Week Nine NFL Predictions: Insights and Analysis

Week eight in the National Football League is done, and week nine is just about to start.

Ed Cleese joins us every week to help us make our big, bold predictions for the upcoming week.

And week nine is in our sights.

Stay tuned as we make our big bowl predictions coming up right after this.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history.

Your host, Darren Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a.

All right, folks, time to stop pregaming and start playing.

Let's get this meatball rolling.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

And welcome to another week of predictions on the NFL games coming up for week nine.

This week, as always, we have Ed Cleese joining us to make these big, bold predictions.

And Ed, welcome back to the Pig Pen.

Hello, Darren.

How are you?

I am doing great.

I see you are traveling today, so your background's just a little bit different than normal weeks.

Yes, I'm in the middle of nowhere in far northeast Oklahoma, pulled off on the side of the road because that is my level of dedication to the Pigskin Dispatch podcast.

All right, so we are Pigskin Dispatch picking mobile today with Ed Cleese.

And so, Ed, I guess, first of all, what was your thoughts on week eight games that just finished a couple.

Days ago, so it was really weird.

This is the first week I kind of had a hard time coming up with thoughts specific for the week because this.

I don't.

I mean, I'm sure it's happened before, but on the games that were played last week, all but one were decided by two or more scores.

So every single game all weekend was decided by nine or more.

Except for, of course, ironically, the jets coming back to get their first win of the year by one.

And even that game was 14, like, midway through the fourth quarter.

So there weren't a lot of great games or observations from this week.

So I decided to swerve a little bit and play on the theme of Halloween this week.

And so I came up with.

They came up with five or.

Yeah, this sounds a little bit scary.

It could be scary, and that's what it is.

So I came up with.

So up to this point in the season, I came up with thing five different things that should terrify different NFL fans.

Okay, so, okay, we can.

We'll start.

We'll go through them real quick.

I think the Falcons fans, it's time to be scared about the Raheem Morris experience as their head coach.

I realized that Penix was out last week and that Cousins really did not look good and maybe he's done and there's not a lot you can do about that.

But to get trounced and be non competitive against the Dolphins at home and that also drops them to three and four, it would be different.

You know, that is the game they needed to win.

They lost.

They kind of had an ugly performance the previous Sunday night against San Francisco.

And this also dates back to last year where they really had a good opportunity to make the playoffs at the end of last year and they kind of unraveled and fell apart.

They lost it last year.

They also lost some games they probably shouldn't have.

They lost week one this year to Tampa in a close game.

They're missing a ton of opportunities.

And I think at this point, if you're an Atlanta fan, you're starting to get really scared that this guy is not the right head coach.

Yeah, that.

That could be true.

I think there's probably about half the teams maybe questioning their coaching, you know, including my team right now.

There's a lot of heat going on in Pittsburgh just like there is in Miami.

I think it's calmed down a little bit in Baltimore, which I don't understand why they were doing that when you have half the team hurt.

But yeah, there's a lot of controversy going on in the coaching thing.

But Atlanta, really a hotbed and you don't know.

We talked about teams last week that you really can't trust.

You don't know who they are.

I think the Falcons have entered that fray along with the Vikings.

And I forget who the other one we were talking about, but the Chargers.

Yeah, I think they're a little bit like that too.

They're world beaters one week and the next week, you know, you don't know what's going on.

Well, I'm glad you mentioned your team because they're also on my scary list.

And I'll tell you.

Yeah, and I'll tell you why for the first time because one thing we can say about the Steelers is if you a down year for the Steelers is an average year for most is, you know, a down year for the Steelers is a year that a lot of teams would trade for.

This is a very good organization over, over a long period of time that I think you as a Steelers fan and, and your fellow fans can, can trust that they're, they're going to be a competitive team and for the first time I'm starting to see some signs that their current regime is a little bit adrift and lost.

Because here's the problem.

We're seven weeks in now and the staple for the Steelers, their defense is not very good.

It hasn't been good for seven weeks.

At some point you wonder if it's going to be good at all.

But what's bigger deal to me is the reason that you sign a 41 year old quarterback is one of two reasons.

Either you think you can win the super bowl right now and he's the guy that can take you there, or you've got somebody in the wings and you just want to have a good veteran to bring that young quarterback along to maybe buy you some time.

