Monday Night Football reaction: Bad teams, bad football, bad coverage, good betting by Pickswise

Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks
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Ricky Dimon

NFL

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Since graduating from Davidson (The College That Stephen Curry Built), I have been writing about sports -- just about any and all you can think of! -- and coaching tennis in Atlanta, GA. Beyond the four major sports, I am an avid tennis fan and cover the ATP Tour on a daily basis. If I'm not busy writing, you can generally find me on a tennis court or traveling the world wherever a sporting event takes me. For Ricky Dimon media enquiries, please email contact@pickswise.com.
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There really isn’t anything good to say about Monday Night Football in Week 12 of the 2021 NFL season. The Washington Football Team and Seattle Seahawks both stink and – at least on offense – they played like it. Not only was the quality of football poor, but there also wasn’t much drama until Washington somehow let Seattle back in the game in the final seconds. Normally when two sorry teams go head-to-head you at least get some competition, but Washington was in control most of the way on their way to a 17-15 victory.

And we couldn’t even watch Peyton and Eli on ESPN, as they were taking the week off. As such, there was insult to injury by watching a bad game and watching it with Steve Levy, Brian Griese, and Louis Riddick in the booth. In fairness to those three, they aren’t terrible. They just aren’t the Manning brothers. And they don’t bring in politically incorrect guests like Marshawn Lynch.

However, there was some great news. Pickswise nailed Washington on the money line, the under, and our Tyler Lockett prop bet. Yes, we batted 1.000 on our main Monday Night Football bets.

As for the game itself, let’s recap what happened in the nation’s capital on Monday night and break down what – if anything — it means.

The NFC is a beautiful mess

At 3-7, the Seahawks were virtually out of it regardless of Monday’s result. Even if they had improved to 4-7, there still would have been eight teams ahead of them in the race for the conference’s three wild-card spots.

The Football Team entered with a 4-6 record, which wasn’t any good but was good enough to be in realistic contention. Their win makes the NFC even more of a mess, because it keeps them in the playoff picture. In fact, TWFT would be in the playoffs with a sub-.500 record if the season ended now!

Of course, that says a lot more about the conference than it does about Washington. They have a formidable defense, but that unit can probably survive for only so long without Chase Young (torn ACL). Sure, the defense took care of Seattle, but the Seahawks have never been able to run the ball, their offensive line is in shambles, and Russell Wilson is a shadow of his real self while coming back from a finger injury. Even the Jets and Texans probably could have shut down the Hawks on Monday!

I suppose Washington could actually make the playoffs with 5 games remaining against the NFC East and 4 against opponents with losing records, but outside of Taylor Heinicke being a nice story, this franchise inspires little enthusiasm.


Football Team and the under!

On the bright side, Pickswise handicapper Phil Agius was right on the money with his money line pick of Washington. He also hit Under 47 – and with plenty of room to spare! Finally, PropBetGuy was up to his usual tricks with an easy winner. Tyler Lockett going over 61.5 receiving yards was an absolute lock, as he had 57 yards before the end of the first quarter and ended up with 96.

The game was bad. The betting was not. We’ll take it!

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