NFL: Game Day Pre-flections

Laddie Morse

It’s a day without Kansas City Chiefs football. So… what’s a guy supposed to do? Well, I can watch some football even though my favorite team is on mid-season va-ca today. What else can I do? I can predict the scores of up and coming games… so… that’s exactly what I’ll do.

Thursday Night Football

This is more of a “reflection” than a pre-flection” but here it is nonetheless. The 1-and-7 Carolina Panthers — who are now 1-and-8 — lost a real heartbreaker to the 2-and-7 Chicago Bears who are now 3-and-7 by a score of 16-to-13. Who are we kidding? No one’s heart was broken by this non-lopsided loss.

On the other hand, more people tuned in than we thought they might. Just goes to show the power of the NFL right now. In an article written by Anthony Rizzuti called, “Panthers, Bears draw surprising ratings in Week 10” for pantherwire.usatoday.com it said:

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“Despite being the curtain jerker for what was dubbed as 2023’s worst slate of featured games, Thursday night’s showdown between the Panthers and Bears drew quite the number of eyes. According to Nielsen’s National TV Ratings, the broadcast averaged 9.56 million viewers—up 41 percent from last year’s Week 10 Thursday nighter.”

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The 4-and-5 Indianapolis Colt host the 2-and-7 New England Patriots in what might be the worst game of Week 10. The Colts, who are playing at Home in Lucas Oil Stadium is not so much of an advantage as you’d think. Road teams have a 41-to-37 advantage this season, so far. One of the Pats wins was on the road but they also had a couple of games in the middle of the first half of the year when they could only score 3 points: 38-to-3 to the Cowboys and 34-to-0 to the Saints. For those at home doing the Math, that’s 72-to-3.

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Prediction: 24-to-14, Colts

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Today, the surprising 4-and-4 Houston Texans are at the 5-and-3 Cincinnati Bengals. Unless a key piece of the Bengals team gets hurt early on in this game, the Bengals should handle the Texans.

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Prediction: 28-to-10, Bengals

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The 5-and-4 Saints will be visiting the 5-and-4 Vikings today. When it comes to even matches like this one I’d go with the hone team who has a stabke QB situation. On the other hand, Cousin’s situation in Minnesota is not as stable as you’d like to think. He hurt his Achilles two weeks ago and will be out of 9 months or so and he’s also a free agent this coming offseason. Backup QB Joshua Dobbs looks to be the man of the moment, but he’s no starter to bank on. The Saints should win going away.

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Prediction: 31-to-17, Saints

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The 3-and-5 Green Bay Packers travel to play the 5-and-3 Pittsburgh Steelers today. If CB Jaire Alexander can’t play today — becasue of a hurt shoulder, the Pack won’t have much of a defensive backfield to cover the Steelers newest WR tandem in George Pickens and Diontae Johnson. On the other hand, the Packers OL will be missing some man-power and that’s never a good thing when your about to face perhaps the best — outside of the Chiefs murderer’s row — DL in the business. That means both teams will try to run the ball a ton and the Pack will go with Aaron Jones and A.J. Dillon while the Steel-men will go with Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren. I just hope the Packers QB, Jordan Love, makes it out of this game alive.

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Prediction: 32-to-28, Steelers

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The 4-and-4 Tennessee Titans go to Tampa to take on the 3-and-5 Buccaneers. The Bucs have lost four in a row and they appear to be doing everything possible to expand that streak. With Baker Mayfield at QB, who could doubt that take. Of course, he’s the best they’ve had at QB since Tom Brayd made his retirement plans clear before the beginning of last season. While the Bucs run defense is 9th best at the moment, and the Titans rushing attack looks vulnerable — for the first time in the Derrick Henry era (23rd best) — the Mike Vrabel method of running the ball down their opponents throats still lives on. Aaron Schatz of ESPN has published an article and said that the Titans OL is one of the 8 most imporved OLs in the NFL so no one should doubt what the Titans plan is for today. Run. Run. Run.

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Prediction: 17-to-14, Titans

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The 5-and-3 San Francisco 49ers visit the 6-and-2 Jacksonville Jaguars. This game could be a forecast of the Super Bowl… just kidding… who wants to see the Jags in a Super Bowl anyway?! However, the 49ers should give us all the information we need to see if the Jags are really as good as their record. They’ve faced the Falcons, Colts (twice), and the Texans… all teams without winning records. On the other hand, they have a five (5) game winning streak at the moment which followed a 1-and-2 record to begin the season. On the other side of the field, the 49ers are the owners of a three game losing streak to the Browns, the Viking and the Bengals. In each game the 9ers only scored 17 points. I believe they score more than that today and come back to the winning side of the ledger. Dispite the losses, the 49ers defense is ranked #1 in the league while the Jags are ranked 18th.

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Prediction: 24-to-17, 49ers

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The 5-and-3 Cleveland Browns travel to the 7-and-2 Baltimore Ravens. While many are of the opinion that the Ravens have the best Defense in the NFL, that priveledge belongs to the Browns (Chiefs come in third)… in profootballnetworks.com‘s opinion. Does that mean the Browns will march into M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore and whip them Ravens. Not necessarily. Dalton Miller of ProfootballNetwork said of the Browns:

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“… they started with the Cincinnati Bengals in awful weather. Then, they moved on to a Pittsburgh Steelers offense that looked lost in Week 2, and they finished their opening schedule with a dominating performance against the Tennessee Titans, who have arguably the worst offensive line in the NFL.”

