For the second straight week, the Philadelphia Eagles are heavy favorites to flex their muscles in primetime, but they’ll look to do so on Monday Night Football this time against the Washington Commanders. Jalen Hurts and the undefeated Eagles are a double-digit favorite to move to 9-0, but Taylor Heinicke and the Commanders aren’t your average last-place team with a 4-5 record. How will this one play out?
Throughout the NFL season, our VSiN experts will combine to give their best bets on every game.
Odds are from DraftKings (unless noted) as of Sunday night.
Monday, 8:15 p.m. ET
Tuley: The Eagles are the NFL’s last remaining undefeated team and oddsmakers must inflate their lines to try and balance the betting action. Despite being perfect on the scoreboard, the Eagles are only an above-average team to back at 5-3 ATS with non-covering wins vs. the Lions, Cardinals and Texans in their 29-17 win as 14-point chalk in the Week 9 Thursday nighter.
Granted, the Eagles did rout Washington 24-8 in Week 3 as 6-point road faves, but the Commanders (4-5 SU, 4-4-1 ATS) have been playing better since then as they went on a three-game winning streak against the Bears, Packers and Colts and then had the Vikings on the ropes this past Sunday before losing 20-17 and pushing vs. the closing line of +3.
The Eagles’ main priority is to win and move on just like they did against the Texans, so we’re confident that even if the Commanders don’t keep this within one score like we want them to, the back door will still be open for Taylor Heinicke.
Pick: Commanders +11
Adam Burke: The Commanders aren’t exactly the pushovers that the Texans were last week, but this does look like another week where the Eagles can win comfortably, while also protecting their star quarterback. Jalen Hurts has been running a lot less often over the last three weeks. He has had 20 carries in wins over the Cowboys, Steelers and Texans, mostly just to avoid taking sacks. He’s only rushed for 60 yards over those three games.
In the first five games of the season, Hurts ran 68 times for 266 yards. His workload in that respect is dwindling, but his player prop line tonight at DraftKings is 40.5 rushing yards, which is right near his season average of 40.8 yards. I would expect the Eagles to focus on protecting him as much as possible the rest of the way and would expect his rushing output to continue to decline.
Being a double-digit favorite should help tonight, as the game state likely has the Eagles playing from in front and Hurts avoiding any unnecessary hits.
Pick: Jalen Hurts Under 40.5 Rushing Yards (-120)