Patriots, Steelers Enter the AFC Free-for-All Mike Tanier 01 Nov 2021, 02:28 am
The entire AFC must have attended a pre-Halloween booze cruise on Saturday night, and they were still a little tipsy when Sunday arrived.
That’s as logical written explanations as any for the Pittsburgh Steelers’ upset over the Cleveland Browns, the New England Patriots’ upset of the Los Angeles Chargers, the New York Jets’ upset of the Cincinnati Bengals, and whatever the heck the Tennessee Titans and Indianapolis Colts did to each other in Week 8.
It feels as though every darn crew in the AFC is either 4-4 and rising or 5-3 and falling right now. If the season ended today, there wouldn’t be a Super Bowl, because every crew in the conference is either too flawed to induce the playoffs or was on bye this week.
Yes, Walkthrough is aware that it does not work that behavior. Mike White is going to be the AFC Player of the Week, folks. We’re through the ever-lovin’ looking glass.
Anyway, Walkthrough is paid to make sense of this stuff, so we’ll do our best. It’s currently impossible to untie the knot of AFC squads hovering at or above. 500, in part because more than one team that appeared clueless on Sunday is likely to build the playoffs. But Week 8 did teach us several lessons. Here then there 😛 TAGEND
Don’t mistake the caricature of the Steelers offense for the real thing. Yes, Ben Roethlisberger is creaky. Heck, he got away with a flutterball that caromed off two Browns champions at the start of the third quarter. And yes, the Steelers offensive line remains a danger to itself and Roethlisberger. But the Steelers aren’t relying alone on wide receiver screens and flare passes to Najee Harris on fourth-and-long the style they were a month ago. The Steelers have created a stable, semi-functional running and short passing game that complements their defense and will keep them in a lot of games in the second largest half of the season.
The Steelers could easily be 6-3 after they host the Bears and Lions over the next two weeks. It’s past time to abandon the Pappy Roethlisberger jokes and acknowledge that they’re as much of a competitor as crews such as the Browns, Bengals, Titans, or Chargers.
Bill Belichick might just push the Patriots into the playoffs through sheer force of will. If you want to see how sound coaching and big-play experience help a crew such as the Patriots win plays, check out their seven-minute fourth-quarter field goal drive to frost away what ended as a 27 -2 4 succes over the Chargers. Jakobi Meyers and Damien Harris each stayed in bounds at the end of productive plays that culminated along the sideline, permitting the Patriots to munch the clock and keep the ball out of Justin Herbert’s hands until it was too late.
The Patriots leveraged other little advantages on Sunday, including a two-point conversion and several long punt returns. They stop finding ways to play ahead of the sticks on offense. They were scarcely flawless–their goal-to-go offense is a mess–but the Patriots did enough “put themselves in position to win” stuff to throw themselves … you get wise. They also remain very strong in the furrows, which of course is a big deal.
Don’t-lose-the-game tactics are no way to reach the Super Bowl, but they are fine for protecting and developing Mac Jones and for bobbing along in the wild-card race. The Patriots face the Panthers, Browns, and Falcons over the next three weeks. A 3-0 passed is possible over that stretch, especially with the Browns looking so vulnerable on Sunday.
Speaking of which…
Baker Mayfield’s performance is a becoming a problem for the Browns. Mayfield( 20 -of-2 1, 244 gardens, 0 TD, 0 INT) is basically Mac Jones right now: the screen passes are awesome, the soft pitches between the numbers to wide-open tight extremities are fine, and everything else is an issue. Mayfield suffered a few drops and a critical late-game Jarvis Landry fumble, but drops-off are often a quarterback stat: many of them came on low- to moderate-degree-of-difficulty sheds that Brown receivers had to reach back or over their chiefs for.
Feel free to discuss the future contract ramifications of Mayfield’s performance, the impact of his linger shoulder hurt, and other Mayfield-related matters in the comment thread; we’ll be circling back to all of that stuff every few weeks anyway. For now, the Browns just aren’t good enough to be anything but bottom-of-the-playoff-seedings seat-fillers until they develop a downfield extending attack.
The Chargers are too flawed in too many ways to be taken seriously as Super Bowl contenders. The Chargers demonstrated once again on Sunday that their move protection is low and that their special squads remain a sinkhole: the Patriots moved for 141 gardens, while Gunner Olszewski looked like Devin Hester against them on multiple punt returns.
