Patriots-Falcons Betting Preview: Trends, Props, Pick For ‘Thursday Night Football’

The New England Patriots look more and more like a contender in the AFC every week, but they face a unique challenge Thursday night.

The Patriots, winners of four in a row, take on the Atlanta Falcons on “Thursday Night Football” at Mercedes Benz Stadium to kick off Week 11 of the 2021 season.

The Falcons, on the other hand, are tough to figure out. Atlanta is just one game under .500 at 4-5, which has Arthur Smith’s team very much alive in the playoff race. In the NFC South, the Falcons are one game behind New Orleans and a half-game behind Carolina, two division rivals who currently own the last two playoff spots in the NFC. Despite that, Atlanta has been outscored by 85 points this season. That’s in part due to a 43-3 loss last week against the Cowboys in Dallas.

Thursday night is a big one for both teams, so let’s get into our “Thursday Night Football” betting preview. The line, total and props are provided by DraftKings Sportsbook.

(-6.5) New England Patriots at Atlanta Falcons
Total: 47

BETTING TRENDS
There’s a line of thinking that says well-coached teams are prone to more success on Thursday nights. There’s no hard data to back that up — how would you define a well-coached team? — but we do know the Patriots under Bill Belichick certainly would qualify. Unsurprisingly, they’ve been successful on the short week, too, with the Patriots going 5-2 against the spread in their last seven Thursday contests. Laying a touchdown or more on the road is something Belichick and the Patriots are quite familiar with over the years, but it hasn’t happened much recently. New England is a road favorite of six points or more for just the third time since the start of last season, and while it has won both previous games outright, it failed to cover versus Houston (as 8-point favorites) in Week 5 and the Jets (as 9.5-point favorites) last season. There’s also this wild nugget about the Patriots, which also admittedly dates back to the Tom Brady era: New England is 26-10 ATS against teams with losing records.

If you’re looking for a Falcons angle to make you feel better about backing Atlanta, the Falcons are 3-1 ATS in four games dating back to the start of 2019 as home underdogs of at least 3.5 points. Very much for what it’s worth, Atlanta is 7-1 ATS in that spot dating back to 2013.

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PROPS
First touchdown scorer
Rhamondre Stevenson +600
Damien Harris +600
Cordarrelle Patterson +650
Hunter Henry +800
Jakobi Meyers +900
Kyle Pitts +1100

Passing yards
Mac Jones over/under 251.5 yards
Matt Ryan over/under 248.5 yards

Rushing yards
Damien Harris over/under 52.5 yards

Receiving yards
Kyle Pitts over/under 61.5 yards
Jakobi Meyers over/under 55.5 yards
Nelson Agholor over/under 34.5 yards
Hunter Henry over/under 33.5 yards
Russell Gage over/under 42.5 yards

PICK
UNDER 47 — Pretty simple one here. This obviously has more to do with the Falcons’ offense than anything else. ]Patterson is a game-time decision, and even if he can go, how healthy will he be? Atlanta is still without Calvin Ridley. Ryan looked washed up last week. The Patriots are going to make literally anyone other than Pitts beat them. It’s hard to see Atlanta doing much to contribute to that total. On the other side, the Patriots certainly come in with a better offensive arsenal, but they have struggled to move the ball at times, as recently as their Weeks 8 and 9 wins over Los Angeles and Carolina. It’s also a short week, so maybe the gameplan isn’t as advanced with a lot of clock-killing running calls. Put another way, saying it goes over 47 basically is saying there will be seven touchdowns, which is hard to see with these two teams.