YAC: Yards After Cash - NFL Week 8 Picks
THANK YOU lucky week seven! The bank is booming and my picks record is looking much healthier too. A couple surprising firsts happened this weekend including Justin Tucker missing his first extra point attempt in 223 tries and Oakland being the first team to find a way to lose while on a bye week. Their secret? Trade away your top wide receiver to clearly signal your intention to tank this year in order to build draft stock for the future.
Frankly, I hope this signals the start of tanking for NFL teams because its about time they jumped on the train the NBA took out of the station a decade ago. Of course the arguments against tanking in the NFL will always hold true, it's unfair to all players on your team as seasons are already limited and any play or year could be a player's last so why waste anyone's time especially veteran players. How does a coach or front office expect its players to care if the culture and messages being sent are to plan for the future. Many people, myself included, thought the Bills were going to be the flagship of this effort last year but McDermott and Beane's message of "we play to win now as well as later" turned out to not just be lip service or useless media soundbites as they made the playoffs for the first time in 17 years. However, the Raiders under Jon Gruden traded away their star linebacker who has unique player of a generation skill and arguably is working his way to hall of fame defender status week in a week out, now as a Chicago Bear. Then, after a lackluster 1-5 start Gruden and GM Reggie McKenzie have now traded Derek Carr's number one receiving weapon Amari Cooper to the Cowboys for yet another first round draft pick, giving them three in their 2019 draft day treasure chest. You could also point to the Colts 2011 "Suck for Luck" campaign as the inaugural tanking campaign. I'd also give a season or two of examples for Cleveland but I think they are in the perpetual tanking mode. Speaking of which, that becomes a real fear of seeing a rise in tanking, some franchises will not know how to do it properly or will misfire on their rich draft futures and instead of a campaign or two it becomes their constant culture and expectation.
The more you examine the benefits to a tank campaign under the current NFL collective bargaining agreement and rookie cap on contracts it just makes more sense that this would be the quickest way to truly see success. Bill Barnwell sort of hit on a part of this opportunity in his article at the end of September about a team trading a promising young rookie QB to draft another promising rookie QB and keep the overhead on their salary cap down for the most important position on the field. It's hard to argue with his proposed method when you look at the recent success of teams under rookie QB contracts starting with Seattle and Indianapolis earlier this decade and recent emergence of the Rams, Eagles, Chiefs and Bears as talented contenders. I, for one, hope we get to see at least one of his permutations play out. In the current era of stats and analytics being trusted or at least considered more than ever before (see Pat Shurmur's two point conversion attempt last Monday) it is only a matter of time before a team goes full out Beane mode. The only question remaining is who will become the first NFL team to trust the process?
Week 8 NFL Picks
Last Week: 9-3-1
Current Record (ATS): 44-38-4
Home team in CAPS, pick in bold, lines from bovada.lv as always.
Philadelphia -3.5 Jacksonville (London 9:30am kickoff)
Loser stays in London match? Sadly in these teams’ respective piss poor divisions neither of them will be out of the race by a long shot but they will fall even further behind without having much of a let up in their schedule they can ill afford to lose while abroad. I'd expect Doug Pederson to pull out the Philly special 3.0 and any other goodies in his playbook to get this win. The Jags are in free fall and I'm finally willing to tuck and roll while jumping off their bandwagon. Blake Bortles is already named the starter and he looks like Wile E. Coyote facing a defense of Road Runners every week. Lineman get near him and *MEEP MEEP* he fumbles the ball or throws an interception off his linemen's helmet. Even though Bortles’ mirror opposite QB self plays flawless football in Europe, I'll go with the Super Bowl champs to get their course corrected before the Jags. Philly 24 Jacksonville 20
DETROIT -3 Seattle
Is Detroit good? They're 3-3 after an 0-2 start but they needed Mason Crosby to miss four field goals and an extra point to beat the Packers and they handled a bad Dolphins team masquerading with a good record. Seattle is coming off a bye week following a win over Oakland that helped somewhat wash away a disappointing almost upset of their division rival Rams. They'll rinse that bad taste out completely with a win over the Lions. Seattle 27 Detroit 23
Denver +10 KANSAS CITY
