Eagles-Falcons betting guide, picks for Week 1 | KC Joyner

I have been picking straight-up winners in NFL games since 2014 and am 37-17 (68.5%) on Eagles selections over the last three years according to NFL Pickwatch.

One of the keys to this success has stemmed from trying to understand how to interpret trends in Philadelphia’s game plans and personnel, so for this week I will share some of those insights for the Eagles’ Week 1 matchup against Atlanta and offer some perspective on how those elements might impact money line, point spread or over/under wagers on this matchup.

Let’s start with the fact that over the last few years, there has often been a disconnect in the Eagles’ offensive game plans. In many cases, offensive personnel and defensive matchups indicated that the Eagles should lean strongly on the ground game, yet Doug Pederson would often stubbornly go with a pass-heavy approach.

It might seem that this problem is solved with Nick Sirianni now patrolling the sidelines in place of Pederson, yet there are signs that this troubling trend may continue despite the coaching change.

As was the case last year, the Eagles’ offensive personnel strongly indicates they should run the ball. Philadelphia led the league in 2020 in my good blocking rate (GBR) metric that measures how often an offense gives its ballcarriers quality run blocking. The Eagles could be even better in this area in 2021, as they should get ample playing time out of Brandon Brooks and Lane Johnson.

Brooks is the only three-time Pro Bowl guard in team history but played zero snaps in 2020 due to injury. Johnson is one of the best offensive tackles in Eagles history, but injuries kept him off the field for all but 36% of the team’s offensive snaps last season. Combine those two with a full campaign from left tackle Jordan Mailata, Pro Bowl center Jason Kelce, and potential swing tackle unbalanced line snaps from Andre Dillard and this is the type of blocking wall an offensive coordinator can lean on.

» READ MORE: Why the Eagles rushing attack has the potential to dominate

The Eagles also have a potential gamebreaker in Miles Sanders, who ranked 11th last year in my good blocking yards per attempt (GBYPA) metric, and a great change of pace rusher in Boston Scott. Add their talents to the rushing ability of Jalen Hurts, who tallied a strong 8.7-yard mark in GBYPA in 2020, and this is the type of backfield that can carry an offense to plenty of points.

The problem is that Sirianni’s track record of coaching receivers could cause him to mimic Pederson’s stubbornness in being a pass-centric offense, as he seems to want to lean heavily on three-wide receiver sets. That personnel set will be tough to rely on with a receiving corps that includes a rookie in DeVonta Smith, a second-year wideout in Jalen Reagor who is coming off a mediocre rookie campaign, Quez Watkins, a one-trick pony with only seven career catches under his belt, and JJ Arcega-Whiteside, who looked close to being released from the team not very long ago.

It’s also worth noting that when Hurts was at Alabama and the Crimson Tide was headed into the 2018 national championship game, Nick Saban said that he knew going into that contest that they were going to have to throw the ball to win and that’s why he went with freshman Tua Tagovailoa over Hurts.

That doesn’t speak well to Hurts’ collegiate passing ability, and he really hasn’t taken huge developmental steps to advance those skills since then. Hurts can hit big plays, as last year he became only the fourth NFL quarterback since 1950 to post two games with 300-plus passing yards and 60-plus rushing yards, but there are still major concerns about having him under center.

These factors should all lean Sirianni toward running the ball more frequently this season, but in Week 1 that path is somewhat blocked by the tough Falcons rush defense. According to my matchup points system that measures matchup strength on a 1-100 scale (100 being most favorable), Atlanta’s rush defense provides the Eagles with only 15 matchup points this week.

The combination of a tough foe, passing game issues, and potentially questionable play calling all make it quite likely that the Eagles will not score enough points to keep up with a Falcons passing game that has Matt Ryan, Calvin Ridley, Kyle Pitts, and an underrated talent in No. 3 wide receiver Russell Gage. Atlanta may even be able to throw in the skills of Cordarrelle Patterson, a playmaker who recently moved up to the backup running back role on the Atlanta depth chart and could be utilized in specialty package plays as a receiver.

» EAGLES SEASON PREVIEW: Who are these guys?

So, let’s sum all of this up and see how this impacts potential wagers.

One of the keys to staying ahead in money line bets is to go with the percentage play (a.k.a. chalk) unless there is a very strong reason to do otherwise. In this case, chalk is definitely on the side of the Falcons, as there are many more paths to victory for Atlanta than there are for the Eagles. That makes the Falcons the better money line play at -165 than the Eagles are at +140.

The spread of the Falcons at -3.5 points is a tougher call than the money line one, but the much larger collection of big-play talent on the Atlanta offense and the creative play calling of Arthur Smith are strong enough factors to lean this pick strongly in Falcons’ direction, so take Atlanta minus the points.

The over/under on this contest is 48 points, so a good starting point here is to note that 50.3% of NFL games last year had a total score of 49 or more points. In none of those games did the winning team score less than 26 points.

That means there are two paths to hit the over in this contest. Either the Falcons score 27-plus points and win by a large margin or both teams score 24 or more points. Let’s also note that only 32.4 percent of NFL games last year saw both teams score 24-plus points. Given that rarity and the state of the Eagles’ offensive personnel, it is tough to imagine the Eagles keeping up their end of the bargain in a shootout scenario, so both teams putting up 24-plus points is not likely to happen in this contest. The relatively even overall talent level of these clubs also makes it unlikely that one of them will win by a 10-plus-point margin, so the suggestion is to go with the under on this one.