And the Steelers have done that and neither of those things apply.

I don't watch the Steelers and think that this is a team that can win the super bowl.

And I, and I, and they, then they have nobody else on the rod.

I mean Mason Rudolph obviously is not the future.

So there's no other real quarterback that they're bringing that they're so really Rogers is there and there's no future in Rogers and the defense isn't very good, but we know they don't stink.

So the Steelers might for the first there they feel stuck to me and I think that's a little bit scary for, for youth Steeler fans because what's the plan here?

You know, Tomlins great.

They're probably going to win nine games and I guess if you win the division, you make it.

Anything can happen.

That's great.

You're not going to say it was a bad season, but what's the plan here?

You know, what are we, what are we doing?

The defense isn't very good.

Our quarterback is ancient, still playing pretty well.

But you know, there's no next year or the year after that.

Really.

You're not building around him.

So I think the Steelers are in a scary cycle for maybe the first time in a while.

Yeah, I don't disagree with you.

I mean, two weeks ago it looked like maybe they were going to be in contention as one of the AFC teams to beat.

They were.

You know, if they would have beat the Bengals, they would have been what, three or four games up on the next closest person in the AFC North.

Now it's, you know, there's still two games up, they're still on a first place team, but the really meat of their schedule comes up, you know, Indy's coming to town who's probably the top team in the NFL right now.

They're certainly playing like it.

They, they have other big games against Buffalo.

They have the Ravens twice, yet they have the Bengals again.

There's a lot of good teams that the Steelers have to play, and it's all right in a row.

And their bye week was done three weeks ago.

But it's kind of a bizarro world for the Steelers.

And you know, you talk about Rogers.

Rogers has actually been pretty good.

He's been pretty solid.

The Steelers offense hasn't scored this many points since, you know, Ben Roethlisberger before his elbow surgery.

You know, so it's been, you know, almost a decade since they've been scoring like this.

They're in the 20s every week.

With their defense the way it's been traditionally, they should be winning every single game.

We're.

We're spoiled as Steelers fans with our defense locking people down to 20 points or less and, and that should be winning it with the way the offense is playing.

You know, there's questions like Broderick Jones at left tackle.

You know, everybody questioned that before the end of, before the season started.

He's actually been pretty solid after week two and been a real good.

The whole offensive line really hasn't been bad.

Playing the running game has been strong, but they still need a wide receiver, too.

And you're right, the defense looks old.

It looks like they're two steps behind the next guy and they're playing out of position and, and I think there's going to be some shake up there and maybe some moves at one of the cornerback positions that may bring a little bit of youth into it and maybe bring some life into the Steelers and they sure need it.

Yeah, I think it's.

I just, I.

Their season is.

There's a ton of time to go and I mean, they're going to be fine this year.

I just don't know what as from a, from a franchise building standpoint, a roster building standpoint, what the objective and the, and the plan is.

And I think that's a little unstealer.

Like, from, from my observation.

Well, they have a ton of draft capital going into next May's draft and the draft is in Pittsburgh.

That's true.

That's right.

So maybe you, maybe you'll solve all your problems.

Problems there.

I don't know that we'll solve all the problems, but I have a feeling the future quarterback is already on the roster.

And that's one Will Howard, who is unproven, hasn't even played a preseason game.

They just took him off IR this week.

They have a plan for him.

He's going to be getting into some, some contests but you know, Green Bay game might have been a good one to put him in the fourth quarter just to see what he can do, but they couldn't at that point.

But you know, who knows?

Well, I think they're going to try to test out the wheels on this young rookie.

Well, well, speaking of quarterbacks, I think something we touched on this a little bit last week, but something that the rest, the entire NFL should be afraid of is oh my gosh, have the Patriots done it again?

Because May continues to look fantastic and he's getting, he's, he's getting better and better.

He's very, he's, he's doing both things meaning he's, he's steady and he's not making big mistakes and he's making the spectacular game winning team type plays.

He looks phenomenal and it's not very fair.

It's a little bit like the Colts going from Peyton to, to Lock or the, the packers going from Farve to Rogers.

You know, if we, I never realized we've had a little gap here between Brady, but if the Patriots have landed a real star quarterback, then I think they have the organizational chops and the history for everybody else to be a little worried that they're probably going to get the other stuff right and that we might be dealing with the Patriots again for a long time.

