Cat Scratch Reader
Fresh off a convincing win on the road against the Atlanta Falcons, the 6-5 Carolina Panthers are headed to California to take on the San Francisco 49ers in their first primetime game since Bryce Young’s rookie season.
The Panthers are underdogs, of course, for the Week 12 Monday Night Football appearance. Consistency and quality haven’t exactly been their watchwords this season. Let’s take a look at the opening odds for this week.
Panthers: +7 (-120)
49ers: -7 (-102)
47.5 (-110/-110)
Panthers: +275
49ers: -340
Remember that home-field advantage is traditionally accounted for by spotting the home team—the 49ers, in this case—three points on the spread. That would bring their margin to only 4 points on a neutral field.
Brock Purdy’s solid return from injury yesterday is going to overshadow Young’s 448 yard, three touchdown day in the national media. But the real story of the week is going to be the Panthers biggest flaw: consistency.
This can either be a contest between two balanced offenses or it can be a rout orchestrated by the better quarterback and more experienced coach. We won’t know which until we see which Young and which Panthers show up next Monday.
The above odds were current as of the writing of this post. You can take a look at—and place a bet on—live odds for this game and more here at FanDuel Sportsbook.
