Super Five Picks

OK, sorry if you took our advice last week. We have never gone 0-5. I guess we should have known better than to take all favors in a week that featured 10 home dogs.

Here are our season numbers so far (against the spread).

Super Five: 5-9-1

Against the Spread (all games): 26-20-1

Straight Up: 28-17

Over/Under: 27-18-2

We will strike a better balance this week with our Super Five Selections. Here we go with our reasons!

New Orleans -3

New England -9

Jacksonville -3.5

Houston +1.5

New York Giants +3

New Orleans looked really good last week and sometimes it takes a couple of weeks to work out the kinks, especially since so many teams are not taking the preseason seriously with their star players. This game will be in London so it's a neutral field. One has to think that Miami is still figuring things out after not playing Week 1. They haven't been home for a while so this has to be a rough stretch. They have looked out of sorts and Brees is very good an exploiting team's weaknesses. I mean the Jets have no offense and a re JV squad yet they dominated the Dolphins. The Saints don't have much of a defense but they do have an offense. Saints will win a close one. Prediction: New Orleans 28 - Miami 24.
New England is favored to beat Carolina by 7.58 points using the GE model. So -9 is a lot. However, our intuition tells us that if the Patriots can go into the Superdome and put ass whooping on the Saints but the Panthers cannot do the same when they hosted the Saints, then why would Carolina make the game competitive when travelling to Foxborough? I know anything can happen on any given Sunday but we have to think that Tom Brady is now clicking and the Panthers are still figuring things out with the rash of injuries they have had to endure. For example, tight end Greg Olsen is out for a while. Cam Newton and Kelvin Benjamin are hobbled. The only true threat is rookie running back Christian McCaffrey who is uber-talented but Bill Belichick is the master at taking away the opposition's best offensive weapon. Patriots win by at least two TDs. Prediction: New England 34 - Carolina 17.
The Jaguars return from London by absolutely destroying the Ravens. I don't think there has been a more lopsided game thus far in this young NFL season. Now they get to lick their chops thinking of ways they can demolish the Jets as they travel to the Big Apple. This game has the lowest predicted point total of the day so expect the Jaguars to not let the Jets score. That is right, we are predicting a shutout. With two strong corners like Jalen Ramsey and A.J. Bouye and no quality WRs for the Jets, the Jaguars will have the luxury of stacking the box. Bilal Powell won't find any room to run and Josh McCown will be running for his life. Prediction: Jacksonville 39 - NY Jets 0.
We will go with another AFC South team, this time the Houston Texans. The Texans have been off to a slow start but with DeShaun Watson starting his first game at home, NRG Stadium will be buzzing. The defense is still taking time to adjust to the regular season but it will be back soon. The Titans offense is very good so this game could be a shootout. We feel the lack of defense from Tennessee is what we will do them in. DeAndre Hopkins hasn't had a big game in a while but that all changes today. His historical numbers against Tennessee is very, very good with his best game of his career taking place in 2014 (9 receptions, 238 yards, and 2 TDs). He is due to breakout so we will roll with Houston. Prediction: Houston 27 - Tennessee 20.
Lastly we will end with an underdog ... the New York "football" Giants. They looked better last week with OBJ back which is no coincidence. The Bucs are a tricky team to figure out. They have offensive talent but seem to be lacking in defense. This game can be close so we will say that the team holding the ball last will win with a last second FG. Prediction: NY Giants 20 - Tampa Bay 19.

Here are the other teams we expect to cover this week: GB, BUF, CLE, LAR, MIN, BAL, SF, PHI, DEN, IND, and WAS.

Here are our Overs-Unders predictions.

Overs: CHI-GB, NO-MIA, CIN-CLE, DET-MIN, CAR-NE, JAX-NYJ, TEN-HOU, SF-ARZ, IND-SEA

Unders: BUF-ATL, LAR-DAL, PIT-BAL, PHI-LAC, NYG-TB, OAK-DEN, WAS-KC

Good luck!