That's quite a good, a good possibility because you're right.

I think Vrabel's a solid coach.

I think they were smart to get him in the works as their head coach and he is an expatriate, knows the Patriot way and May is for real.

He is a stud.

I think they need to get a better, better grasp on the ball.

So they're not, I mean they're coughing the ball up at an alarming rate in games.

They, you know, we saw it again last weekend where they put the ball on the ground not as much as they had in some other games, but they need to get some ball security and I think that comes with some experience because they're a young team and you're right, they could be around for a while.

Yeah.

And my next one is also from that draft class and it is, I am, we see this all the time now.

You should not bury a quarterback too soon.

It takes time.

We see plenty of these guys that are taking five, six years usually on another team before they really kind of blossom.

So in no way am I writing off Caleb Williams as an NFL player.

But I think Bears fans need to be a little scared because when I watch the Bears, I see a team that kind of appears ready except for like the quarterback is holding them back from being better.

Every time I watch the Bears, I see a lot of, a lot of weaponry on offense that's very dangerous.

The defense isn't spectacular, but it's been pretty good, certainly good enough.

And I really like Ben Johnson and his creativity as an offensive play caller.

And you know, very quietly in the off season, they signed their backup, Tyson Bagent to a two year extension.

And there are a lot of people there that like him.

And there's been some rumors that Ben Johnson really likes him.

And I think it's going to start to get a little tempting because Caleb has been okay.

He hasn't been terrible or necessarily played poorly enough to where you'd want to bench him.

But it does feel when you watch the Bears that there's a gear that they can't quite get to.

And it's probably because of Caleb.

He's just, he's too erratic.

There's too many, there's not enough first downs being converted.

The end of that game the other day was kind of a mess of what's he even doing or thinking.

And, and I think that's getting, it's approaching uncomfortable for, for, for Bears fans because if you ever do yank them, then it's really hard to go back again.

So, you know, it's, it's a very walk on eggshells, but I think it's getting a little shaky for Caleb at Chicago.

I don't disagree with you, but I think the word uncomfortable that you used, I think that's what he is, he's a little bit uncomfortable at times.

If you look at his first drives and actually his first two drives, you know, the first drive is always scripted, but so Ben Johnson's laid out a plan for him.

He's been brilliant.

I think they've scored on almost every opening drive that they've had this year.

The second drives, they, they're sort of hit or miss.

They're like 50, 50 I think is what I saw the stat sheet on that it's the third draft drives on and as you get into the end of the game when it's crunch time that they, the wheels just fall off.

And we saw that it was a perfect evidence of that the other night in the game where they scored on their first drive.

Look good on their second drive.

And just by the end of the game, it was turning into a train wreck.

Maybe you've given him a nickname.

Maybe we'll just call him One Drive Williams from now on.

That could be.

That could be.

Maybe they should start Bajan.

And then if the game is close at the end and they need one drive, well, it's putting Caleb.

There you go.

Or maybe you got a script, like, you know, 90 plays and he'll be okay.

Script?

Yes, Script everything.

Coach, it's third and it's third and one, and you've called a deep pass.

No, no, it's.

We got to go with it.

Caleb.

Why are we punting on second down?

What's going on here?

Yeah, and.

Yeah, the.

The.

The scariest thing, though, on my list is something we should all be really worried about and scared about because it's not something we probably all deserve as NFL fans, but we are as of right now.

If I had to pick, I think I might pick a Chiefs Eagles super bowl again.

And when I watched the.

I was at the game the other night, and when I watched the Chiefs just in general the last few weeks, what's scary to me is that this is not a team with championship metal that has a Hall of Fame quarterback that's finding a way to, like, get it done.

I look at them and I'm like, oh, that kind of looks like the best roster in the NFL.

You know, they're.

They've.

I don't think organizationally they probably get enough credit for how they've retooled sort of on the fly over these years.

Their defense, you know, about two, three years ago, their defense had become a problem and was.

It was.

It was holding them back and negative, and it was a weakness that you could exploit.

When you played the Chiefs, they fixed it.

Now their defense is good.

It was great last year, and now it's.

It's at least good.

I mean, it's plenty good enough.

And I kind of, like, on all levels, right.

