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Posted Friday at 1:15 PM EST.

Week  9 Preview:

In this weekly space, we'll cover every NFL game that we're not wagering on. Remember, these are not official plays and if we do decide to make any of these official plays, we'll move them into that category. Please note that the BEST LINES available are also listed, 

The Rest of the Games

Atlanta +112 over CAROLINA

1:00 PM EST. The Panthers ended their two-game losing streak last week when they faced the punchless Buccaneers and beat them, 17-3. The week before they lost by that reverse score to the Bears. Cam Newton was having a down season until he threw for 300 yards and three scores for two straight weeks in New England and then Detroit but in the three games since, he's been held to no more than 239 passing yards and only two scores total. The Panthers are a difficult team to get behind. Cam Newton misses his receivers by 20 feet often. In half their games this year, the Panthers have scored 17 points or less. In three of those four, they scored 13 or less. From time-to-time Carolina comes up with something surprising but more often than not, they don’t. As the favorite, we’ll pass.

The Falcons ended their three-game losing streak with a close win over the Jets but the NFL's best offense from 2016 continues to produce roughly half of the production from last year. That’s the results. The ingredients are much better. The Falcons are averaging over six yards a play, which ranks second in the NFL. This is a Falcons team that has not looked sharp on TV the past two weeks with a sloppy win over the Jets after a horrible showing against the Patriots in prime time the week before. We all know what happens when a team looks that bad on TV. Everyone sells. The Falcons are not terrible at all. They have better personnel than Carolina and they have the more reliable QB by far. Situationally speaking, the Falcons will be playing their third consecutive road game here, which is not beneficial and it’s the only reason that they didn’t make our board. Recommendation: Atlanta +122 (No bets).

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Denver +7 over PHILADELPHIA

1:00 PM EST. Recommending Philadelphia here would probably be the easiest sell of the year. The Eagles are absolutely the talk of the NFL with the new stud QB on the block, Carson Wentz leading the charge. The Eagles brought even more attention to themselves this week when they traded for Dolphins running back Jay Ajayi. That was a declaration by the Eagles that “we’re going all in” this year. The Eagles are coming off a 33-10 thrashing of the 49ers. The week prior was Carson Wentz’s coming out party on Monday Night Football when he played brilliantly in a 34-24 win over the Redskins. He’s been brilliant all year. As an observer, there is nothing not to like about the Eagles chances to whack the Broncos.

Times are tough for the Broncos who cannot generate a passing game this year unless they are at home facing the Cowboys. The defense has been uncharacteristically lax in recent weeks but there isn’t a person on this planet that can put together a defense that could thrive when they are on the field so often. Denver’s inability to move the chains is the only reason that its defense looks worse than it is. This is not a good defense; it’s a great defense so let’s start with that. Denver’s offense has lost seven fumbles and thrown 10 picks. It doesn’t get better either. Trevor Siemian continues to slide and comes off a three-interception loss to the Chiefs that only saw him complete 19 of 36 for 198 yards and one late, meaningless score. Two of the interceptions were high-school bad. HC Vance Johnson would not commit to Siemian as the starter this week but his only other options are Brock Osweiler, who does nothing but sit on the sideline and count his Cleveland money and Paxton Lynch, who missed the season so far with a shoulder injury and is only now back to practicing. Yes indeed, the Broncos look to be in serious trouble but we once again have to wash this stuff from our brains.

You see, the oddsmakers are not idiots. The Broncos were a +7-point dog in a stand-alone prime-time game last week against K.C. and were whacked. Three weeks ago in a stand-alone game in prime time against the Giants, the Broncos lost by 13 points as a 13-point favorite. In between those two prime-time games, they lost by 21 to the Chargers. However, the Broncos are truly not far off from having a really good game because its defense is so good. That defense has not allowed a rushing score yet this year. Only one runner topped 55 rushing yards against them and that was the freakish game that Orleans Darkwa had in Week 6. The Eagles are being told that all they have to do is show up this week. Furthermore, the Eagles have a bye on deck followed by a game against Dallas so everything sets up well for the Eagles to “take a breather”. This is a classic case of buying low and sellng high and it might be the most pronounced buy-low/sell high scenario this year. That doesn’t mean it’s going to win but it does mean that we’re grabbing inflated points with the Broncos and that’s something we must step in and play.  Recommendation: Denver +7 (No bets). 

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Tampa Bay +7 -110 over NEW ORLEANS

1:00 PM EST. Take away the first two weeks of the season and the Saints have the second-best record in the NFL. The defense suddenly showed up and has not gone away. The offense doesn't crank out the yards and points as it once did but it does not need them. Still, one has to look at the Saints opposition before trusting that defense. The last two weeks the Saints defense held the Rodgers-less Pack to 17 points and the Bears to 12. Previously, they shut out the Dolphins and held the Panthers to 13 points. That’s four offenses that can’t move five yards. When the Saints played the Vikes, Patriots and Lions, they were shredded for 29, 36 and 38 points respectively so let’s not get carried away here in thinking that this is a rejuvenated unit. It very well might be but we’re going to have to see them do well against legit competition before trusting them spotting seven points. The Saints stock is high, which puts us in the seller position. 

