Will the Atlanta Falcons cover the spread against the Detroit Lions football game in week 16?

The NFC South Division Champions Atlanta Falcons have clinched their playoff spot. This week they meet the Detroit Lions in what some have said is an unimportant game.

Actually this game is important to the Falcons for a number of reasons. They would like nothing more than to finish out the season with wins and in fact a win this week will guarantee them the top seed spot and home field advantage. They are also fighting for the first round bye but that may not be determined until the last week.

In recent weeks there have been a number of stories or blog postings stating that the Falcons and their record was not earned with hard work like the records of some others in the NFC had been. That myth is fairly easy to debunk, just look at this past week’s game with the NY Giants.

The Giants had been picked by sports books to win that game by 2 points. Atlanta totally and completely dominated the game and shut out the Giants and won the football game 34 to 0. They earned that win and showed that not only do they have a championship caliber offense, but a defense that knows how to do what it takes to stop their opponent’s offensive drives.

But what about the Lions, will the Falcons win and what is the spread?

As of Monday afternoon the books have the Falcons winning this game by 3.5 points. I actually think this number is way too low and the spread should be more like 6 or 8 points.

I have said this before and will mention it again here. There are no gimmies. But the likelihood of Detroit coming in to this game and dominating the Falcons is not very high.

The Lions do have a really good quarterback on their roster and ion fact in overall numbers they are ranked #2 in offense and #1 in passing. That is due mostly to the numbers of Matthew Stafford. He has been completing just fewer than 60% of his passes and could hit 5000 yards for his second consecutive year. In order for him to accomplish this he would have to have back to back 400 yard games in the last 2 weeks and I just do not see that happening, although he may end the season close and should get proper kudos for that.

Because of the potential threat of Detroit’s talented quarterback, the Falcons will have to play the kind of defense on Saturday that they played against the Giants, or Stafford could throw up some big numbers and gain an early edge. I have quite a bit of confidence they can in fact do this.

I think they will in fact be very effective and stop the Lions from getting the big yards in the air and by so doing will gain a large edge over the Lions. I look for the Falcons to win this game by 7 points.

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