They don't have, like, a big weakness on defense.

You know, it's like all.

The secondary stinks, so there's no passer.

They're pretty good everywhere.

And now we don't.

You don't need me to tell you how good Mahomes is, of course, but now they seem to have also kind of fixed that because they got a ton of weapons, they've got a ton of speed, and so that.

So now if Kelsey is the.

The fourth or fifth option on a play, well, that's really dangerous.

Whereas at times last year and the year before, maybe it felt like their offense had kind of shrunk to where he Mahomes was lacking options and the O line was struggling.

Well, they've kind of fixed that.

They've addressed that.

And, and, and they, and so they're just really good again, like over.

They never got bad, but they kind of look like maybe there was going to be some, some places we could exploit them.

And they filled those places before they really got exploited.

And I think that's a real big problem for, for the rest of the league.

And then, you know, the Eagles haven't been overly impressive, but they are 6 and 2.

They're trending towards, you know, possible home field.

They do have a pretty tough schedule, so maybe they'll get tripped up a little bit, but they just kind of keep plugging away and plugging away and at some point you got to pick somebody to probably go into Philly and beat him.

And I'm not sure I, I can do that.

So I think.

Right.

All of us that were like praying for the Commanders and Bills to win last year in the championship games to spare us from the Chiefs and Eagles super bowl, well, buckle up because we might be headed forward again.

Yeah, I, I mean there's definitely some merit for it, but I don't think it's going to happen that way again.

I think one or both of them will be eliminated by somebody.

I mean, there's some pretty good teams out there and I think there's some blueprints laid because, well, even the Commanders in the first half, sort of, maybe they have a little bit of a blueprint of how to slow these receivers down a little bit and Patty Mahomes and what he's doing and you know, Pacheco got hurt.

I don't believe he's going to be playing this week.

He might be out for more than a few games.

And he's an important key to their, their cog too, of having that running game.

Even though the Chiefs don't care.

They'll probably pass every single down if they really wanted to because they're that good.

But I think playing some of the man defense that the Commanders did, it gave them a little bit of trouble.

And maybe, you know, Andy Reid has to go to his bag of tricks and can overcome that, which if anybody can, he can.

But there's some pretty good teams out there and they're going to be playing one this week, which we'll talk about here in a little bit.

Yeah.

And the other Thing I'd say the NFL needs to be rooting for probably is they probably should.

Everybody should probably be Charger and Broncos fans, because while the Chiefs are great, they did get off to a little bit of a tough start.

So the, the, the, the possibility certainly exists that Denver and, or not.

And, but Denver or the Chargers could win that division and then at least maybe the Chiefs have to go on the road.

No, they did it last year, but, you know, or two years ago.

I'm sorry.

But, you know, obviously if we can get him to play in Buffalo or the more shots at him you get, don't let him have the buy.

You know, that's, that's probably.

The Broncos and Chargers could potentially make things a little easier.

But I will say this.

If the Chiefs wind up winning that division, I think they're going back to the super bowl because I'm just not picking anybody to win an Arrowhead.

And when it really matters, I'm not.

And the other thing that could be disastrous if.

Is if the Colts stay on track and they get the number one seed in case he has to travel there.

Indoor stadium.

There's not going to be any weather that's going to be an advantage of the home team.

And I don't know if I'd want to face the Cole or face the Chiefs in that environment on a fast track like that, because they're pretty good.

Yeah.

I mean, let's just be honest.

I mean, who.

Who's going to have the stones to pick the Colts to actually beat the Chiefs?

I don't care if The Colts go 16 and one this year.

If they have to play the Chiefs in the playoffs, it's going to be a pretty uncomfortable spot for the Colts, I would say, probably.

But yeah, hopefully I'm not speaking this into existence.

Okay.

All right.

Well, traditionally, what we've been doing this year is at this point, we've been talking about a cuts list.

Do we have anybody we're going to be cutting this week?

Yeah, we're going to.

We have, we have our, our six, you know, Titan, Saints, Jets, Browns, Raiders, Dolphins, all still on the cut list.

I added two this week.

We were adding.

We're adding the Giants.

It's a little bit more of sort of tough luck.

I mean, that horrible loss in Denver and then now they.

And then they lost in Philly, which was somewhat predictable, but now they've just lost too many guys and their record is such that there's.

