Washington -v- Las Vegas Raiders (Week 13)

Am not taking the complete disappearance of Philadelphia's offense last week to heart - sometimes these things just happen. The defensive line held the Giants to 13 points, and the offensive line just seemed to forget that they can run. If the game came up again, I'd still have to back the Eagles!

This week, there are three games that I could have picked a value selection from, and two follow on from the last Monday night game. The Seahawks' lack of offensive threat (including an out-of-sorts, or possibly disillusioned Russ at QB) is going to make it very hard for them to win games against anyone, so I'd expect San Francisco to win quite comfortably on Sunday.

Which brings us to the Washington Football Team, who beat Seattle in a weird but very entertaining game on Monday - narrowly but would have almost certainly been more comfortable if their kicker hadn't pointlessly tweaked his hamstring while not chasing down that blocked PAT return.

They struggled early on in the season primarily because their defense weren't playing to anything like the level they had ended last season at. This has been changing in recent weeks and they look pretty mean and well organised now.

Heinicke has grown in confidence, McLaurin is great and their running game has gone up a notch. They still aren't going to be a team that regularly scores 30+ points, but they don't need to be. In a similar way to New England, but at a slightly lower level, they've shown how effective you can be just doing the simple things well, rather than attempting the spectacular.

Right now, Las Vegas will be buoyed by an unexpected victory over the Cowboys in a weird, weird game which they won basically because the officials kept throwing pass interference flags against the hapless Anthony Brown - sometimes justifiably, but often incredibly harshly. Dallas underperformed - or at least were in line with recent rather than early season form - but may well have won the game without the flagdemic.

I don't think the Raiders are a reliable team - clearly their season has been disrupted hugely, and they are up against solid opposition here who are unlikely to be giving up defensive penalties like Dallas did.

For me, this game should be priced up with Washington as definite favourites, but they are actually available at around 6/5. I would much, much rather take that about the Football Team than consider the Raiders at odds of about 1.75.

For what it's worth (not much recently), the predictor has this as Washington Football Team 26-22 Las Vegas Raiders.