From Oct. 10: Week 5
What a week. We won Monday night and took a hit on Thursday. We are not here to pick losers, but they happen. Tampa Bay lost out right to the Bears. It was a night where Tampa Bay had 11 penalties for 109 yards. Tampa was without most of their weapons. I was going to blame the O Line for not protecting Brady but took into consideration the players who were out with an injury.
Their #2 wide out Chris Godwin, RB Le Sean McCoy, WR Justin Watson, and TE OJ Howard are out for the season. Running back Leonard Fournette was dressed but did not play due to a sprained ankle. Their #1 WR Mike Evans played with a sprained ankle and only caught 5 passes for 41 yards and finally WR Scotty Miller who has shined the first 4 weeks played injured with a hip and groin injury caught nothing.
Penalties and injuries beat Tampa Thursday night. It would have been nice to disclose that Miller, Evans and Fournette were not game ready. We will keep an eye on Tampa and the not so good Bears at 4 – 1.
Tomorrow the 0 – 4 Texans are home against the 1 – 3 Jaguars. If we take a deeper look into the game, you will see that Houston opened the first 4 weeks of the season against KC, Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Minnesota. The first three games were against 3 of the best teams in the NFL.
The week 4 loss was an interesting game, because the man calling the Offense for the Vikings was Gary Kubiak. He got fired at the end of the 2013 season as HC in Houston and replaced by Bill O’Brien. The Viking also have another former Texan HC Don Capers, who was in Houston from 2002 to 2005. He is the senior assistant defensive coach. It’s fair to say the Vikings who also opened up against 3 power teams, Green Bay, Indy, and Tennessee were ready for Houston on the field and off.
We looked at the first 4 Jacksonville games to see how they match up today. The Jags beat the Colts in week 1 and Indy was just not ready. They lost their #1 running back Marlon Mack for the year, early in the game and Rivers threw 2 interceptions. They also missed a field goal. Despite all the happened, The Jags won by 7.
The have lost the last 3 games to Tennessee, Miami and Cincinnati. Before the season started the over / under on total wins for Jacksonville was 4 ½. The Line for tomorrow’s game between Jacksonville and Houston is – 5 ½. We like Houston at home with fans, a new head coach and the right attitude on the field to beat the Jags. We are buying a point and taking them at – 4 ½.
We are also going with KC at home against the Raiders. KC has given up 70 points this season compared to the 120 the Raiders have given up. The line is – 11 and felt there is more value buying 1 ½ points to be below 10.
The 3rd game of the day are the Steelers at home against the Eagles. The line is -7 and their defense is #1 in the league allowing just 58 points so far. We believe that Pittsburgh at home should win. We are buying 1 point to bring it down to -6. This early in the season, there is better value to bring the line under.