They're not going to factor in the playoffs.

Now.

I do think the Giants could still win some games down the stretch, be a little bit of a pest and be a team that feels like they're on the rise.

But this is not a team that's going to be a factor in late December or January.

And then the other one that got cut is a team that didn't play.

So I've gone ahead and cut the Cardinals even though they didn't.

Even though they didn't.

They didn't play last week because that's just the standings reality.

You look at the 49ers, the Rams, the Seahawks are all 5 and 3 or better.

And the Cardinals at 2 and 5.

Yeah, they're not coming back from that.

Sorry.

It's not happening.

I don't have any faith that they, that they're going to be the kind of team that can, you know, win 8 out of 10 or something like that to get back into this.

So I think.

I think the Cardinals are pretty much officially done as well.

All right, so you're enacting the.

The Curse of the Possible Maroons on them from that.

Yes.

1925 championship.

Okay.

All right.

Correct.

So that's eight.

So we're down to only 24 teams that I think are still playoff chatter worthy.

And some of those are on the edge, believe me.

They're on the edge.

Yep.

All right.

Well, we have a little bit of catching up to do.

We did not have the Monday Night games, the double header from last week, in our scoring from the week seven games.

So maybe we need to get caught up on how we're doing on those.

Well, we were.

That night.

We, we both got.

We, we stayed even because we both got that Lions game.

Correct.

And then you got the other game, that Texans game.

Incorrect.

So we both got two points.

We stayed right where we were.

So.

Okay.

No, yeah.

So going into this week, you're up by one.

If I'm correct.

I was up by.

No, no, no, no.

Going into this week, I was up by two.

Up by two.

Okay.

Okay.

Yes.

Going into this week, I was up by 2.

Yes.

We can check my math later, but I should be up by two.

But that was just going into this week because I am no longer up by two.

So going back to last week, we'll start with your picks.

You're going to get a nice six out of ten.

So you got three out of your five picks.

You're.

You had a really, really good pick on the, you got pretty specific on that Colts game with the Titans where we knew the Colts would win.

But you said Jonathan Taylor 150 yards, two touchdowns.

You had Jones with three touchdowns.

You nailed it all.

So the Colts won.

They did exactly what you said they would do.

The individual players did exactly what you said you would do.

The Titans totally complied with your, with your pick.

So you can thank them as well.

And you got two points on that one.

All right.

It wasn't too hard to think that the Titans weren't going to do well against the Colts, but that's why you had to get into details and I got lucky on that, I guess.

You got the details.

You got, you nailed the details.

You're also going to get two because the Texans beat the 49ers and they did so fairly handily.

That was, that was a game where the Texans defense really showed out and really the Texans actually moved the ball pretty well in that game too.

So you get, you get two there and then you're going to get two also.

We're both going to get two because we both had the Ravens winning by two or more scores and that one got a little shaky a little bit.

I think when we picked we were both thinking Lamar was going to play and he didn't.

But then Snoop, Snoop Huntley comes in and gets the job done anyway over the Bears.

So you got, that's your six that you got, right?

There's six points.

I'm sorry that you got, you got for this week.

You did not get any points for your pick of the Browns forcing four turnovers and keeping it close to New England.

Boy, I don't want to, I don't want to hammer the kid too much.

Gabriel is horrible.

I, I, he is, he's unplayable.

It's, it's, it's, it's terrible.

If I was Miles Garrett, I would be throwing my helmet as well because that is just, they can't move the ball.

They, they just can't.

Would you ever think that one player getting five sacks in a game would be on the losing side of a one sided game?

You know that.

It'S ridiculous.

It's ridiculous.

Do you know you mentioned that it made me, did think, you know, Derek Thomas for the Chiefs, he had seven sacks in a game that the Chiefs lost.

They won on the last play of the game so it kind of reminded me of that.

But you're right, not only did he have five sacks and they lose, but they also were not even close.

They were not competitive.

So that's, that's hard to do and it's Only you're only able to achieve that if on the other end your quarterback in your offense is 100% inept on an NFL level.

And I think you summed it up right there.

There you go.

Yes, that's exactly what they were.

Also in epped on an NFL level was your last pick, which was the Vikings going in Thursday night and beating the Chargers.

Poor Carson Wentz.

Speaking of inept, I.

