Cincy is a young team looking to get some confidence, I tihnk they'll play their D a good amount vs NE and try to test themselves vs the Pats. I really don't see Brady playing more than maybe a quarter...I could see it in the 3rd preseason game when people play more and I wouldn't be surprised if thats what a lot of your 6.5-7s were.
Just curious, any idea how many of those games were the 3rd preseason game? Also, what was the ATS record of those games this decade?
40 of the 78 were within the first 20 days of August. Which actually excludes many Week 2 games, but I chose that cutoff to show that over half are actually in the first 1 to 2 weeks of the preseason, and it may be higher yet.
And of those 40, actually 20 are within the first 13 days of August (8/20 - 7 days). Which would be Week 1. So it seems like a pretty even distribution since 95, about 20 games per "preseason week" have been lined that high.
The favorites went 15-25 (37.5%) ATS in the sampling of games no later than August 20th.
Also, playing your starting D vs the Pats is fine and well, but when you've got JT O'Sullivan and Jordan Palmer as your only QBs throwing a pass in Week 1, your D may be put in some compromising situations, starters or not.
JT played about 1 full quarter, and Jordan played the entire 2nd half vs. the Saints backups last week. He had exactly 4 first downs all half, on a total of 5 drives, and three of his drives were 3-and-out. He had 3 FDs on his last drive against presumably the worst of the worst left in the game.
Not advocating anything, just giving you some info.
