Carolina Panthers vs. Atlanta Falcons
NFL Betting Expert Pick: Under 43 points – Sunday, November 23rd 2008

These teams played a relatively low-scoring contest against each other back in late September. The final score of 24-9 stayed below the over/under line, which was 39 or 39.5. We’re getting more than an extra field goal to work with for this week’s rematch and I feel that provides us with solid line value once again.

Both teams have been stout defensively. The Falcons come in allowing an average of 19.8 points. Despite having just faced high-scoring Denver and New Orleans, the Falcons are allowing an average of just 14.8 points through their past three games. Meanwhile, the Panthers come in allowing only 15.5 points per game on the season. Carolina has been particularly stingy in divisional play, allowing a mere 14.3 points in divisional play.

In addition to looking at how well the defenses are playing, one of the stats that I pay attention to is how many times a team runs the ball each game. As you know, frequent running plays help to keep the clock moving. In this case, both teams are comfortably above the league average, in terms of number of overall running plays. The Panthers come in averaging 30.7 rushing attempts per game, a few above the league average of 27.4. Not to be outdone, the Falcons come in averaging a whopping 34.6 rushing attempts per game. That’s the most in the NFC and the second most (behind Baltimore) in the entire league.

The Falcons are currently listed as slight favorites. That’s worth mentioning as we find the ‘under’ at a profitable 11-2-1 (or 11-3) the last 14 times that they were laying points. During the same stretch, the Panthers have seen the ‘under’ go 13-6 when they were listed as underdogs, including a 5-1 mark as road underdogs of three points or less.

These teams combined for 33 points when they faced each other at this time of the season last year. Including that result, the ‘under’ is 14-5 the last 19 times that the Falcons played in the month of November and 10-2 the last 12 times that Carolina did so. Looking back further at the history of this series and we find the ‘under at a healthy 12-4-1 the last 17 meetings. With a heavy dose of the run from both teams helping to chew up the clock, I look for those numbers to improve this afternoon. Consider the Under – Courtesy of Ben Burns

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