It did come out later that the guy was like seriously banged up with a torn labrum.

I think some sort of break in his shoulder area.

So he was in a lot of pain and I think everybody that watched that game was also in a lot of pain because that was not close.

Very ugly Thursday nighter.

But.

But you're going to wind up with six.

That gets you to 32 on the season, which now ties you with me.

We are in a deadlocked tie at 32 because I had a two point lead, but I only got four this week.

I got that Ravens game correct.

I also got that same Texans game correct.

I actually predicted it a little more detailed than you did.

I said the, the 49ers would score 17 or fewer and they scored 15.

So I got.

Those are the two I got right.

I really missed pretty badly on that Eagles game.

I said the two teams would combine for 40 or less.

The Eagles would win, but it would be kind of a defensive fight.

And it was not.

It was just sort of an easy win for the Eagles.

They scored pretty easily.

I think they wound up with what, 38.

So yeah, they almost hit that number by themselves.

So I don't get anything there.

I don't get anything in that Browns game.

I also said that they would keep it close and hold the Patriots to 20 or less.

I think their defense tried, but that just wasn't happening.

And then where I decided to be the judge and maybe be a little lenient towards you and not me was that packers game against the Steelers.

What I said was the Steelers, I'm sorry, the packers would hold the Steelers to 20 or less and they would sack Rogers four or more times.

Well, they sacked him three times and they had held them the 20 or less until the very last, you know, drive there with kind of a garbage touchdown that didn't really factor into the game, but because they didn't technically do either.

And I'd also say that for the majority of the game, the Packer, the Steelers did move the ball fairly well.

It's not like the packers defense was dominating.

So I gave myself a zero for that one, too.

And that leaves us deadlocked through eight weeks of games at 32.

So we're almost at the halfway point and it's a close one.

So there is parody in the bold predictions, just like the NFL parody predictions.

Yes, sir.

Time.

It's time for me to take, take, take, take the charge again.

All right, well, I believe this week is my first pick and I'm going to go to one where the.

We talked about a lot the, the Bears team and Caleb, I think that he is going to have a rebound week this week.

And I made this pick even before I got the news on Joe Flacco being 50, 50 to go for the Bengals.

But I, I think the Bears are going to take a bite out of the Bengals and, and even though Jamar Chase is going to score twice, the Bengals are going to lose this game.

Bears win, Chase two touchdowns.

Yes.

Yeah, I, you know, after last week, I can't, I can't pick the Bengals.

That, that was humiliating to give up 39 points to a Jets offense that couldn't get out of their own way for seven weeks.

So I'm certainly not going to push, push back on you on that one.

It's a nice little get right place for Caleb if he indee feeling a little pressure and heat a game against that Bengals defense.

Oh, they had their, they had the players only meeting the defense that their players only meeting.

You know, the players only meeting.

So they should probably have a players only meeting and then just not let them back in for the, for the Bengals.

So that, that, that was bad.

But yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll probably tend to agree with you on that one.

I do not have a pick in that game.

I do have a pick on our favorite Titans.

They're going to lose at home to the Chargers, but they are going to fight this week.

And this is a little bit of a, this is a little bit of a, maybe a blind spot here for the Chargers to.

Chargers are going to struggle in Tennessee.

They're going to get it done, but it's going to be by 7 or less, which is quite lower than the posted spread.

And it'll be a game that at some point in the fourth quarter, you'll, you'll have a little bit of doubt.

Really?

Well, that is pretty bold because the way watching what the Titans have been doing the last few weeks and watching what the Chargers did last week, you would, one would think quite the opposite.

So that's pretty bold to go out on there.

I don't know if I agree with you, but it is bold.

I'll agree it's bold.

All right.

All right.

Well, I'm going to go to the big game of the week.

The big boy pants are on in this one.

The Chiefs and the Bills and you know, you, you got firsthand knowledge watching the game last week in stadium at Arrowhead thinking the Chiefs are pretty good and they are, they have, they're pretty rock solid.

They have great coordinators, you know, both sides with Andy Reid being the offensive coordinator, basically he's calling the plays and you know, their defense is just phenomenal and they really know how to get up for an opponent and know the take away their weaknesses.

So I think that we're going to have a shootout in this game.

