NFL Betting: Washington Redskins at Atlanta Falcons

Two of the most disappointing teams in football will go head to head on Sunday in Atlanta as the Falcons host the Washington Redskins at the Georgia Dome. Following a dominant regular season and decent playoff run last year the Falcons have stumbled to a 3-10 SU/5-8 ATS record and are now mired in last place behind Tampa Bay, New Orleans and Carolina. The Washington Redskins may not have had the same lofty aspirations as the Falcons but have been equally as ineffective. The Redskins are 3-10 SU/ATS on the year and have been awful on the road going 1-5 SU/ATS.

The Atlanta Falcons tied for the best regular season record in the NFL last year (13-3) but were eliminated by San Francisco in the NFC Championship Game. After suffering through a winless preseason–explained away by the fact that head coach Mike Smith never prioritizes preseason games–there’s now concern that Atlanta may regress this season. Including last year’s NFC Championship loss and their 0-4 preseason they’ve now lost 15 of their last 18 games. The Falcons have dealt with a slew of injuries across the roster but a bigger problem is that the skill position infrastructure is getting older and losing effectiveness.

Washington’s record is bad enough, but even that doesn’t sufficiently convey how lousy the team has looked in recent weeks. A huge problem has been the utterly ineffective play of quarterback Robert Griffin III. RG III doesn’t appear to have recovered completely from his season ending knee injury last year and in addition to his physical issues just hasn’t played particularly well. There are all sorts of other ‘soap opera’ type issues surrounding the team led by the (likely) lame duck status of head coach Mike Shanahan. The team does get a boost this week as the team has finally done what they should have done weeks ago, benching RG III in favor of Kirk Cousins. The presence of Cousins–who at the very least will be trying to make something to happen–gives us reason to take the points against the Falcons. Neither team has done much this year and is just playing out the string but we’d rather take the Redskins and Cousins as a road underdog.

BET WASHINGTON REDSKINS +7 OVER ATLANTA FALCONS