The Chargers’ biggest issue, nonetheless, seem to be their reliance on Justin Herbert to bail them out on third downs. The Chargers entered their loss to the Patriots graded 23 rd in first down offense but a respectable ninth on second downs, but it felt like they spent the entire second half trying to convert third-and-8.
There’s plenty of chamber in an AFC playoff field for one more flawed squad. The Chargers visit the Eagles next week and got a few potential gimmes on their long-range schedule( Giants, Texans ). But the Vikings could hammer out a win against them in Week 10 by following the Patriots formula, and fellow middleweights such as the Steelers and Bengals could cause trouble for a squad that simply absence fit ‘n’ finish right now.
The Titans are deviation monsters. The Titans won the Liberty Bowl and clinched the automatic playoff bunk from the Sun Belt Conference with Sunday’s chaotic neutral 34 -3 1 overtime win over the Prisoners of Wentz. That said, it’s hard to tell what Titan team we are getting from week to week or quarter to quarter. Or even from the start of a play-act until the end. The signature play of Sunday’s game–and perhaps of the entire AFC South experience–was when Ryan Tannehill flung an ugly third-and-long interception to Tyquan Lewis, who fumbled the ball back to the Titans on the return. That set up a 55 -yard A.J. Brown touchdown pass on the next play-act. Lewis was injured on his interception, as were all of the Internet’s win probability calculators.
Here’s a operating template on how to make sense of the Titans moving forward 😛 TAGEND
The Titans will clobber crews with bad run defenses but were subject to crews with strong drain protections. If the Titans avoided early turnovers and a high penalty total, they can beat almost any opponent. When Ryan Tannehill goes on one of his rare-but-noticeable turnover sprees and/ or the Titans protection hands the opposing multiple first downs on retributions, the Titans are just the Falcons with a great running back. The turnover and retribution sprees always seem and disappear without warning.
Hope that helps.( It does not contribute to .) Again: the good news is that we can all only pencil the Titans into the fourth playoff seeding and ignore them until January.
The Bills need to play better situational football. The Statutes gazed nothing like the AFC’s best crew by using three quarterss against the Miami Dolphins. Or perhaps they did, since Sunday’s biggest takeaway may well be that our promises for the entire AFC are too high.
Anyway, the Bills’ biggest issues came on third and fourth downs. Josh Allen led quarterback influence and get stuffed on third-and-9 early in video games. Zach Moss get stuffed on third-and-1, then the Statutes punted on fourth-and-2 near midfield. Allen objective up operating for his life on a neglected fourth-and-4 conversion attempt. Isaiah McKenzie also muffed a punt which virtually resulted in a safety, adding to the general sense that the Bills thought they could phone in a victory.
Fortunately, the Dolphins coughed up a boneheaded fumble in the red zone just before halftime and more-or-less surrendered against the move late in the game, permitting the Bills to come away with a 26 -1 1 victory that was much closer than the score suggests.
Super Bowl-contenders sometimes have to scratch out divisional wins. But Sunday’s moderate scare seemed a lot like the Bills’ opening day loss to the Steelers, and it may have disclosed the Bills’ greatest weakness: their situational play calling and executing can be really wonky, and it gets them into trouble in close games.
Also, Josh Allen isn’t exactly running away with the MVP award everyone tried to giftwrap for him the summer months, but that’s a topic for another time.
The Bengals coaching staff could still spoil their party. Every time Walkthrough checked in on the 34 -3 1 Planes upset of the Bengals, Mike White( or Josh Johnson) was tossing a short pass underneath for a productive gain against a four-man pass rush applying minimal pressure. Lou Anarumo’s defensive game plan appeared to be “eh, we got this one in the bag.” And the Bengals’ coverage went from “soft” to “taffeta” when they had a 11 -point lead, specifying them up of natural disasters when Joe Burrow shed a fourth-quarter interception.
Anarumo and Zac Taylor did not become coaching geniuses only because the team acquired Ja’Marr Chase and some defensive free agent. They must be careful of not outperforming themselves or get disclosed against an upcoming schedule loaded with fellow middleweights.
Browns-at-Bengals next week is likely to be both entertaining and informative.
A Wentz is a Wentz is a Wentz. Carson Wentz didn’t just take an inexcusable mental vacation while standing in his own demise zone late in the fourth quarter of a tie game. He didn’t just force an interception in overtime. He spent the majority of members of the final three quarterss and overtime of Sunday’s game doing his best to make a critical mistake. But Wentz’s second-quarter red zone fumble bounced into his teammates’ hands, several Titans third-down sacks or stops were annulled by penalties, Michael Pittman outjumped three defenders on a yolo ball, the Titan committed pass interference, etc.