It's going to be a typical Chiefs and Bills fight, but I'm going to take the Bills to win this game and they're going to win it at home.

And it's going to be a surprise to many.

But that's my bold prediction.

Bills and a close one.

So, Darren, you kind of stole my thunder then, because I also have a close game.

I'll be maybe a tad more specific, but I'm going to say Josh Allen wins the game for Buffalo in the final 60 seconds and he doesn't leave enough time for.

Not the final 13 seconds, no, the.

Final 60 seconds or overtime.

Okay, so the Bills are going to win this game with less, either in overtime on the last play somehow or with less than a minute remaining.

So beyond 59 minutes and 30 seconds.

Yes.

Okay.

Beyond that.

So, yes, I do think the Chiefs are the better team and I actually don't think it is that close.

I think they are clearly the better roster, but they don't have to be the better.

Buffalo doesn't necessarily have to be the better team on Sunday.

And it is a very big game for Buffalo because they really need this game if they meet again, to be in Buffalo, they really don't want to have to go back to Kansas City again.

So I'm picking the Bills to win and Allen to pull it off very dramatically, very late.

Okay, that is very specific.

And I like the pick because that was very similar to mine.

All right, well, I, you know how I don't like picking with my own team, the game my own team's in, But I'm going to do it this week because I think they have something, they have to do something and it won't be the players only meeting like we talked about, but I think it's just the pride thing.

I think that they are going to come out to play and they have the Colts at home and the Steelers, this isn't going to sound like fantastic defense, but I think they're going to hold the MVP candidate, Jonathan Taylor, to 120 yards or less and they're going to eke out a desperately needed win in Acreshire Stadium this weekend in Pittsburgh.

Steelers win.

Taylor Less than 120 yards.

Less than 120.

I don't know if I could get.

Are you also predicting the Steeler to hold them to less than 45?

Yeah.

Hey, you got to take a W. You take a. Wow.

I got you.

I got you.

All right.

So, yeah, I didn't have a strong feel on that game either way.

You would think maybe by what I said earlier that I'd really lean towards the Colts, but I don't because I do think that right now the Steelers are probably fine and their offense is playing pretty well.

And, you know, the Colts are probably kind of.

Do you know, it's seven and one.

You know, at some point you say, oh, is this team really going to go 16 and 1?

You know, so it's a tough road game.

So I can see where you're coming from on that.

Let me Clarify, too.

The 120 is 120 yards rushing.

Not.

Not total.

Okay.

120 yards rushing.

I'm gonna hold him under 120 yards rushing.

Okay.

And Daniel Jones will have less than 575 yards pass.

Well, he could.

He could have like a thousand.

I don't know.

Okay, there you go.

All right.

I'm gonna go with a couple ugly ones now.

I'm going to say that the packers on Sunday at home against the Panthers, who I think, you know, they look like the Panthers might be something a little bit there.

And now I think there's a little bit more reality.

I think this is a real big mismatch.

The.

The packers have sort of played with their food the last few weeks now.

I thought they played better in Pittsburgh, but even then, the first half, they were a little clunky.

I think they're kind of ready to maybe just blow somebody out.

So I'm going to think in this and what I consider to be a real roster mismatch, I'm going to pick the packers to beat the Panthers by three or more scores.

So we're talking about 17 or more.

Wow.

Okay.

You've been very strong on the Panthers all year, too, with.

If I'm thinking correctly, you've picked them.

Yeah, I've had them A couple of times.

I just don't, don't like this spot for them and I do like it for Green Bay.

I think this is shaping up as a bit of a mauling.

Okay.

All right.

Well, my next game, I'm going to go to the NFC North.

We have a battle between the Detroit Lions and the Minnesota Vikings and I'm going to take a Detroit.

I think Jir Gibbs is going to be a humongous factor in this game.

I think he's going to score twice and he's going to have a bountiful 150 yards plus of total offense, both catching and running the ball.

And the Lions are going to roll here and really beat up on the hapless vikings.

Even with McCarthy coming in at quarterback.

Probably.

Yeah, it's hard to see.

It's hard to see anything other than a Lions win.

I don't really like it for the Vikings.

I don't think they trust McCarthy.

I think that's pretty clear by what they.

How they've handled this over the last few weeks.

It's very odd to have a ankle injury that didn't even necessarily have a specific moment that it happened that then keeps you out for, you know, months.

