Big Five Picks for 2018 NFL Week 8

Picking NFL winners can be a fickle business. Week 6 was great where we almost were a perfect 5-0. Last week we started 0-3 but salvaged things with the LA Rams and NY Giants covering. For the season, we are 17-17-1. .500 is not bad with 10 weeks to go. Our plan is to go 70% the rest of the way or essentially alternate 3-2 and 4-1 weeks.

As usual, our lines come from Westgate. Here is who we like for Week 8.

  1. Miami +7.5
  2. Seattle +3
  3. Indianapolis -3
  4. New Orleans Pick'em
  5. New England -13.5

We are basing our predictions on how much our model differs from the actual point spread. Our model had Miami beating Houston by 2.4 points this past Thursday and we were wrong again with the Dolphins. I think we are done with Miami for a while. FootballOutsiders.com has them ranked high with DVOA but perhaps something is not right with that ranking.

Here is our analysis for the other 4 games.

  1. Seattle should actually win this game by nearly 9 points according to our model. Apparently Football Outsiders.com is not a fan of the Detroit Lions. Even with such a huge differential, we will still stick with Seattle. Even though these Seahawks are a far cry from the Legion of Boom days a few years ago, they have been competitive in all of their games this season. They have an identical record as the Lions so we feel confident that Seattle not just covers but wins this game outright.

  2. The Colts might be 2-5 but they are a lot better than that. Their point differential for the season is +4 while it's -66 for Oakland. The Raiders have pretty much shown that they are tanking this season after letting Khalil Mack go early in the season and now shipping Amari Cooper to Dallas. Perhaps head coach Jon Gruden wants to do a rebuild effort now so that the team is poised for success when they move to Sin City in 2020. Whatever the case, this Raiders team is awful and with Andrew Luck finally back to his old self, the Colts should win this game by a TD so -3 is good value.

  3. Now we move onto the night games. New Orleans is somewhat flying under the radar. All the rage is about the Rams and Chiefs amazing starts. The Patriots of course will garner a lot of attention as long as Bill Belichick and Tom Brady keep doing their thing. However, the Saints are right there with those three teams at 5-1 and they will keep marching on! This time they have another tough road game in Minnesota. The Vikings have proven lately that the loss to Buffalo earlier in the season was a fluke by winning three straight games. However, those games were against mediocre or weak competition. Drew Brees knows how to win on the road and with all of his offensive weapons healthy, we will go with the Saints to win this game outright. Our model has New Orleans winning by 6 points so maybe we get an exciting, game winning TD in OT. This game should be a fun one to watch, especially with the revenge factor for New Orleans given what happened in the playoffs last year. Saints will be hungry for this one.

  4. I rarely advise anyone to give up nearly 2 TDs when picking against the spread. However, our model has New England winning by 20 points and we can see a 34 - 13 type of game, here. Buffalo is awful and if the Colts can beat them by 32 points, the Patriots can do the same. The game is in Buffalo and on Monday Night but the Bills are a JV squad and the Patriots have owned them for pretty much the last 18 years. This game will be ugly and it's too bad the NFL can't flex out Monday Night games. Expect an ass whooping here for Buffalo.

OK, I think we will go 4-1. No parlays. Just do single wagers on each game and keep pressing your winnings with each game. We will check in again next week!