Wentz is a B-minus quarterback at his best and an unplayable F at his worst, and it’s a coin flip which person you get.( He’s rarely anywhere in between ).
The Colts run the football very well and stop the run well. That attain them a danger to the Titans and could shape them a tough out for foes such as the Browns or Ravens if they arrived at the playoffs. But if Walkthrough’s Wentz Whisperer powers still operate, Sunday was the beginning of the end for the Colts, and we’re going to see a lot more of Bad Wentz in the weeks to come.
The Raiders are still lurking in the grass out there somewhere. Don’t obses, we have not forgotten the Raiders. We’ll cover them in Walkthrough on Wednesday or Thursday. The Ravens were very happy to take this weekend off.
We haven’t forgotten about the Broncos either. But we soon will.
Commerce Deadline Preview
Let’s put the ol’ Walkthrough spin on the typical busines deadline preview: plenty of speculation ahead of Tuesday afternoon’s deadline, a little rumor-mongering, some “Team X could use Player Y” wish-casting, minimal actual news, but 750% more self-awareness than you will get from any other column or outlet.
Deshaun Watson, QB, Houston Texans We’re all just watching and waiting to learn how the Phantom of the Opera saga ends. Or, more precisely, how Act Two begins.
DeVante Parker, WR, and Xavien Howard, CB, Miami Dolphins Some trades make good practical sense but poor political appreciation. A Parker and/ or Howard liquidation sale would replenish any draft picks “ve lost” a Watson deal–Howard could spark a bidding campaign among contenders–but their deviation would also signal the end of Rebuild One and the start of Rebuild Two under Brian Flores and Chris Grier: a tough sell both in the locker room and at the ownership level.
Walkthrough approximations about a 25% possibility that Parker moves on, perhaps as a brokerage chip in a Watson deal, with the Howard odds a little bit closer to 5 %.
Evan Engram, TE, and Darius Slayton, WR, New York Giants More moves that attain poor political feel: unless Dave Gettleman traps something like a second-round pick for Engram( not happening ), dealing the Giants’ skill-position playmakers is likely to be writing his own pink slip. Moving Slayton, in particular, would celebrate the de facto end of the Daniel Jones era, as Slayton has been Jones’ favorite deep target when healthy for three years.
In the wake of Robert Tonyan’s injury, Engram to the Packers would make a lot of feel, if merely so we could all enjoy this likely sequence 😛 TAGEND
Aaron Rodgers targets a wide-open Engram up the seam; ball bounces off Engram’s chest and both his hands; Rodgers’ pupils turn milky white. Skies darken, dogs whimper timidly, the Dow Jones lowers 800 phases, happy couples across Wisconsin suddenly contemplate bitter divorces, Brian Gutekunst’s face thaws.
DeSean Jackson, WR, Los Angeles Rams Jackson wants to move. The Rams won’t mind moving him. And Jackson’s one knowledge remains highly marketable. Both the Chargers and Titans would benefit from one 40 -yard touchdown per month and lots and lots of deep clear-out routes. Likewise a fun( if not brilliant) hypothesi: the Browns can pair Jackson with Odell Beckham and start whichever one is healthy and somewhat tethered to planet Earth each week.
Von Miller, ER, Denver Broncos Jason LaCanfora of CBS Sports mentioned a few anonymous general managers musing about Miller late last week. Again, a Miller trade stimulates good football feel but awful political appreciation: George Paton may want to put his stamp on the Broncos, but trading their heart-and-soul legend for a mid-round pick( Miller’s likely street appreciate) would objective the Vic Fangio era and place Paton in the crosshairs of fans, other ex-servicemen, and( probably) the still-formidable Angry Storm God Elway. Walkthrough dedicates a Miller trade less than a 5% luck of happening.
Andre Dillard, OT, Philadelphia Eagles Howie Roseman won’t trade Dillard for chump change if he sees thinning out the Eagles’ offensive line will result in a false-hearted late-season read on Jalen Hurts. Likewise, few contenders would consider Dillard, a backup on a bad team, a feasible trading-deadline quick fix.
Dillard builds appreciation as a brokerage microchip if the Eagles play middle-man on a Watson deal. If not, Roseman–who knows how to work the phones, despite his other shortcomings–will wait and see what the offseason marketplace for a still-young , non-terrible left tackle looks like. Let’s render Dillard about a 25% luck of changing uniforms this week.