So it's a little weird.

And yeah, things aren't looking great for the Vikings.

It is a division game.

You never know.

But Lions off the by at home, I could definitely, I could definitely see that.

I'm going to do a much, much too much worse teams.

I'm going to pick an upset in the late window that the lowly, kind of hapless looking Raiders are going to win outright.

So I've got the, the Jags are going to lose to the Raiders on Sunday in Vegas kind of.

They're not going to bounce back from their ugly performance overseas against the Rams and it's going to show that there are some real issues with Jacksonville.

Okay.

All right, we got that.

My final game, I'm going to put go to the Giants.

You were sort of hard on the Giants.

You put them on your list of cuts and I don't necessarily disagree with you, but I think the Giants are going to put up a good fight this week.

They're playing the 49ers, but I think they're going to end up losing on a last minute field goal to the Niners.

Giants on a close one, but Niners pull it out with a last minute field goal.

Okay, Giants, the Niners last thing.

Yeah, I didn't like that one either.

They're.

The Niners are way better but they're so banged up right now that I. I just can't.

I'm just not sure about them at this point.

I think they're really good.

I love.

I love.

I love Shanahan, but they're a shell of what they should be.

So they're just kind of limping along and I'm not sure what to expect.

And, you know, usually we talk about, you know, in the NFL, it's kind of.

We like to zag, you know, go against the grain.

Pick, pick.

The opposite of what happened last week on Monday night.

I'm just going all in on what we expect because the Cowboys are at home on Monday night.

They've scored 40 points or more in each of their home games so far this year.

They are playing the Cardinals, who I believe are expected to have Kyler Murray back.

Those two teams are going to combine for 60 or more points in that game and it's going to be a shootout.

Now, it may not necessarily be a close shootout, but Dallas's offense will bounce back from their kind of poor performance in Denver on Sunday.

I think they are much more comfortable at home.

That Cardinals defense isn't going to provide a ton of resistance and the Cowboys defense won't either because they just aren't good at all.

That's a very poor defense, the Cardinals.

It's a good spot for Kyler to come back if he's.

If he indeed is back.

And those two teams are going to light it up on Monday night and they're going to give us 60 or more points.

Okay, so AT&T Stadium is going to be good to the Cowboys once again.

And there's no place like the magic of Jerry World and the magic of.

Jerry World, which adds the most annoying, an eye roll inducing game presentation of any NFL stadium I've ever been in.

It's really bad.

It's really, really annoying.

My kids and I were both talking about it.

The contrast of Arrowhead to Jerry World is stark.

It is really something.

The difference in how the game is presented, the fans, everything about it is very different.

And needless to say, Arrowhead is way cooler, way more fun and a way better experience.

And they also right now have a better team.

Yeah, that probably helps.

Yeah, no doubt that probably helps.

But you know, Jerry Roll is so antiseptic.

You know, it's.

It's just cavernous.

It's big.

That everything they do is a little bit cheesy.

It's very forced.

The fans are sort of indifferent in some ways.

You know, there's not A lot of cohesion or.

I don't know.

There's just something missing at Jerry World.

And I went to a lot of games at the old Texas Stadium, and it was different.

So I think it is somewhat specific to the stadium itself, which is a really impressive as a.

As a building, as a stadium, but for a football game, it's not great.

It's really not great.

Yeah, I've never been to a game there, but I got to tour it.

But it's expensive marble that they have there in the concession areas, though.

It's.

It's like some Italian marble that was like, you know, $50 a square foot or something.

He paid for it.

It was crazy.

Yeah.

If only.

If only they would have used some of that money on, you know, a defensive end or a linebacker, maybe they would be a little higher in the standings, right?

Well, that's true.

All right, well, there is our picks.

We have them in for week nine.

We know we're tied after the week eight games and we also know that, you know, we are worried about you.

We want you to read that warning label that we've been seeing above your head this whole time to make sure you know that sometimes the objects in the mirror appear to be at a different distance than what they really are in your vision.

So I feel like I'm in a different universe right now.

I'm surrounded by fields and everything.

So sorry for the technical difficulties and we'll try to get back on track next week.

All right, Ed, you take care, drive safe and we will see you back next week for the week 10 picks.

Thanks, Darren.

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