It’s hard to imagine that the Tampa Bay Bucs were 2-1 after three weeks and taking passengers on their bandwagon. In hindsight, home wins’ against the Bears and the Giants doesn’t hold the impressive nature it may have in September. They have lost four straight games in a division that doesn’t tolerate losing – New Orleans and Carolina are currently playoff teams and Atlanta is the defending NFC champ. The Bucs are the floating corpse of the division. In the three road games they have played, Tampa Bay has allowed 34, 38 and 30 points and the teams that have squandered them aren’t exactly offensive juggernauts – Minnesota, Arizona and Buffalo. The Bucs have played perhaps one of the easiest schedules in the league while QB Jameis Winston has been dreadful. The Buccaneers were already saddled with a sieve-like defense and there are several reports out there that suggest Winston is busted up physically. It’s really difficult to get behind the Bucs here but in terms of buying low and selling high, this one fits that strategy more than any game on the board this week so we must stick to our guns. Recommendation: Tampa Bay +7 (No bets).

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Baltimore +3½ over TENNESSEE

1:00 PM EST. Not only are the Titans not ready to take that next step, they are one of the weakest teams to get behind when favored. The Titans are quite simply a better dog than they are a favorite. After starting the season playing four consecutive games against top-half offenses, the Titans defense has had the fortune of facing the 32nd, 31st and 30th-ranked offenses in consecutive weeks as it headed into its bye. That, and that alone, is the reason the Titans posted a 2-1 record in those games. Mariota's hamstring was not healthy but it should be healthy now following a bye but so what. We like Mariota but his coaches prevent him from thriving.  

The Ravens have a poor offense, and it is one that defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau is familiar with, given his time in Pittsburgh. Benefiting the Ravens is the Titans' poor pass rush, which ranks third worst in the league. The last time we saw Baltimore was on a Thursday night when they were bitch-slapping the Dolphins, 40-0. What makes Miami’s epic beat-down at the hands of the Ravens last Thursday even more stunning was something that hadn’t been noticed by many. In their previous 17 regular season games prior to supplying the butt in an old-fashioned butt-whoopin’, what would you suppose their record was? Would you believe 13-4? It is possible for a team to fly under the radar when they’re playing dominant football. Baltimore is the Rodney Dangerfield of the NFL right now and we told you about them against Miami too. That was the right time to play them and it might not be too late to get on board. Recommendation: Baltimore +3½ (No bets).

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MIAMI +145 over Oakland

8:30 PM EST. The Dolphins made headlines for all the wrong reasons again this week when they traded last year’s breakout runner Jay Ajayi to the Eagles for a kicking tee and a bag of old balls. The last time the market saw the Fish, they were being shut out 40-0 in Baltimore in prime time on Thursday Night Football. We are often looking for overreactions to prime time games and the Dolphins’ follow up provides an interesting opportunity, as they’ll be in a featured game again this week. Anyone that bet Miami last week on TNF is not coming back on them again here. If you cashed a ticket on the Ravens or even just watched that game, it’s hard not to have your mind poisoned by how putrid the Fish were and now they are without Ajayi, who many considered to be their best offensive player. Going into last Thursday’s game there was a lot of talk about how much better the Dolphins’ offense would be with Matt Moore at quarterback rather than Jay Cutler, but we’re not in agreement. Even with cracked ribs, Cutler is probably a better option and he is set to return this week. 

When the Oakland Raiders improbably beat the Kansas City Chiefs in the final seconds of the Thursday night game in Week 7, it was seen as saving their season. For a team that lost only four games in all of 2016, the Raiders appeared ready to get back into the race. With 10 days to prepare for Buffalo, the Raiders had a lot to win by going into Buffalo and taking out the Bills on Kahlil Mack’s return to his college hometown. Instead, they learned they had a lot to lose, getting blown out by the Bills 34-14, dropping them to 3-5 with five losses in their last six games. The trendy pick to win the AFC West is now trying to keep their heads above water with the most difficult part of their schedule still to come. The Black Hole seems more appropriate to describe the team’s playoff potential this year, not their rabid fan base. Rather than travel back to the West Coast after the loss to Buffalo, the Raiders picked up and went to Sarasota, Florida for the week. The market is putting stock into this approach, as it paid off for Oakland last year when it won both games in the Sunshine State. However, the Raiders dream season from a year ago appears to be in the rearview mirror and this team cannot stop anybody and is having trouble scoring. Oakland has only put up 17 or more points once this season and that was in that fortunate win over Kansas City. On the other side of the ball, the Raiders have allowed at least 30 points a game in three of their last four contests and a look under the hood shows that those poor results are no fluke. Oakland’s porous D is 31st in total defensive DVOA (a relevant metric that measures defense adjusted value over average) just ahead of the last place Patriots.

