JEFF ALLEN GAME PREVIEW: NY GIANTS at PACKERS
A NY Giant outfit off a short work week and back-to-back losses travels to Title Town to face the
Green Bay Packers in this week’s Sunday Night Football action. The Pack have had extra time
thanks to their early bye week. On face, it doesn’t look to be the best of spots for Big Blue but they
have won the last three games of the series, are 3-1 their L4 trips into Lambeau and NFC East
teams are 6-3 ATS this year outside the division.
The line opened Green Bay -7 with the total set at 48. There has been little movement of either
number to this point except for a brief trip to Pack -6.5 midweek. That was quickly bought back
up to the full touchdown and extra point. The total is down half a tick to 47.5 at this writing.
Weather should be no issue with the temperature for the 8:30 EST kickoff on CBS expected to
be in the 50s.
In the offseason, the Giants spent almost $200 million to address a horrific defense. For the most
part, that defense has been much better but has not come up with the big play. In fact, the stop unit
has only created one turnover and the team is -8 giveaways on the year. As good as the offensive
skill position people are, the team has virtually no running game and lynchpin Eli Manning has been
below average the first quarter of the season.
Green Bay is a work in progress that has been for the most part unimpressive in it’s first three
games. We should have a better idea if this team is a Super Bowl contender over the next month
as the Packers have the easiest schedule in football and figure to be 5-1 before rolling in Atlanta
on October 30th to meet the Falcons. Aaron Rodgers seems recharged top wide out Jordy Nelson
back in the fold. A slimmed down Eddie Lacy has averaged 5.0 yards per carry and should be
prepared to carry the mail the rest of the way.
As previously mentioned, this spot wreaks of Green Bay. We mentioned some positives on the Giants
but the G-Men also were just 2-12 on third down in Minnesota and will have to do better than that.
Green Bay is off a game where they came out strong only to be content to hand off and run clock in
the second half and were nearly caught by the Lions. Back door ???