Carolina vs. Washington UNDER 35
The NFC Champion Carolina Panthers take to the field for the first time since Super Bowl XXXVIII on Saturday night, as they visit the Washington Redskins. Carolina was the surprise team of the NFL a season ago, making a Super Bowl appearance just two years after finishing 1-15. Jon Fox's club will take on a Redskins team fresh off a 20-17 victory over Denver in the Hall of Fame Game this past Monday and a PRO INFO SPORTS winning OPINION SELECTION. The contest marked the return of head coach Joe Gibbs, who had been off the sidelines for 11 years.
Both teams have solid QB rotations. Jake Delhomme is expected to play sparingly in the Panthers' first preseason tuneup, and will be succeeded by Rodney Peete and Chris Weinke as they are vying for the No. 2 quarterback job. Fox will want to get a long look at an offensive line that will feature four new starters.
The Redskins figure to be a bit ahead of Carolina in terms of development after opening the season with Denver earlier in the week, but they didn’t look particularly sharp in the victory. QBs Mark Brunell hit only 4 of 8 passes for 18 yards against Denver, while Patrick Ramsey went 3 of 8 for a paltry 12 yards. In Canton on Monday, Washington's offense looked like they were still getting acquainted. They were clearly out of synch and if it weren't for third-string quarterback Tim Hasselbeck completing 70 percent of his throws, the passing game would have been much worse than 14-26 for 148 yards. They also managed only 72 yards on the ground and fumbled three times.
We don’t expect the ‘Skins to fare much better against the Panthers’ stout defense. Gibbs sounds like he'll run another bland. "You're trying to use good common sense in preseason," Gibbs said. "You're trying to do enough so you can evaluate your players. Obviously you don't want to do anything to jeopardize your regular season." We also don’t expect the Carolina offense to do much in their first outing against an aggressive Washington defense, especially working behind an offensive line that’s a work in progress.
The biggest factor in this game, however, to hold the scoring down may well be the weather. The forecast is calling for rain and heavy winds. Such conditions will make it very difficult for either offense to do much of anything. In the last 3 preseasons, Carolina has been a road underdog of 3 ½+ points and saw the final score fall UNDER the total each time, while we note that Saturday home teams off a SU win in their last game have seen the final fall UNDER the total in 15 of 22 games, including the only 2 times it came up last year. This figures to be a close, low-scoring game coming in UNDER the total as well, with the losing team probably held to single digits.