NFL 2023: WEEK FOUR leaf clover

Hey, did any of you hear that Taylor Swift was at the Chiefs game last week and is dating Travis Kelce? I had no idea. I’m sure the massive increase in his jersey sales has to do with his resumption of his Hall of Fame career. Although I’ll take having TayTay on my TV screen over those brainless, aspiring reality TV “stars” family of Aidan Hutchinson. YMMV. And, oh, by the way, Miami scored 70 points last Sunday. I bet you didn’t hear about that either.

I find I’m fascinated by the high drama coming from the New York Jets. The putrid play of Zach Wilson (if you recall, he was a “your guy” that I hated coming out of college), although no surprise, seems to be causing problems in the locker room as the defense, and many offensive players too, are frustrated that the powers that be keep trotting him out to start despite the fact he’s in waaaaayyyyy over his head. In their defense, the Jets signed Trevor Siemian this week, so maybe there is a way it works out. However, thanks to their GM’s decisions, their hands are kinda tied. They don’t have the draft capital to trade for a good QB, nor the salary cap room to pay a QB what he’s worth, especially since whomever they sign will be a one and done once Rodgers gets back. Tough spot and a lot of pressure on Robert Saleh to keep this team together.

In other news, Mac Jones apparently punched Sauce Gardner in the nuts during last week’s game. That’s fun. And in a move even more cringey than that, Colin Kaepernick wrote a letter to the Jets offering his services as their practice squad QB. I suppose they could do worse than a rich man’s Justin Fields.

Here’s your games:

Thursday Night Football

Detroit Lions (-1.5) at Green Bay Packers (+1.5)

Sunday, October 1, 2023

Early

Atlanta Falcons (+3) at Jacksonville Jaguars (-3)
Miami Dolphins (+2.5) at Buffalo Bills (-2.5)
Minnesota Vikings (-3) at Carolina Panthers (+3)
Denver Broncos (-3.5) at Chicago Bears (+3.5)
Baltimore Ravens (+2.5) at Cleveland Browns (-2.5)
Pittsburgh Steelers (-3.5) at Houston Texans (+3.5)
Los Angeles Rams (+1) at Indianapolis Colts (-1)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers (+3) at New Orleans Saints (-3)
Washington Commanders (+7) at Philadelphia Eagles (-7)
Cincinnati Bengals (+1.5) at Tennessee Titans (-1.5)

Late

Las Vegas Raiders (+4.5) at Los Angeles Chargers (-4.5)
New England Patriots (+7) at Dallas Cowboys (-7)
Arizona Cardinals (+14) at San Francisco 49ers (-14)

Night

Kansas City Chiefs (-9) at New York Jets (+9)

Monday Night Football

Seattle Seahawks (-1.5) at New York Giants (+1.5)

To obviously no one’s surprise, the game I’m most excited for this weekend is the TNF matchup of the Packers and Lions. Not only will it have divisional repercussions, but both these teams are a good test for the other. Jordan Love, in my opinion, has been very fortunate the last few weeks. His inaccuracy is a huge problem, but a solid defense and some luck and they’re not game costing mistakes. Yet. Still, the Pack are 2-1, which is great considering they’re playing without 4 or 5 of their best players on the team. The Lions’ offensive line is very good, and the matchup against the Packers pass rush should be fun to watch.

On Sunday, there are two games that are highlighted for nearly opposite reasons. The Bills/Dolphins game should be a barn burner. Both teams have Super Bowl aspirations, great offenses, and the matchup should be super-fun to watch. Great Football. On the completely opposite side, the Broncos/Bears game could be worth a peek just to see how which number is higher: the number of passes over 10 yards that Justin Fields completes vs the number of people Sean Payton throws under the bus to avoid taking responsibility for his team’s struggles. Maybe it will be “so bad it’s good”.

Of the afternoon games, my eyes will likely be on the Cardinals. I really thought they would be in full-on tanking mode, but Jonathon Gannon has them playing very competitively. Sure that will only last until the Niners pound them into dust, but it will be interesting to see how the Cards respond.

Neither the Sunday nor Monday night games intrigue me much. But I’m expecting a huge regression by Geno Smith this year, but he played very well against the Lions. I’m just not sure I’ll learn anything about him playing against the Giants defense (3rd worst in scoring behind only the Bears and Broncos). Although, in their defense, they’ve played the Niners and Cowboys, two teams with Super Bowl aspirations. Plus, I get to rub it in my Giant’s loving brother in law and nephews when Daniel “40 million a year” Jones plays poorly. But, again in his defense, he’s had to play the two best defenses in the NFC, so he’s not as bad as his play has been this year.

There will be a lot of “Bad Blood” this weekend. Hopefully if your team loses this weekend, you’ll be able to “Shake it Off”. Maybe the Mac Jones sack tap is the start of a “Love Story”, but I’m betting him and Sauce Gardner are “Never Ever Getting Back Together”. So put on your “Cardigan”, root for your favorite “Anti-Hero”, and lets hear from you.

Holy Crap. I completely missed the fact that the NFL is starting it’s overseas games this week.

The first Sunday game (Falcons v. Jaguars) is actually going to be on at 8:30 am (CST). They’re playing in London.

Sorry about that.

