AFC East Gambling News and Notes

Tom Brady Confident His Knee is Fine

Tom Brady took a nasty hit to his knee last week, leading many to speculate that he was seriously injured. However, he says that he’s fine and that he’ll be ready for the season. The Patriots will need him at 100 percent as they gear up for a run at the Super Bowl without two of their top receiving targets in Rob Gronkowski and Aaron Hernandez.

“I wouldn’t say frightened, you’re just wondering what happened, because I didn’t obviously see anything,” Brady said of the injury. “You just feel something and react and I went back in for really to finish the period out that we had going and then just talked to Coach Belichick and our trainer and we figured we’d try to be safe.”

“There were a lot of people at practice that were witnessing,” Brady said. “If that was a Wednesday or Thursday practice during the regular season, you’d probably never hear about it. But it’s obviously the nature of Twitter and all that social media stuff. But it happens on the practice field, it happens on the game field, you see so many injuries that have happened over the course of the preseason.”

“There’s risk of injury in practice, there’s risk of injury driving down to the stadium in the morning,” he continued. “It’s your only game prep. I haven’t taken a hit in eight months. It’s just hard to say, ‘Let’s just see what we have against Buffalo.’ You’ve got to put it in, you’ve got to see where you’re at in terms of game speeds, in terms of reads. Things are different in a game.”

Here are the Patriots team prop bets, courtesy of Bovada.lv.

Will the New England Patriots make the playoffs?

• Yes                  -600
• No                    +400

New England Patriots – 2013 Regular Season Win Total      

• Over                            11 (+110)
• Under                          11 (-140)

 

Bills’ Quarterback Situation Once Again Up in the Air

Rookie quarterback E.J. Manuel looked to be in the driver’s seat for the starting QB job in Buffalo, though a recent knee injury may derail that plan.

“I think what we’re going to do is let’s not talk about the timetable until we get through this preseason,” Bills head coach Doug Marrone said. “I understand he’s not going to be here for the preseason, but any time after that my expectation is he’ll be day to day after that.”

“I don’t know [if Manuel will start],” he said. “There are a lot of variables that go into that. How Kevin [Kolb] is doing and how he is playing. How EJ comes back from the time off, so there’s a lot of speculation on that. I think I’ll be able to answer that question once we get to the day to day and he’s out here practicing.”

Here are the Bills team prop bets, courtesy of Bovada.lv.

Will the Buffalo Bills make the playoffs?  

• Yes                  +400
• No                    -600

Buffalo Bills – 2013 Regular Season Win Total        

• Over                            6½ (+110)
• Under                          6½ (-140)

 

Embattled Jets Quarterback Mark Sanchez Says it’s Been His Best Camp Ever

Despite all of the talk of rookie Geno Smith taking over the quarterbacking reins in New York, embattled QB Mark Sanchez says he’s had his best camp ever, and that the new offensive system instituted by Marty Morhinweg will be a great fit with his skill set.

“I feel good about my performance and the camp I put together,” he said Monday. “It’s definitely the best camp I’ve had.”

“I love the way you can mix up personnel, formations, use some base concepts and run them a million different ways with motions and shifts. I love that he gives us a lot of freedom at the line to go over protection and redirect it with [Nick] Mangold. I think the system, in general, just lends itself to quarterbacks trying to get the ball out quick, taking our shots down field and getting wide outs and skill position players in the right places to distort a defense. Then you go make the read, make the throw and make them work for it.”

Here are the Jets team prop bets, courtesy of Bovada.lv.

Will the New York Jets make the playoffs?          

• Yes                  +600
• No                    -1000

New York Jets – 2013 Regular Season Win Total    

• Over                            6½ (+125)
• Under                          6½ (-155)