{"id":26770,"date":"2012-12-20T20:28:24","date_gmt":"2012-12-21T01:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=26770"},"modified":"2012-12-20T20:28:24","modified_gmt":"2012-12-21T01:28:24","slug":"nfl-week-16-picks-atlanta-falcons-vs-detroit-lions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/nfl-week-16-picks-atlanta-falcons-vs-detroit-lions-26770\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Week 16 Picks: Atlanta Falcons vs. Detroit Lions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Atlanta Falcons at Detroit Lions
\nSaturday, 12\/22\/12, 8:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Atlanta -3
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Atlanta -3.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 51
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 50.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Detroit Lions have fallen on hard times during the 2012 season, but wide receiver Calvin Johnson has been a bright spot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Atlanta bounced back from suffering its second loss of the 2012 NFL season, as it picked up an impressive 34-0 win over the New York Giants as one-point home favorites, while going UNDER the total for the fourth time in five contests.\u00a0 \u201cI think it\u2019s important that you\u2019re playing efficiently and effectively in December and January,\u201d commented Falcons head coach Mike Smith.\u00a0 The franchise can clinch the NFC\u2019s No. 1 seed for the playoffs with a victory in this spot.\u00a0 Atlanta is 1-3 ATS as a favorite of 3.5 to 9.5 points this season, which can\u2019t be ignored when making your pro football picks Sunday.<\/p>\n

The Falcons are led offensively by quarterback Matt Ryan, who completed 23-of-28 passes for 270 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions last week.\u00a0 He ranks second in the league in throwing 17 touchdowns on the road, while pacing all signal-callers with 2,287 passing yards in that situation.\u00a0 The franchise has won two consecutive games in this series, including a 23-16 victory as 4.5-point road underdogs last year.<\/p>\n

Detroit has fallen on hard times in dropping six consecutive games, which includes a 38-10 blowout loss to the lowly Arizona Cardinals as six-point road favorites last week, while going OVER the total for the third time in four opportunities.\u00a0 \u201cYou have something to prove every week regardless of winning streak, losing streak, what happened the previous week,\u201d commented Lions coach Jim Schwartz.\u00a0 Detroit is 4-2 ATS as a home underdog of 3.5 to 7 points since the 2010 campaign, with the OVER going 4-2 in that situation.<\/p>\n

The Lions are truly running out of weapons in the passing game for quarterback Matthew Stafford to target, as second-leading receiver Brandon Pettigrew may sit out again this week due to an ankle injury.\u00a0 Calvin Johnson is trying to break Jerry Rice\u2019s single-season receiving record, but he\u2019ll be going against a pair of safeties that have combined for 11 takeaways on the season.<\/p>\n

Sports bettors will likely back the Lions due to their 10-6 ATS mark as an underdog of 3.5 to 9.5 points, while the Falcons are 2-3 ATS versus NFC North opponents.<\/p>\n

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

Atlanta Falcons at Detroit Lions Saturday, 12\/22\/12, 8:30 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Atlanta -3 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Atlanta -3.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 51 Current Total:\u00a0 50.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker Atlanta bounced back from suffering its second loss of the 2012 NFL season, as it picked up an impressive 34-0 win over the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":4335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1444,132],"tags":[123,2753,542,422,616,2589],"class_list":["post-26770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-nfl-handicapping","tag-atlanta-falcons","tag-calvin-johnson","tag-detroit-lions","tag-matt-ryan","tag-matthew-stafford","tag-nfc-north"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26770","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=26770"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26770\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26772,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26770\/revisions\/26772"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}