As situational bettors, this game checks a few boxes. We have overreactions to Miami’s brutal loss and the trade of a high profile player. The Raiders were done no favors by the schedule makers by having back-top-back road games out east. The Raiders have been a low percentage bet on the road covering just one of their last five games away from the Colosseum. Finally, we have the number, which pretty much tells us all we need to know here, as we have a popular public team with a high profile laying a small price on the road against what appears to be inferior competition. Recommendation: Miami +3 (No bets).

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N.Y. GIANTS +3½ over L.A. Rams

1:00 PM EST. The 5-2 Rams and the 1-6 Giants come off their bye weeks. The Rams are a perfect 3-0 on the road and the Giants are a perfect 0-3 at home. Honestly, we hate this game. We hate the thought of getting behind the Giants because they’re simply a weak team with no direction that does not believe or trust what their lame coach is selling them. On the other hand, we have the Rams, a team that is as well-coached as any and that should be able to destroy the Giants.

Unfortunately, it’s not that easy and when something looks too good, it’s usually not. The Giants were already struggling before losing the starting wide receivers for a team that already had no real running backs. The shocking win over the Broncos finally got the Giants on a winning track (for one week) but the results of hosting the Seahawks made it apparent that short of stumbling into a trap game every week, the Giants will be hard-pressed to rack up many wins on the remaining schedule. Is this a trap? We’ll see but we’re also aware of games that don’t smell right and this one lines up as such. Be careful. Recommendation: N.Y. Giants +3½ (No bets).

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SEATTLE -8 over Washington

4:05 PM EST. This game should probably make our board but it won’t because it’s a prediction and not a value play. It is of our always humble opinion that the Redskins will likely get crushed here for a number of reasons. First, the culture in Washington is that when things start to go downhill, the locker hasn’t shown us for years that they can stop the bleeding. Kirk Cousins is now being told he’s nothing more than a replacement level QB and does not belong in the upper tier of NFL starting QB’s. That assessment is probably true too. The Redskins have dropped two straight and continue to be limited by their lack of a credible rushing game.

The Seahawks have won 27 of their past 33 home games, including all three this season. Add to that the injuries Washington is dealing with -- tight end Jordan Reed, left tackle Trent Williams, right guard Brandon Scherff and receiver Jamison Crowder -- and their task is even tougher. There's a chance four backups will start along the line here. If the Redskins are to stay within range, they are going to need some bounces and calls (refs) but that’s not likely in Seattle. Washington is 0-4 vs. high-level mobile quarterbacks and the Seahawks just picked up left tackle Duane Brown (one of the best in the biz) to protect Russell Wilson’s blind side. With their top weakness addressed and Russell Wilson off to the best statistical start of his career, there's a lot to like about the Seahawks' here. However, we are also aware that playing the Seahawks means spotting inflated points and it’s for that reason we are not stepping into this one. Recommendation Seattle -8 (No bets).

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DALLAS -2½ over Kansas City

The will he, won’t he, he will until he doesn’t saga of Ezekiel Elliot took a couple of more turns this week when Zeke was again suspended but then granted an appeal so he will play this week. While Elliot is getting the majority of the headlines, second-year pivot Dak Prescott is quietly having a really good year throwing for 1569 yards, 14 touchdowns with just four interceptions in seven games this season but it’s not just the surface numbers that are looking good for him. Prescott’s QBR is 74.0 which is second best in the NFL. QBR was developed to measure the degree to which a quarterback contributed to scoring points for the team, and also to a win by the team. Prescott is also a top DVOA (a relevant metric that measures defense adjusted value over average) QB (7th) and DYAR (8th) (Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement). Along with Zeke, the Cowboys offense brings a great balance and Elliot leads all runners in DYAR with 184 yards and he’s 4th in rushing DVOA.  A big reason for the ‘Boys offensive success is because of their stout offensive line, which is 3rd in power running success at 82%. The guys up front are great pass blockers too, as Dallas is fifth in adjusted sack rate at just 4% and allowing only nine sacks all season. Dallas is 4-3 and just 1-2 at home but after two straight road wins, the ‘Boys look to be trending in the right direction.

The Chiefs' accomplishments so far this season have been well documented after they started the year with a blowout win over the Patriots. K.C. is 6-2 and tied for the best record in the AFC after beating the Broncos at home on Monday Night Football but there have been some cracks forming, especially on the defensive side of the ball. K.C. brings the 28th ranked run defense into this game and with Zeke rushing for 297 yards the last two games, that is going to be a tough matchup for this unit. Under the hood, it doesn’t get much better for the D.  The Chiefs are 26th in total defensive DVOA including 31st against the run suggesting they are actually worse than the surface stats suggest when it comes to stopping the ground game. One of the worst spots for perceived strong team is playing a division rival in prime time, whacking them and subsequently playing on the road against an opposite conference opponent they rarely see. Kansas City has played the role of conquering heroes a bit too much this year and thus, it is the Cowboys, not the Chiefs that are being sold short here. Recommendation: DALLAS -2½ (No bets).

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