I asked last week if anyone really wanted to watch the Thursday game so I have to ask this week if anyone doesn’t think Lions-Packers should at least be fun to watch.

And I actually like the really early starts of the London games. Give me 7:30 AM football. I’ll make an Irish coffee before getting into the beer.

Dumpster fires can be fun. I’ll be watching the Broncos-Bears game. I think the Bears are the worse team, and have the better chance to go 0-17, a record that would be fun to see happen. So the football gods will probably see to it that the Bears win this one, then go winless the rest of the year, while the Broncos end up losing this one and then winning one somewhere else down the line. Both teams will likely finish a boring 1-16 or 2-15 rather than one of them achieving infamy for an 0-17 record.

I can’t tell anyone I know that I’m rooting for the Ravens.

But Denver has the eerie and inexplicable ability to find a way to lose. So it’s anyone’s guess how it will go.

Cards lost their first two games but probably should have won both of them, then they soundly defeated a Cowboys team that many thought was the best in football. While the Niners have looked great on both sides of the ball, I was surprised to see them favored by 14 in this matchup.

I’m amused that despite Denver losing by 50 points last week, they still don’t have the worst total point differential. That would be the Bears.

Are the Bears favorites against Denver? That’s just weird, because the Bears really suck. I’ll put their “including games going back to last year” losing streak against anybody’s!

This will make it now twice in 4 weeks that MetLife stadium will host back to back home games of the Jets and Giants on Sunday night and Monday night. It’s starting to feel like just a flex about turnaround time at this point.

I figure at least the Giants have a chance against the Seahawks, unlike against the Cowboys and 49ers. That will only make it more painful when they lose to the guy who ended Eli Manning’s start streak. Speaking of, in hindsight, maybe they did see something in Geno. If course the problem wasn’t Eli, it was the offensive line. Ever since the group that won two Superbowls retired around 2013, the Giants offensive line has been dogshit. It was supposed to start being better this year, but nope. I pine for the days of David Diehl, Rich Seubert, Shaun O’Hara, Chris Snee and Kareem McKenzie.

The Jets will of course get trounced. It’s almost breathtaking how much Zach Wilson sucks.

I think the game I’m most looking forward to is Lions Packers for my man LaPorta. I’ve also never seen Jordan Love play, so that’ll be fun.

Nah, Denver is favored by 3.

They’re playing in Chicago, though, so probably closer to Denver by a TD on a neutral field. The Bears are not a good team.

Yes, they are not.

3.5 as listed above by @Hamlet, but my DraftKings app shows them as 3 point favorites, as @Great_Antibob posted.

So the smart money is on the Bears.

Yeah, depends on the source. Half points can be weird sometimes. The line probably hasn’t actually shifted

The smart money is to nuke both teams from orbit and start over, just to be sure

They’re underdogs, but not by much. ESPNs computer gives them something like a 48% chance of winning.

Well, thats not how I wanted the first quarter to go. Love looks lost and, of course, inaccurate. But the defensive meltdowns (what the hell are you doing, Rasul Douglas?) are what really hurt.

I never thought I could be bored during a Dolphins win, but I went to the gym early instead of finishing the game last week. 10 touchdowns in one game is a lot. The Phins looked like they were playing Madden on Rookie mode.

But, while Miami has looked incredible, the teams they’ve played arguably aren’t that good this year. And they started 3-0 last year, too. In fact, they started 8-3 last year before barely squeaking into the playoffs. Where they lost. To Buffalo.

So this represents the first real test for Miami this season. Division opponent. Perennial playoff team. On the road (although that does give Miami the advantage of not having to go to Buffalo in snowy conditions in December; same with New England). And the Bills have had their number of late.

Based on history, we should expect Josh Allen to have a big day for Buffalo. Miami’s defense hasn’t inspired enough confidence to expect otherwise.

And so it comes down to Tua and Tyreek (and probably Waddle, who has been out with a concussion but is back to practicing) and the running game. Are they as good as we’ve seen? Or is the mirage getting ready to dissolve?

The offensive line had been a big question mark in the preseason, but has played very well so far. I suspect their performance will dictate the outcome of the game.

Come on, Miami

ETA: Damn, Detroit is kicking some ass so far.

One cool feature I just noticed amazon prime has for the Thursday night games is that if you join a game in progress it gives you the option for a rapid recap which shows you the big plays of the game (turnover, scoring plays) to get you caught up. Nice feature by them. Of course I came in just to see Detroit up 27-3 at almost half time so it’s not a terribly interesting game to join in progress.

I’m going on a trip this weekend and didn’t notice that it was Browns vs Ratbirds at home which is probably the most important game of the year to me. Oh well. I probably won’t even be in cell phone range. I know it’s only week 3 but the Browns has been an absolutely smothering defense that’s leading the NFL currently. And last week is the first time the quarter billion dollar groper looked remotely decent. The run game has taken a significant step back without Chubb, understandably, but I think the Browns are a team that can beat up and play with anyone this year.

What happens to the bets when a team exactly covers the point spread?

Seems to me that the result would either be good for the bookmakers, or bad. Depending on that, either every point spread should end with .5, or none of them should.

Or do they just cancel all bets, pocket the vig, and return the rest to the bettors?

The whole bet is returned, including the vig, generally.