In the best finish of the year, Washington beat Chicago on an amazing Hail Mary with no time on the clock. The throw by rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels traveled 65 yards in the air. The Browns figured out a way to score 20+ points for the first time this season, and it was enough to derail the streaking Ravens. The Lions put up 52 points in a rout of the Titans, the Vikings lost their second straight at the hands of the Rams, and the Bills rolled over Seattle on the road. The Patriots surprised the Jets, while the Falcons took over the lead in the NFC South with a win over the Bucs. The Chiefs improved to 7-0 in Vegas, the Texans solidified their lead in the AFC South, and the Cowboys dropped to below .500 in a loss to the Niners on Sunday night. And while the Yankees were losing in New York on Monday night, so were the Giants, to a Pittsburgh team that now leads the AFC North.
This week, the Texans, who are surprising (to me, anyway) underdogs against the Jets, will try to continue their winning ways in New York on Thursday, and the Commanders will try to do the same against the Giants on Sunday. Denver travels to Baltimore in a meeting of two 5-3 teams, and the Bears will try to recover from their crushing loss when they meet the Cardinals in the desert. Tampa Bay will try to hand the Chiefs their first loss on Monday, and, in the best game of the week, the 6-1 Lions will play at the 6-2 Packers.
This week’s games. All spreads taken from ESPNBet on Tuesday, October 29 at 10:30 am CT.
I guess they are playing at home but maybe I’ve been watching a different team the last month and not one that just dropped a game to the friggin’ Patriots.
Possibilities. I guess Diggs is out for Houston. Collins is still out. So maybe the thinking is Houston will have issues scoring. Or there are some truly optimistic Jets homers. Or the ESPN software needs a couple dozen patches.
With eight weeks in the books, and all teams having played at least 7 games, we now have ten teams (31%) with only one or two wins, including three-quarters of the AFC East.
Meanwhile, seven NFC teams are above .500…but that includes all four teams in the NFC Central.
The Colts have decided to bench Anthony Richardson. He was a “your guy”, so I had already figured he’d be a bust, but even then I was surprised the Colts opted to start him as a rookie. While certainly physically gifted, he has extrememely limited experience throwing the ball and some accuracy issues. Throwing him into the fire and starting him Week 1 of his rookie year has had the expected result: failure. I’m hoping that was a decision by the owner, whom I dislike intensely, and not Steichen’s call.
I’m not sure I’d want him learning the position from Joe “I haven’t met a DB I couldn’t give the ball to” Flacco, but hopefully he’s not done in the NFL.
I wasn’t aware that Richardson took himself out for a little break because he was tired. Not sure how you come back from that. Reading an article about it I saw a funny tweet:
This is Richardson’s 2nd year, though he lost a lot of last year to an injury. Regardless, I don’t what the Colts were thinking when drafting him - he’s the type of player that clearly needed a great deal of developmental work. He started in 13 games in college before getting drafted - how is that a recipe for success?
Another hit to my fantasy football team - Stephon Diggs out for the rest of the season. At least Puka is back and hopefully CMc will be too after the bye week.
1.5 or 2 it is still surprising the Jets ar efavoured at all in that game.
The other game the odds really surprised me was the Ravens Broncos game I was expecting the Ravens to be about -5.5. Compare that the Jags at Philly. The Ravens are laying roughly on a par with Philly but the Jags are far worse than the Broncos which have looked really good since week 3 (which can be explained by Bo Nix taking a couple of games to get accustomed to the NFL).
Yeah, this was where I was at. But, I kind of get it. Everybody is high on Rodgers and the Jets offense. And without Collins or Diggs, Houston may have a rough go of it.
But as above, the old wisdom is when the home team is at -3, take the points. Your mommas didn’t raise no fools