Ten points is a lot, especially with this chiefs defense so I'm taking Denver for the backdoor cover. Denver 28 KC 35
CAROLINA +1.5 Baltimore
The Panthers at home are much better than on the road. They spent the past two weeks of road trips being down 17-0 before starting to play and they were able to pull out a win last week over Philly. They cannot start off that way and hope to pull out a win on this Ravens' defense. I don't think they will start off that slow at home so I see this being tight and I like the Carolina quarterback more than Baltimore quarterback so I'll take the points at home. Carolina 19 Baltimore 18
Five rapid fire, for sale games no one wants to buy:
PITTSBURGH -8 Cleveland
Revenge for that tie back in week one will be sweet for the Steelers coming off their bye. Pittsburgh 30 Cleveland 17
NY GIANTS +1 Washington
The Giants are terrible. Washington is slightly above average when high functioning. Barring some wacky stuff this is as easy as they get. Washington 27 NYG 17
San Francisco PK ARIZONA
Don't want to watch any of this game but I think San Fran shows up with their pride on the line after being embarrassed last week by the Rams and they'll double their win total. SF 24 Arizona 21
Tampa Bay +4.5 CINCINNATI
Cincy should have something to prove to themselves after their lack of attendence last week right? And we're all aware the Bucs are pretenders by now right? Cincy 33 TB 24
Indianapolis -3 OAKLAND
QB advantage: Indy
WR advantage: Indy
RB advantage: Indy (thanks to Lynch on IR)
Defense advantage: Indy (Don't believe me? Look at the stats and not just last week's). Indy 38 Oakland 20
***SALE OVER***
CHICAGO -7 NY Jets
The Bears need to win games like this if they're truly taking the next step. The Jets were low on offensive weapons when the season started but now they've lost their starting RB for the season and two WRs are out at least this week so Chicago should be able to run away barring mistakes. Chicago 26 NYJ 17
LA RAMS -9 Green Bay
Battle of the quarterback pride of California. While Southern Cal
continues to produce the best busts at the QB position California University claims two of the top five quarterbacks in the NFL presently and their teams face off this Sunday in LA. This game should provide plenty of entertainment but short of crucial injuries I don't see the Rams winning by less than a comfortable two scores. Sure, I can easily see the Aaron Rodgers potential for a back door cover. Let me paint the picture: After spending most of the second half bouncing between deficits of 10-14-17 the Rams miss an extra point and the lead is 16 with 4:50 to play. He drives them down the field
and they cash in a TD with under a minute to go and get the two pointer before missing an onside kick recovery. Game ends LAR 44 GB 36. I'm still sticking with the Rams for the Pick and hoping they make the extra point. LAR 45 GB 35
MINNESOTA -1 New Orleans
Best matchup of the weekend for sure. The Saints want revenge for the playoff knockout in January. The Vikings are still trying to prove they are a legitimate contender with a signature win. If they can pull it out in prime time again this could be that win. Both of these defenses have played below expectation at frequent times this season but have been coming on stronger as of late. The defense that shows up for the full sixty in this game will be the difference. Also, Adam Thielen will easily hit the 100 yard receiving mark yet again. Minnesota 34 New Orleans 35
New England -14 BUFFALO
The Bills could not cover 21 points in this game unless New England hands them 14 of them. Buffalo 12 New England 42
Last week's starting amount: $386.72
Last week's results (week 7): +$38.09
Current balance: $424.81 (+$224.81 overall)
This is about the time I’d start considering walking away from the table if this were blackjack, because I just finished my most successful picks week of the season, but if I walked away now I would not be a gambler. Just remember though, if this is a rough weekend at least I saw it coming. Here we go:
Locks of the Weekend
Notre Dame -24 Navy (-115) $20 to win $17.49
I love my Fightin' Irish but they couldn't cover a spread even if we're talking about jam on a slice of toast and you gave them the knife and a how to video on youtube. Navy will keep this game short by playing possession ball and ND will squeak out a 7-14 point win but not more than that.
New England -14 BUFFALO (-105) $20 to win $19.05
Washington -1 NY GIANTS (-105) $10 to win $9.05
Upset Alert
Seattle +3 DETROIT
Parlay Play
Five teams on the moneyline (+293) $10 to win $29.28
Chiefs, Steelers, Bears, Rams, Colts must all win
Tease Please
Ten point teaser finally caught up to me and man was I stupid to tease SF up to -20 instead of just teasing the Rams down to 0 to win outright. Found a sweet six and a half point teaser (+500) $15.54 to win $77.70
Washington -1 goes to +5.5
Seattle +3 goes to +9.5
Pittsburgh -8 goes to -1.5
Indy -3 goes to +3.5
LAR -9 goes to -2.5
New England -14 goes to -7.5