutive week.<\/p>\n

New England (-5, O\/U 55) had looked like they were heading for a repeat of their perfect 16-0 season in 2007 through the first 10 quarters, leading Buffalo 21-10 at halftime last week following a pair of impressive wins to open the year.\u00a0 But the Bills rallied back for the second straight game to pull off the upset as 7-point home underdogs.<\/p>\n

Patriots quarterback Tom Brady threw four interceptions, including one that was returned 27 yards for a touchdown by Drayton Florence to give Buffalo a 31-24 lead.\u00a0 That was the turning point of the game though Brady still finished with 387 passing yards and four touchdowns.<\/p>\n

The problem offensively for New England has been a lack of balance with the running game stuck in neutral.\u00a0 Starting running back BenJarvus Green-Ellis carried the ball 10 times for just 18 yards and was spelled by rookie Stevan Ridley, who looked much better with 42 yards on six attempts.\u00a0 There has been speculation that Ridley will continue to get more looks in an effort to get opponents to respect the team\u2019s ground game.<\/p>\n

Defensively, the Patriots remain the NFL\u2019s worst against the pass, surrendering an average of 377 yards per game through the air.\u00a0 As good as Brady has been, his teammates have given back almost all of the yards he has produced to their opponents.\u00a0 Brady\u2019s passing total of 1,327 yards is the most in league history for any QB over a three-game span, and he will be returning to the Bay Area, where he grew up and also lost the last time he played there.<\/p>\n

The Raiders (2-1) lost the last home meeting 49-26 in 2008, but it was Matt Cassel who was under center for New England after Brady suffered a season-ending knee injury.\u00a0 The Patriots had lost in their previous trip to Oakland 27-20 in 2002 and have won the last two overall by a combined 33 points.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s Raiders have proven to be a dangerous team so far, led by the NFL\u2019s leading rusher in RB Darren McFadden (393 yards).\u00a0 They are coming off an impressive 34-24 home win over the New York Jets, New England\u2019s chief AFC East rivals.\u00a0 McFadden rushed for a season-high 171 yards and two touchdowns against the Jets.<\/p>\n

Oakland has covered the spread as an underdog in all three of its games, with the total going OVER in each of them.\u00a0 However, this week\u2019s total is more than 12 points higher than any of the previous games, and the Raiders are bigger underdogs than they have been to date.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the NFL handicappers<\/a> at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New England Patriots at Oakland Raiders Sunday, 10\/2\/11, 4:15 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 CBS Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 New England -4.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 New England -5 Opening Total:\u00a0 52 Current Total:\u00a0 55 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker The New England Patriots proved they are far from unbeatable last week and will try to get back on track […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":194,"featured_media":4196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,132],"tags":[125,1772,1930,1922,300,2757,2683],"class_list":["post-18183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nfl-handicapping","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-nfl-betting","tag-nfl-odds","tag-nfl-picks","tag-oakland-raiders","tag-pro-football","tag-week-4"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18183","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\/194"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18183"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18187,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18183\/revisions\/18187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}