N’Keal Harry, WR, New England Patriots Bill Belichick may be discovering that he no longer has many triple-A affiliates that he can snooker when he wants to move on from a mistake. Last-place year, he could have easily gotten a high Day 3 select from the Lions for Harry. This year, both the Texans and Dolphins are deadline sellers whose GMs aren’t in a position to make vanity moves.
The Titans could munch on an extra body and reclamation project at wide receiver. Otherwise, the Patriots will dump Harry on a starving rebuilding crew such as the Jaguars or the Lions( but for a seventh-round pick , not the keys to Matt Patricia’s truck ).
Marcus Maye, S, and Denzel Mims, WR, New York Jet Any team interested in Harry will likely call the Plane first: Mims is faster and more likely to be the victim of bad quarterbacking and general mismanagement than Harry. Maye will move somewhere, and formerly it happens the Plane press pond will report on nothing but mock drafts until next April.
L.J. Collier, ER, Seattle Seahawks Collier is the type of player Belichick used to grab off bargain-bin free organization, turn into a star for two years, then permit one of his padawan to sign away for eight figures so the Patriots could net a compensatory pick.
Collier is also one of those musicians Seahawks fans reckon the rest of the football world to be concerned about that most of us can barely recognize, like Rashaad Penny and Poona Ford.( We’re all just watching Russell Wilson and that large-hearted wide receiver, you grungepuppies ). Collier is just another guy, but the Seahawks appear eager to move on from him. Collier is the type of big defensive culminate who could be useful in the Chargers’ scheme.
Clelin Ferrell, ER, Las Vegas Raiders Cross Collier with N’Keal Harry and you get Ferrell: a sturdy defensive end with minimal pass-rush juice whose own dealership has been eager to cut bait on since 30 minutes after the 2019 draft. Ferrell is a solid extended defender who could benefit from lower beliefs and a change of scenery. Don’t be surprised if Ferrell retrieves a third- or fourth-round pick from a crew such as the Cowboys looking for a combination of immediate help and leftover upside. And while the Raiders aren’t really “sellers” at the deadline, Ferrell is not really in their future plans.
Houston Texans Non-Phantoms Last week’s commerce of Mark Ingram for a conditional seventh-round pick in 2024 tells us all we need to know about the current state of the Texans front office. Cal McNair just figured out that the television money flows in whether or not the team is competitive. He also learned that he can be as execrable a human as he craves and still get upstaged by Dan Snyder. So any Texans sheriff’s auction is more likely to be pathetic than beneficial to a future rebuild.
Week 8 Accolades
Let’s skip the intro and get straight to the good stuff.
Defensive Player of the Week Adrian Phillips’ tip-drill interception before halftime set up a field goal when the Patriots offense was struggling to move the ball. His pick-six in the fourth quarter made the Patriots the lead-in and rent the Chargers’ heart out.
Phillips played six seasons for the Chargers as a nickel defender and special teams superstar. He even earned All-Pro notice as employment equity designated special teamer. NFL.com’s highlight clips were sure to mention that Phillips had a big game against his former team. That’s swell. But … do tribes actually keep track of Chargers role players from three years ago and eagerly await their potential “revenge” plays? If so, Walkthrough has been doing things wrong for over a decade.
Special-Teamer of the Week Dre’Mont Jones and Shelby Harris each blocked field goals for the Denver Broncos. At least, that’s what the official Gamebook says. According to the captions on the NFL.com highlights, Baron Browning and Caden Sterns blocked the kicks. Walkthrough can never tell whose hand a blocked kick jumps off. We’re inclined to go with the Gamebook because the NFL’s Highlight Caption Guy may have been too invested in the Adrian Phillips REVENGE storyline to identify players properly.
Gunner Olszewski of the Patriots deserves honorable mention for 80 yards on four punt returns against the Chargers.
Offensive Line of the Week Walkthrough can’t remember the last period we presented our hometown Iggles an Offensive Line of the Week trophy. Well, they’re getting one this week for helping Jalen Hurts, Boston Scott, Jordan Howard, Kenneth Gainwell, and receiver Jalen Reagor combine for 236 rushing yards and four touchdowns. Let’s hear it for Jordan Mailata, Landon Dickerson, Travis Kelce, Jack Driscoll and Lane Johnson! And let’s likewise hear it for Nick Sirianni, who decided to run the ball against a weak, vulnerable antagonist instead of calling 40 screen passes that might have helped the Lions stay in the game!
Best Supporting Actor in Someone Else’s Highlight Mike White. Philly Special for a two-point conversion. Airplanes upset. And Greg Van Roten with the greatest end zone slide-hug in NFL history. It doesn’t get much better than that.
