By Marc Lawrence — From this week’s PLAYBOOK Football Newsletter: In what could be the “stat of the year”, Texas A&M is 1-16 ATS with rest during the regular season since 2008. Interestingly, Tammy continues to hold down the No. 5 spot for the fourth straight week in the current Football Playoff Rankings, hoping that a loss to any of the four teams above them will open the door to the big party – although we think the only chance of that happening would be if Clemson were to suffer its 2nd loss of the season to Notre Dame. Otherwise each of the other upper echelon teams would be a more attractive commodity than the one-loss Aggies.
Coming Around
The NY Giants’ four-game winning streak came to a screeching halt with a 26-7 loss to the Arizona Cardinals. That result, combined with wins by Washington, Philadelphia and Dallas, kept things interesting in the NFC East, which is making up for its lack of quality by having all four teams in the division race with three games remaining. The Footballers should be in the driver’s seat after improving to 6-7, but that will depend on the health of quarterback Alex Smith, who reinjured the leg that kept him out for nearly two years … In five seasons under Coach Doug Pederson, the Eagles are 11-3 in games not started by Carson Wentz (including the playoffs) and 35-33-1 with Wentz starting … To read more on what we learned in the NFL last week click here.
Trending Today
The Frisco Bowl game has been canceled. As a result, UTSA has accepted the SERVPRO First Responder Bowl on Dec 26, while SMU’s season has ended. Meanwhile, the “Potato Bowl” stills stands as no less than 11 Bowl games have already been cancelled, with several more likely on the chopping block. Among the Bowls that have failed to survive are the aforementioned Frisco Bowl, the Bahamas Bowl, the Hawaii Bowl, the Holiday Bowl, the Las Vegas Bowl, the Pinstripe Bowl, and the Sun Bowl. As our esteemed colleague Andy Iskoe notes, the Sun Bowl has been played in El Paso, Texas every season since 1935, and the only Bowl older than the Sun Bowl is the Rose Bowl.