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The Browns played their last game at Home and just beat the pitiful Arizona Cardinal by a score of 27-to-nothing! The Cards are 1-and-8 and will likely be picking first in the upcoming draft. The Ravens are 7-and-2 and jsut beat the Seattle Seahawks 37-to-3, plus they’re riding a four game winning streak. I’m going with the Ravens here.

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Prediction: 28-to-21, Ravens

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The 4-and-5 Atlanta Falcons travel to Phoenix to play the 1-and-8 Arizona Cardinals. This is another loser-ish of a game. The Falcons started the season by winnign their first two games but have gone 2-and 5 since. The Cards started their season with two losses then went 1-and-6 since. That oen win was a miracle of sorts over the Cowboys, 28-to-16. Could this be the week that offenses across the NFl wake up? Not in this game. I’m going with the better team: the Falcons.

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Prediction: 17-to-10, Falcons

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The Detroit Lions are playing L.A in L.A. this time around and it means something important to the players involved. The Rams at 3-and-6 will try to whip the visiting Lions who are 6-and-2 and maybe for the first time since DET traded their elite QB to the Rams, the Lions are favored. Bleacher Report writes that the Lions are favored by 2.5 points even though the game is being played out west. Matthew Stafford has said he’s not retiring just yet but has also stated that he’s not going to play until… “the wheels fall off.” The Lions appear to be “on a mission” and one of those missions is to beat the team that traded Jared Goff (the Rams ex-QB) out of L.A.. Sean McVay may be a football genius, but it’s hard for me to see the Rams lifting themselves up high enough to pull this one out over the Lions. Not this time around.

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Prediction: 32-to-21, Lions

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The 2-and-7 New York Giants are travelign to play the 5-and-3 Dallas Cowboys. While I will be picking the Boys in this game, I have a bone to pick with Jerry Jones. Ever since he fired Jimmy Johnson, his team has sucked a big one. Yes, the won the Super Bowl XXX in January of 1996, with Barry Switzer at the helm but he did it with all of Jimmy Johnson’s player. Period. Everyone who lives in Dallas knows it and I lived and taught in the area for 20 years so I know first hand what many fans in that area beleive. You are in the way of the team achieving greatness and that is so, so sad. i still have relatives who live in that area and they say the same thing. Over and over… fire yourself by hiring a legitimate GM. Yiu are no GM. Please, get out of the way. Dallas may win this game, but it doesn;t mean this tema is going anywhere (in the playoffs).

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Prediction: 33-to-14, Cowboys

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The 4-and-5 Washington Commanders are playing the 5-and-3 Seahawks in Seattle. This is a tough one to pick. Partly becasue of my bias towards the Commanders and that has everything to do with Eric Bieniemy. The Commanders are 2-and 5 in their last seven games and the win last week was by 20-to-17 over the Patriots and they are just plain bad. Maybe the worst they’ve played in over 25 years. The Seahawks are 5-and-2 over their last seven games but just last week, they lost 37-to-3 to the Ravens. Now, we know the Ravens are a really good team but even so, to only score 3 points? That’s horrible. The Seahawks are at Home and the Commanders have along flight there so based on that, I’m going with a huge bounce back for Geno Smith and the Seahawks.

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Prediction: 27-to-24, Seahawks

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The 4-and-4 N.Y. Jets make their way west today to play the 4-and-5 Las Vegas Raiders. The Raiders are just as pitiful a team as there has ever been. I don’t know how they won four games this year, maybe it’s because they have Davante Adams. Hunter Renfrow is an excellent WR… when he’s healthy. However, Renfrow was just placed on the IR list. Josh Jacobs is as good a RB as their is in the NFL, but hte Raiders have messed with him and he’s on a one-year deal and could fly away at season end. If I were him, I’d do just that. DE Maxx Crosby is perhaps the best fourth round defensive lineman in the league, and although Crosby says he’s been sober for three years he also says that over coming addiction has been his greatest hurdle. If any of you recall what it was like to be a fan of the Chiefs when Jared Allen was dealing with his suspension for DUIs and substance abuse addiction, it’s a heart ache, nothing but a heart ache. I’m giving this one to the Jets.

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Prediction: 24-to-21, Jets

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Monday Night Football

The 3-and-4 Denver Broncos are traveling to the 5-and-4 Buffalo Bills to play a game on MNF. The Broncos game vs the Chiefs was their best win of the year, for sure. I sat and had lunch with relatives from the Denver area today — on Saturday — and they acted like it was their SB victory. I’m happy for the Buffalo Bills that they get a golden prime time game on Monday Night Football, but to play the Broncos is fools gold for sure. That being said, the team from Denver is coming off of their Bye Week and could be ready to rumble. The Bills don’t get their Bye Week until the first week of December, but the bad news for the Kingdom is, it’s right before they travel to K.C. to play the Chiefs. I don’t really think the Broncos can beat the Bills in Buffalo even if they had a month off to prepare. Obviously, I’m taking the BIlls.

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Prediction: 37-to-10, Bills

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Laddie Morse — ArrowheadOne

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