THE JETS (+ 380 ML) TAKE THE LEAD! [?]
MIKE WHITE PHILLY SPECIAL TWO-POINT CONVERSION! pic.twitter.com/ sVhLQx6AZ 8
— FOX Bet Sportsbook (@ FOXBet) October 31, 2021
Burn This Play!
Let’s examine the sham field goal that got Steelers kicker Chris Boswell knocked out of the game 😛 TAGEND
This might go down as the worst fake field goal in NFL history. Not simply did it fail miserably for the Steelers, but their kicker got hurt #Steelers #Browns pic.twitter.com/ 34 yorWZri6
— John Breech (@ johnbreech) October 31, 2021
The two eligible receivers are Pat Freiermuth and third-string tight end Zach Gentry. That’s not unusual: most sham field goals merely feature one or two possible targets, and there is a requirement people who are typically on the field goal unit. Freiermuth is open on the play, but: A) he’s in front of the sticks on fourth-and-9; and B) Boswell isn’t exactly Joe Montana when it comes to reading the field.
The play design itself isn’t frightful, but the Dark-browns weren’t precisely clowned, and Boswell should have been coached to chuck the ball away and flee out of bounds instead of throwing up a prayer and get leveled. It’s never a good sign when the opposing appears far more prepared for a trick play-act than the team actually executing it.
Honorable mention goes to a moment of presnap-motion madness by the Dolphins before halftime against the Bills. Click here for the official replay, but the following Tweet commits a better look at the underlying problem( though it’s taken from a video of multiple television screens at once ).
Mike Gesicki spent 10 seconds aiming traffic pre-snap and then it unsurprisingly contributed significantly to a fumble and a turnover. Brutal from the Dolphins pic.twitter.com/ EWo2sOH 1Zx
— Joe Fann (@ Joe_Fann) October 31, 2021
Presnap motion is excellent for an offense, except when that offense has multiple coordinators that end up clunking their heads together like coconuts, leaving the tight objective to guide traffic before the snap, because the quarterback isn’t a team captain and therefore probably isn’t authorized to make adjustments at the line.
Burn This Decision! Trailing 10 -9 during the third quarter, the Browns tried to draw the Steelers offsides on fourth-and-1 at their own 49 -yard line, took a stall of game penalty, then punted. Per EdjSports, that decision rate them six percentage points of win likelihood, but Walkthrough’s back-of-envelope estimates( speak: utter guesswork) suggest that it rate them even more. The Browns were running the ball well, after all, and the Steelers were without their kicker, reducing the risk that they would score if they got the ball back.
The Browns, you may recall, are Team Analytics, with game plan that are reviewed by a squad of data researchers and much-ballyhooed “Guardrails” which were delivered down from Mount Ararstat by St. DePodesta himself.
Yes, yes, Walkthrough knows who signs the checks, but we just adoration stirring up trouble. For a squad that is supposed to be built on the best practises Football Outsiders helped craftsmanship, the Browns spend an nasty heap of period establishing the run, paying running backs large-scale contracts, punting, etc.
It simply goes to show you that it’s easy to talk about risk-reward rates when we’re not the ones taking the risks.
Walkthrough Sportsbook Same-Game Parlay and Prop-a-Palooza
This week’s edition of Sportsbook starts out perfectly normal and then descends into utter chaos.
Detroit Lions Moneyline +155 Rationale: The Lions were one of very good 0-7 crews we have ever seen, and they faced a beatable opposing at home!
Result: Oops. It turns out that all of those onside kicks and fake punts against the Rams in Week 7 were the Lions’ death throes. LOS
Damien Harris AND Austin Ekeler Combined 1.5 Touchdown Passes at +175. Rationale: We placed this wager during Thursday’s Schatz and Tanier podcast on the advice of Aaron Schatz, who doesn’t live in a paradise like New Jersey where everything is legal from gambling to dueling with Aaron Burr. Then Ekeler popped onto the injury report. We considered cashing out on Sunday morning, but instead said, “Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead! ” In other words, the book wouldn’t are adequate to cash out.
Result: Ekeler aimed up playing and scoring, as did Harris. Thank heavens for this WIN, which continued Sunday from being an absolute catastrophe.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers Moneyline AND Total Score Under 50.5 at +150. Rationale: We belief the Saints were due to crater. We don’t believe in losing money by betting against Tom Brady. But we were apprehensive of a defensive duel.
