Cam Newton and his (1-1) Carolina Panthers play hosts to Eli Manning and his (1-1) New York Giants in Thursday Night Week 3 NFL action. The Giants opened as slight -1 point spread favorites although that position has flipped with the latest NFL Spread showing Carolina -1 and the Giants +1, with some sportsbooks starting to move the line out to -/+2. The swing toward Carolina as favorites is reflected in the moneyline odds market where New York opened the week at -115 ($1.87) and Carolina were posted at +104 ($2.04), currently Carolina are trading between -135 ($1.74) up to -128 ($1.78) while the New York Giants have drifted out to trade between +110 ($2.10) up to +119 ($2.19). The current over under total line is between O/U50 and O/U51.5 depending on the sportsbook, this is down from the opening of O/U52.
The Panthers have won 1 and lost 1, having gone down to Tampa Bay in week 1 (10-16), as -161 ($1.62) -3pt favorites. They bounced back last week with a (35-27) win over the Saints as underdogs at odds of +137 $2.37 and easily covered the spread of +3. The Giants recorded their first win of the season last week in a high scoring game against the Buccaneers (41-34), they started as hot favorites -360 $1.28 on the moneyline however they failed to cover the -9pt spread. Week one saw the New York Giants fall short against the Cowboys (17-24) in the regular season opener as -182 (-3.5pt) favs.
In the offensive stats department the Giants are 1st in the league for passing yards per game with (348.5 yards) and the Panthers 7th with (267.5 yards). Carolina is number 1 for offensive yards per play having averaged 6.9 ypp and New York are 3rd in the league having averaged 6.7 yards per play. Defensively Carolina has averaged 5.4 yards per play giving them a differential of +1.6 while the Giants have averaged 6.8 yyp on defense for a differential of -.10.
With 3 regular season encounters since 2008 the record stands at NYG 2 CAR 1 with all three being home games for the Giants. In all three games the outright winner has managed to cover the closing point spread and the highest priced underdog win was Carolina (41-9) in 2009 as +330 road dogs. The average game total over these three games is 40.17 points with all three over under results cashing for the over ticket.
The Pick - Well it might seem like fence sitting but here at TheFootballLines.com we don't start making plays until we have 4 weeks of regular season stats to go by, so we won't be offering up a pick here. Going on just the first two weeks stats it is not surprising that the money is coming in for Carolina. There is likely to be more odds movement before game time so check out all of the Latest NFL Lines to stay updated.