NFL Week 5 Predictions

October is hitting its stride but the commish ran into a wall last week going 1-3-1 which brings the season total to 6/14 (42.85%) But there’s a lot of football left so let’s get right into this week’s card.  Here are my top five this week.  All lines are from Wannamakeabet.com at the time of this posting.

Miami – 3 over Jets

Miami rolls into New York today on 10 days rest and a shroud of controversy around pushing Tua back onto the field prematurely.  But most of the league would love to have Teddy B as a backup and Miami is coming in as the #2 defense in the league.  And where they are strongest (passing) the Jets are the weakest on D.  Meanwhile, the Jets are overvalued after beating the not so mighty Steelers but even in that win Zach did not look that impressive.  Miami comes in and lights up the Jets at 1:00 today.

New Orleans – 5 over Seattle

Seattle’s defense is ranked 31st in the NFL by DVOA Football Outsiders and they come into New Orleans as a hot, over rated offense based on hanging 48 on the lowly Lions.   But today they’re coming into NO and playing a top 10 defense in the Saints with Kamara scheduled to go.  And even though Michael Thomas is out, another Buckeye in Chris Olave is stepping in and is a pretty capable backup.  Geno Smith is about to regress to the mean in a big way today as the Saints get a much needed win to stay relevant in the NFC South.

Atlanta + 10 over Tampa Bay

There’s something wrong in Tampa, and I’m not talking about TB12’s marriage.  And I know many people (including myself earlier this week) think today is the perfect day to get right and beat up on the Falcons like they always do.   But if we take a closer look, these Falcons have been competitive every single week this year and just like the Bucs, are 2-2 and fighting for the lead in the division today.   Patterson is the second best running back in the league.  Meanwhile, the Bucs rushed for 2 yards last week and totally lack any balance in their offense and Brady has a banged up shoulder coming in.  I think Atlanta hangs around till the end today and scares the hell out of Survivor players right down to the end.

Arizona + 5 over Philly

Trap game for the Eagles today on a few levels.  As the league’s best team there must be some level of complacency that has set.  And after the big win against the Jags last week as well as a huge game against Dallas next week, it’s going to be hard to get on the plane today and travel across two time zones and get up against a non division team.  To top it all off, they have not played a mobile quarterback yet, much less the league’s fastest QB who will be scrambling like a psycho all afternoon.  But this handicap hinges on one thing, Arizona stopping the run.  They did well last week against McCaffrey and need to parlay that into stopping the two headed monster of Hurtz and Sanders this week and the commish thinks they’re up to the task.

Dallas Cowboys +5.5 over LA Rams

The Rams offense looks awful.   Akers is among the league’s worst which is a poor reflection on both him and the offensive line.  Stafford’s elbow may not be right but his decision making has been poor and so is his elbow.  It almost feels like it’s Cooper Kupp or bust with this offense and their defense has been a shadow of their superbowl self.   Meanwhile, the Cowboys are hot behind backup Cooper Rush and there’s no reason to think they can’t be competitive in this game.    And that’s not to mention the Dallas defense has been playing great and are currently ranked 5th in the league.  There’s a lot of 5s on the commish’s pick list this week so we’ll add one more on the late card as Dallas stays competitive in this one and can likely win the game outright based on the way they’ve been playing.