Result: We’d like to apologize for not feature much about the Saints disturb of the Buccaneers this week: we be concentrated on the Patriots-Chargers game for thematic intents. Also, it will probably take us three or four periods to figure out how the Saints beat the Buccaneers with Trevor Siemian at quarterback.
Anyway, this “under” part of this parlay meant it was FUBAR the moment the Saints reached 26 degrees. Somehow. With Siemian. LOS
Houston Texans First Half + 9.5 at -1 05. Rationale: The Texans had only been outscored 80 -7 0 in first halves participating this game, while the Rams are slow starters. Likewise, Walkthrough sometimes places a wager guessing “this may be the one thing I have to say about this specific play in Monday’s recap.”
Result: This play built sense for a red-hot second when the Texans got an early stop against the Rams offense at the goal line and virtually got a second one during the second quarter( a holding penalty negated a fourth-and-3 Matthew Stafford interception ). The problem was that the Texans offense didn’t cross midfield until the final drive before halftime, then missed a field goal which would not have mattered anyway.
We gotta lay off the early-game Texans props.
( Tune in on Friday when speaking ourselves into another early-game Texans prop .) LOS
San Francisco 49 ers RB Elijah Mitchell Over 6.5 Receiving Yards at -1 15. Rationale: We discussed Mitchell on Scott Spratt’s fantasy podcast on Friday. He looked like a lock to get a lot of playing time against the Bears, and while Mitchell has just four receptions this season, one swaying pass could be all we needed to win this wager.
Result: Mitchell rushed 18 days but was not targeted formerly. Fate was just trolling us at this phase. LOSS.
Ben Roethlisberger Over 0.5 Rushing Yards at +210. Rationale: +210 on Big Ben falling forward once in a game? Who could refuse? Roethlisberger did have 5- and 8-yard operates this season participating Sunday, and he’s not one to scramble for negative yardage( as to report to just get sacked) these days. But this was also a stealth bet on the Browns to win, as a Roethlisberger kneel or two could ruin everything.
Result: Roethlisberger operated for a two-point conversion, but it was nullified by a holding penalty. He finished with one official carry for zero yards. Severely, fate: what did Walkthrough do wrong in a past lifetime? Did we kill a prince? Set fire to a homing pigeon and send it back to burn its village to the ground? LOS
Chicago Bears QB Justin Fields Over 300 Passing Yards and 1+ Rushing/ Receiving Touchdown +2500. Rationale: The wagering equivalent of a hero ball. While 300 gardens seemed unattainable for Fields, perhaps Matt Nagy’s absence would make a difference. You know, like when a Little Leaguer performs much better when dad isn’t picking fights with the adjudicator from the stands.
But severely: we had seven total divisions out, insulating us a bit against danger, and a 25 -to-1 payout would not only establish our whole month but shape us feel like part of the story if Fields had his first breakout play. This is experiential wagering at work: winning is most important, but stirring Sunday’s action feel meaningful and vibrant is a close second, cuz nobody’s getting rich off this stuff.
Result: As doomed as this silly prop seemed on paper, Walkthrough applauded like a loony when Fields’ 22 -yard touchdown scramble flashed across play break.
As putrid as this shutout Sunday was, it also brought moments of exultation. At the end of the day, that’s what matters. And likewise the money we lost. That also matters. But we’ll live on to wager again next week. LOS Monday Night Action: New York Giant +10.5 at Kansas City Chiefs
The Chiefs beat their last-place two NFC East foes by a combined score of 73-43. Still, double-digits feel high-pitched for a striving preseason competitor against an opponent that often puts up a fight, and the EdjSports app ascertains the bazaar market value of this play closer to Chiefs + 7. Walkthrough won’t be playing this one, but if we did we are to be able take the Giants, insulating ourselves against both a further Chiefs meltdown and late moral-victory Giants touchdown drives.
The Giants have outscored opposings 13 -6 in the first quarter–note how low those numbers are–while the Chiefs have been outscored 34 -4 9. So we whipped up a fun little first-quarter parlay: Monsters +4.5 AND total rating Under 11.5 during the first quarter for +145.
Finally, DraftKings is offering Patrick Mahomes AND Daniel Jones Over 549.5 Passing Yards AND 0 Interceptions at +450. It’s crazypants, but feel free to throw a few bucks at it if you have a hunch that this game will become a shootout and both quarterbacks will opt for fumbles instead of interceptions. After the Sunday we just had, Walkthrough shall wisely abstain.
Read more: footballoutsiders.com