Falcons visit defending champion Ravens in preseason Week 2

The Atlanta Falcons have been one of the NFL’s best regular season teams over the last few years, but the same can’t be said about their performance in the preseason. Atlanta enters a Thursday night preseason contest against the Baltimore Ravens with a 1-8 SU and 2-7 ATS record in its last nine preseason games.

Baltimore has enjoyed much more success than the Falcons in the preseason since 2011, going 6-3 SU and 5-4 ATS over its last nine games. Atlanta is currently at 12/1 to win the Super Bowl this season at Bovada compared to Baltimore going off at 25/1, but the Ravens will be favored here in the preseason. Baltimore beat Tampa Bay 44-16 last week while Atlanta lost 34-10 to Cincinnati.

The New York Jets (100/1 to win the Super Bowl at Bovada) and Jacksonville Jaguars (250/1) don’t project out to have much of a chance to compete this regular season, and both started off the 2013 preseason with a loss. The New York Jets are 0-6 SU and ATS in their last six preseason games, and they won’t get a much better opportunity to break that streak than they will this Saturday hosting the hapless Jags. Jacksonville went 3-1 SU and 2-2 ATS last preseason before going just 2-14 SU in the regular season.

For baseball bettors that don’t mind some chalk, the Texas Rangers have been cashing in as big favorites of late with a 12-1 SU record over their last 13 games. Monday night they finish up a four-game series in Houston against the Astros. Yu Darvish takes the mound for the Rangers and is a -210 favorite over Brett Oberholtzer and the Astros (+200) at 5Dimes.

Cincinnati plays host to the Western & Southern Open this week. Novak Djokovic is a 5/4 favorite to win the ATP event at Bovada, with Andy Murray (7/2) and Rafael Nadal (9/2) projected to be his biggest competition. Roger Federer returns to action after missing most of this summer’s action with a back injury, and is going off at 9/1 to win the event.