Eagles vs Jets – Another NY Upset? Is it Minshew Mania time?

Posted on December 4, 2021

How will the Eagles respond to their sobering setback to the New York Giants last week?

Prop bettors among the New Jersey & Pennsylvania online gambling market want to know.

  1. The Philadelphia Eagles return to MetLife Stadium for the second straight week with something to prove.  Perhaps they should pay to get in after their lackluster 13-7 performance against the Giants.
  2. The Birds, now 5-7, need a victory just to retain a faint playoff pulse. They are favored to get it against the 3-8 Jets according to fans and bettors in the Philadelphia market.
  3. But in Northern New Jersey, Jets backers remember them beating the Tennessee Titans when Tennessee had Derrick Henry in the lineup. They remember the Jets beating the Cincinnati Bengals at home.  They are slow to concede a victory to Philadelphia.

How will the gamblers assemble all that?

Here are four points, like quarters in a football game.

First Quarter: Board Shows Faith in the Eagles

Books began dangling the betting possibilities for the Eagles and New York Jets late Friday morning.

Here’s a DraftKings sample of what Eagles backers will consider when the 5-7 Birds meet the 3-8 New York Jets at MetLife Stadium.

Jalen Hurts to score first is +900. He is + 125 to tally anytime.

Does Gardner Minshew make an appearance this week?

Miles Sanders is +900 first, +125 anytime. And he is overdue with a capital 0. Sanders, under-used and then injured, hasn’t hit paydirt yet this year. He scored six touchdowns last year.

 Remember those long beauties against the Pittsburgh Steelers and New Orleans Saints last year. 

Seems so long ago to Eagles fans. But the books are giving him respect, on the angle that this may be the week.

DeVonta Smith is +1000 to tally first and +150 to score anytime. He’s always a prime consideration. He’ll become even more viable if the Eagles try to make an early statement with their big players. Hurts had trouble throwing the ball last week against the Giants, but this is the Jets.

Dallas Goedert is +1200 to tally first, +180 to score anytime.

Quez Watkins is +1500 to notch the first touchdown and +225 at anytime. Always a deep threat.

For the Jets, Corey Davis may be the best offensive player on the field when he is in sync with Jets quarterback Zach Wilson. He’s +1400 for first and +190 as an anytime threat.

Jamison Crowder is reliable for the Jets. He is +1600 to be the first scorer and +240 anytime.

Second Quarter: Watch for Changing Props

Some of these went up Thursday night at Caesars and remained Friday. Others were temporarily taken off as others went up. They may return.

Caesars has Hurts to throw for more than 199.5 yards and two touchdowns is +350.

And the book went Hurts crazy, offering odds on the remote repeat of what happened against the New Orleans Saints two weeks back.

Because Hurts tallied three times, Caesars has a Hurts festival.

  • For Hurts to score first, it is +625.
  • For Hurts to score at all is +140
  • For him to score twice is +850
  • For him to rush for three touchdowns again is +3500

Some bettors considered those angles right away. Others may have to wait to see if it goes back up.

On Friday, Caesars put up Zach Wilson props.

They include Wilson throwing for more than 229.5 yards.  The over-under is -115 on either side.

Wilson interceptions. The over 1.5 is +155 and the under is -190.

Longest completion. Over 35.5 yards. The over is -120 and the under is -110.

Translation. The books expect at least one big play from Wilson.

Third Quarter: How Do Nationwide Bettors See the Game?

They are Birds Backers. DraftKings figures released Friday show that 80% of the betting public favors the Eagles at -7. The public has shaken off the disappointment of being wrong last week.

It seems that most people have forgotten.

The public is split on the game total of 44.5. Fifty-two percent of the gamblers had taken the over by Friday afternoon.

Should the Eagles triumph, scoreboard watching will have meaning again.

That’s because the final NFC playoff spot entering week 13 belongs to the Washington Football Team, at 5-6.

  • DraftKings bettors have favored the Las Vegas Raiders by a healthy 64% at -1.5 entering this game. Both teams enter off victories.
  • The public’s highest endorsement is 90% handle on the Los Angeles Rams at -12 against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
  • The public highly supports the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at -10 over the Atlanta Falcons with 76% handle.
  • The closest split is a 53% total favoring the Cincinnati Bengals at -3 against the Los Angeles Chargers.

Fourth Quarter: Check Out WhyEaglesWhy

You know the quarter’s lineup had to lead here, right? That’s the format of our weekly WhyEaglesWhy YouTube podcast on the plight of the Eagles.

The show was aptly named this week, as bettors shake their heads with Philadelphia’s upset loss to the Giants last week.

Pete Amato was at a national sports-betting conference. In his place, Bill Gelman and I were happy to be joined by David “Double D” Danzis, who offered a timely one-game and season overview about the Jets.

The episode has everything from Gelman’s Gold to an extensive breakdown of the Eagles-Jets matchup.  It also has a look at the game of the week and one of the games of the year in the AFC, the Monday Night Football matchup between the New England Patriots and Buffalo Bills.

Overtime: It’s a WhyEaglesWhy feature and one here too.

Watch for weather conditions to impact games now that December has arrived.

The Eagles-Jets should be fine with winds expected at 5 mph.

But on Monday night, the weather could be the story regarding strategy for the Bills and Patriots.

A winter system passing through Western New York is expected to bring rain and wind gusts up to 40 MPH during the game. Winds may be even heavier throughout the day.

Winds impact passing-yardage totals and the over-under game total. Checking the updated forecast is important before wagering on that game.

Dave Bontempo Avatar
Written by
Dave Bontempo

Dave Bontempo, a national multi-award-winning writer, and broadcaster, writes extensively on the evolving legalized sports-wagering world. Over the past four decades, he has called fights for all major networks, authored columns for the Associated Press, Atlantic City Press, and iGaming Player. He is in the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame, the Atlantic City Boxing Hall of Fame and a Sam Taub Award for broadcast excellence, given by the Boxing Writers Association of America.

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