Carolina -3.5 in a game featuring two of last weeks outright winners as huge underdogs. The story for the Panthers is Cam Newton coming back, and after seeing what Jones has done in New England its hard to argue they made a wrong choice, but bringing him back to the Panthers and its hard to argue against him being the starter. Fewer than 200 pass yards in 6 straight games, however the run game with McCaffery has been what has made the difference, 4-1 with him, 1-4 without. That goes with the 2nd ranked defense in the NFL.
Ron Rivera is 68-55-1 in games started by Cam Newton and 18-23 in games started by all other QBs in his head coaching career. The former MVP brings a familiarity to the matchup against his former coach. The two teams played last year, without Newton, it was 20-13 Carolina.
I think we may be in for a defensive battle here the total at 43 and you can see we may lucky to see 40 in this matchup. However if Heinicke is able to continue his momentum from last week who know what may happen, as they ran the clock out with Brady on the sideline unable to get another chance to comeback on one of their longest drives of the season.
We see the points allowed a bit skewed for Washington from the early season where they were giving up a lot of points and they are at 27 allowed per game, 19.3 allowed for Carolina. Both teams scoring just over 20 a game. My prediction 23-21 Carolina.