Week 7
We haven’t lost in two weeks. Nothing can stop us. We’re feeling our oats. Well, not in a hit-on-your-boss’s-wife kind of way. But you get the idea.
College Football
Andy: Things were going bad for me in this space before my brief hiatus, and since my departure Matt has gone on an absolute heater. Why return, and disrupt a good thing? Because I need the cheap adrenaline rush of a modest wager to distract from my crippling fear of death.
Oklahoma State is one of a handful of ranked underdogs against unranked teams, including two top ten teams. Sounds like square bait, and as your resident square I’m going for it.
Iowa State has righted the ship the last two weeks against Kansas and Kansas State, but I’m happy to bet the Cowboys are a good team not getting enough respect, especially with a touchdown cushion.
Andy’s Saturday pick: Oklahoma State (+7) over IOWA STATE
Matt: We all missed Andy Keatts, didn’t we folks? I had sharps coming up to me all the time—big, strong guys—they had tears in their eyes, and they were saying to me, “Sir, Andy Keatts, we miss him, please bring him back.” And that’s what we did, folks. We brought him back. They said we couldn’t do it. They said nobody could do it, not even China. But we did it. And now we have Andy Keatts—the generals tell me it’s best Andy Keatts we’ve seen in 45 years, and maybe the best ever. Isn’t that great? The best Andy Keatts ever. But they’re still unfair to us, the media. They won’t give us the credit. They’re very unfair. They don’t like Andy Keatts. They say Andy Keatts is no good. But we like him, don’t we folks?
There weren’t any CFB lines I really loved this week, but sometimes you just have to power through to give the people what they want. The pick that makes the most sense to me is Wake Forest as a 3-point favorite at Army. Army’s a decent team but I do not think they can keep up with Wake’s dynamic, multifaceted offense that currently ranks 12th in the country in scoring. They’re effective on the ground and they’ve been getting outstanding production from Sam Hartman, their sophomore quarterback. Army’s defended well (that’s generally what you want from your army) but they have not faced anywhere near as potent an attack as Wake’s this season. If the cadets can’t slow the Demon Deacons down, Army will find itself in a shootout it can’t win.
Matt’s Saturday pick: Wake Forest (-3) over ARMY
NFL
Andy: If you look past the allegations of organizational misconduct that led the Washington Football Team to conduct an investigation into itself, leading to the discovery of damning emails sent by Jon Gruden that WFT owner Dan Snyder then allegedly leaked to the press to distract from his organization’s behavior, leading a Congressional committee to request the results of that investigation from the league, what you’ll see is a group of athletes who happen to be terrible at football.
WFT, in retrospect, had all the hallmarks of a first-to-worst team coming into the season. They were carried last year by a great defense, but defenses are far less likely to carry over from one season to the next in the modern NFL. Sure enough, they’re second to last in the league in yards allowed a game, leaving a defense-first team with a horrible defense. Taylor Heinicke’s plucky playoff performance last year seems like a lifetime ago. There’s just nothing here.
Do I love the Packers performance this year? No, and for the life of me I still don’t understand what Aaron Rodgers is so upset about. But they’ve won five straight by an average of 8.5 points, and they’re only giving 7.5 at home against a trash team.
Andy’s Sunday pick: PACKERS (-7.5) over Washington Football Team
Matt: If I told you the Eagles were only getting 3 points on the road this week, who would you think they were playing? Some mediocre-to-bad team like the Vikings or the Broncos, right? That would make sense because the Eagles themselves are mediocre-to-bad and getting 3 points as the away team is generally an indicator that the teams are evenly matched. You might be surprised to learn that the Raiders are on the other side of that line. I certainly was.
Okay, so Vegas is only laying 3 at home – maybe Josh Jacobs is hurt again? Nope. Maybe Maxx Crosby has a nagging injury or something? Not that I can see. Then what’s going on here? I’m really not sure – I wonder if it has anything to do with the Raiders not yet winning a home game in regulation this season. That strikes me as a quirk rather than a trend, though, so I’m not too worried about it.
Philly, though? Hoo boy. Four defeats and a pair of wins against poor teams in Atlanta and Carolina (the hoped-for Sam Darnold renaissance—Darnolution? Darnovation?—whatever you call it, it hasn’t materialized) plus a string of lousy performances by Jalen Hurts in what is surely a make-or-break season for him do not inspire confidence. Also, Dallas Goedert’s out and they just traded away Zach Ertz, so I assume Brent Celek is suiting up at TE this week. A good team is playing a lousy one, and the good team is at home. Lay the field goal.
Matt’s Sunday pick: RAIDERS (-3) over Eagles
Keeping score:
Matt: 6-4
Andy: 2-4
What do you think of the picks? Leave a comment.