Thursday Night Football
If you watched the game on Thursday you saw a barn burner from the kick off to the final whistle. The Rams and the Vikings did not disappoint viewers. The Vikings started out the contest with a touchdown drive that lasted nearly half the quarter. The Rams answered with their first possession in just a 1:55 to tie the game at 7 at the end of the first. In the second quarter the Vikings scored a touchdown and two field goals, while the Rams spread the points gap with three touchdowns of their own making the score at the end of the half 20-28 in favor of the Rams. In the 3rd and 4th quarters each team added another touchdown and field goal, with the Vikings getting a 2pt conversion. The Final score would be the Rams over the Vikings with a score of 31-38 according to BING.com.
Sunday, Sunday, Sunday
Week 4 will bring eight early games this Sunday by NFL.com. The Jets and Jaguars also the Dolphins at the Patriots and the Eagles at the Titans. The Texans at the Colts, Bills at Packers and the Lions at the Cowboys will also be playing. The Buccaneers at the Bears and the Bengals at the Falcons will round out the early games. The late games will be the Seahawks at the Cardinals, Browns at Raiders and the Saints at the Giants. Sunday night will showcase the 49ers at the Chargers and on Monday Night the Ravens at the Steelers.
So this week I am jumping on the Mayfield train, I can’t wait to see this kid play again. What he brings to the table for the Browns is amazing. He inspires each and every player on both sides of the ball to play better. I will be interested in seeing if he can continue where he left off in his first start. He has a matchup that is tailor made for a rookie QB. The Raiders are 0-3, can’t rush the QB, and according to RAIDERS.com their power rankings are some of the lowest in the league even amongst all sources.
There are two teams not playing and on byes this week the Panthers and the Washington Redskins. There will be plenty of action between the teams that are playing to entertain us between the hours of 1pm and 12am ET.
My prediction for the game of the week will be the Monday Night game between the Ravens and the Steelers. These two teams share one of the biggest rivalries in football. Each team is set up virtually the same so there is no secrets between them. In the last 10 years the wins and losses are split 10-10, with most games decided by one score according to MSN.com. I expect a fairly low scoring game with the Steelers prevailing in the end 24-20.
Bold Predictions
This weeks bold predictions I am once again going to pick on the New England Patriots. With last weeks loss to the Lions I think this week will bring another loss against the unbeaten Dolphins. I know what you are thinking, that is not that bold and you would be right. Factor in Brady’s record of wins after a loss according to BETLABS and the fact that the Patriots have not had a 1-3 start since 2001 and that the Fins will beat the Patriots by a score of 33-10 in Foxboro, that’s BOLD.
Bills will once again topple an NFC North team by beating the Packers at home. With a score of 28-21 the Bills do it in style and in OT.
The Jets will upset the Jags at home with a win and Darnold will out score and out throw Bortles by throwing 4 touchdowns and over 400 yards.
The Bears will open the veil of Fitzmagic and find their offense to beat the Bucs by a score of 37-28. The Bears defense will also have more sacks on Fitzpatrick then he has touchdown passes.
The Giants will beat the Saints 31-17 and hold Breeze to under 200 passing yards. The head to head matchup between OBJ and Michael Thomas along with Shaquan Barkley and Alvin Kamara will end up with OBJ and Barkley winning out in both receiving yards and rushing yards of the Saints, Thomas and Kamara.
Fantasy
You may have multiple players on your roster that are on the same team. You may run into a situation where the best option is to start a WR and a RB who play on the same team. Worse yet you may have no better option but to start two WR from the same team. This past Thursday was that case for me and I chose to bench one and take a chance on another player from my bench that was projected to get less points. This came back to bite me a little. I have Cooper Kupp and Robert Woods from the Rams. I started Woods and benched Kupp looking back at it I should have started both with the points that each made. Woods earned me 16 points which was respectable, but Kupp earned 28 and was on the bench.
I am not an advocate of rostering multiple players from the same teams due to the choice that has to be made on who to start. You win some and you loose some, and when you loose you usually kick yourself in the butt because it was your decision. To prevent that heartache try to keep it to one player per team unless you are handcuffing a position in case of injury. That way no decisions have to be made.
Pay attention to the projected points of your players. These projections are statistical averages so they are not always right but they give a good guide to the potential performance of your players. Some players just use their gut to predict what a player will do. They factor in coverage’s, weather, type of surface that is being played on, etc. I can’t say there is a science to it, but there is some if not a lot of guess work to it.