Week 9 NFL Picks – The Second Half Begins

We’re ready for our Week 9 NFL Picks – The second half of the NFL season is about to begin.  The commish is coming off his best week of the season going 5-0 last week.  That brings the season record to (21/34 61.76%) Let’s see if we can keep the mojo going with these five gems this week.  All lines are from Wannamakeabet.com at the time of this posting.

Indianapolis +5.5 at New England

The Colts got robbed last week when slick boy Heineke connected on a bomb to McLauren and lost at the buzzer at home.  They must be dying to get back out on the field, and so here we are in New England.  Coach Reich has had one more week to figure out how to maximize young Sam and simplify the playbook.  Deon Jackson and Zach Moss are going to have to do it by committee in order to replace Jon Taylor, but he wasn’t playing that well anyway so it’s time for someone new to step up.  Outside of Taylor, the Colts don’t have any meaningful injuries.  That same cannot be said for the Patriots.  David Andrews, the center, is out.  And there are three starters in the secondary who are also questionable.  This is just too many points to lay for the Pats.

Minnesota – 3 over Washington

Washington feels a little fraudy to me.  Heineke is a loose cannon who seems to have a handful of turnover worthy plays every time he steps on to the field.  And now he’s going to get stalked by Za’Darius Smith, who is peaking.  The talent on the Vikings offense is far superior to Washington and almost everyone is healthy coming into this one.  Meanwhile the Commanders have a bit of a cluster injury in the linebacker position as Holcomb and Mayo are both out and BOTH backup middle linebackers (Eifler and White) are on IR.  I wonder what they’re drawing up on the white board for Jefferson, Thielen, Cooke and now Hockenson.  I see Washington has been taking money this week but I’m on the Vikes.

Carolina + 7.5 over Cincinnati

Surprise, surprise, the commish is on the Panthers again.  As we said to kickoff the podcast this week, last week’s Atlanta/Carolina was the epitome of today’s NFL and it was a shame the Panthers didn’t come away with the win after connecting on the hail mary and missing a pair of kicks.    But they have nothing to be ashamed off after the effort they put out there and should be rearing to go this week in Cincy.  Meanwhile, the Bengals showed us in Cleveland that they have real problems on their offensive line and they face one of the better front fours in Carolina.    Not to mention Jamar Chase is out and defensive tackle Josh Tupou is also out this week.  The Browns ran hard on Cincy.  And now D’Onta Foreman is getting his shot and looking really good, with CMC traded and Chuba Hubba Bubba Hubbard hurt, it’s time for the kid from Texas to stake his claim.  Too much wood to chop for Cincy, they’ll be luck to win this one at all.

Seattle + 2 over Arizona

The value seems to finally be out of the bottle with Seattle as I’m no longer getting more than a field goal as a dog but the commish is getting back on the horse he rode in on and sticking with them yet again this week.  When the week started my gut told me the run may be over but when I look at the injury status on this game one thing really sticks out.  The Arizona offensive line is decimated.  Three out of the five starters on the o-line are out (Humphries, Garcia, Hudson).  And with the way Seattle’s D has been playing the last month, this just seems like too much to ask of them to get this done.   Not to mention, both Metcalf and Lockett appear to be a solid go this week.

Tennessee +12.5 over Kansas City

The Titans record in KC is well documented.    So is Andy Reid’s coming of a bye.  And Ryan Tannehill is apparently worth a lot of points because the market believes Malik Jackson is not capable of playing in this type of game.   Either that or there’s an underlying belief that the Titans 5-2 record is fraudy because it’s filled with teams from the AFC south.  There appears to be a lot of value in taking the Titans here.   The main reason?  Derek Henry is running downhill  again.  And he’ll be headed right toward where Frank Clark would be if he wasn’t serving a two game suspension for violating the personal conduct policy.  That means Carlos Dunlap is going to try and stop him with his bad achilles.  Oh and btw, Tannehill is also now listed as questionable and may actually play in this game (he’ll be there, let’s see) but the main reason behind this pick is that this is just feels like too much wood for the Chiefs to chop and it’s the first time this season they have jumped up into this double digit territory.