This is the busiest bye week of the season, strangely coming after the World Series is over and on the opening weekend of NBA festivities. For as much as the NFL micromanages its public persona and tries to maximize revenue, they sure do a terrible job manipulating the schedule.

Cold weather begins to be more of a factor this week. Pay attention to field conditions for teams that like to run the ball outside the tackles, as that is the primary negative impact of colder and slicker conditions.

Last Week: 9-6, which isn’t bad considering the demoralizing upset picks of Chicago and Jacksonville went horribly wrong. The season forecast is now 78-41-1.

Gambling Update: Wagered a total of $2000 and two of the three bets were losers. My only hit was Carolina getting 4.5 at home to Seattle. The net loss of $1500 reduces the kitty to $12K after starting at $10K. 

Thursday Night

- New Orleans Saints at Carolina Panthers (+2.5): As with real estate, the key here is location. The Saints are a multimillion dollar beachfront mansion at home, but when they’re on the road the mansion sits in a dingy mud flat next to a contaminated river. They haven’t won on the road this year, yet are undefeated at home. Normally that would make me easily default to picking the host Panthers, but they’re not an easy team to trust.

The Carolina offense has scored 26 points in the last two weeks. The Panthers defense has allowed 24 or more points in five of the last six, ranking in the bottom 10 in just about every defensive stat metric over the last month. The Saints offense appears to have found its stride over the last two weeks, and I see that trend continuing. Mark Ingram’s impressive running last week against Green Bay should give the Panthers fits. I agree with the book makers here, the visiting Saints should win by about a field goal. Those road property values are going to trend up for New Orleans.

Saints 30, Panthers 27 

Sunday Games

- Denver Broncos at New England Patriots (+3.5): The Patriots are home underdogs for just the second time since 2005. Both those games have pertinence here.

Last year the Broncos were 2-point favorites in New England. The Patriots won 34-31. The undefeated Bengals in Week 5 is the other instance, and the Patriots won that game 43-17. In fact, since Tom Brady took over as New England’s QB the Patriots are an astonishing 9-1 when a home underdog. Denver might be the better team, but the Patriots do not take the disrespect lightly. Denver has lost three of the four meetings since Peyton Manning became a Bronco, though he didn’t play in one. Moreover, the Patriots have a recent history of lighting up the Broncos. They’ve scored at least 31 in five of the last seven meetings, topping 40 in three of those. The last four times Denver has travelled to Foxboro they’ve allowed 45, 41, 31, and 34 points and this Patriots offense is significantly better than three of those teams putting up the big numbers. Gimmie $500 on New England with points at home.

Patriots 36, Broncos 34

- Arizona Cardinals at Dallas Cowboys (-4.5): Monday night’s loss to Washington brought the Cowboy haters out of the woodwork. It’s like they’ve been storing up all this anger and resentment towards Dallas’ strong start for far too long. Everyone who doubted the validity of their 6-1 start immediately felt justified in their skepticism.

This week figures to continue those salad days for the haters, though this time it’s more about the opponent than the Cowboys themselves. Washington exposed flaws in the offense that the Cardinals are nicely equipped to replicate. Arizona is opportunistic and relentlessly aggressive, a bad combo for a Dallas offense playing on a short week with a clearly wounded Tony Romo. I also really like the Cardinals speed on offense and depth of receiving talent to expose a Dallas defense that has been overachieving for a little too long.

Cardinals 33, Cowboys 24

- Philadelphia Eagles at Houston Texans (+2.5): Total hunch pick here. I sat down to evaluate this one and I was overcome with the strong notion that the Texans somehow win. I’m not sure how, but I’m riding with the gut.

Texans 22, Eagles 20

- San Diego Chargers at Miami Dolphins (-1.5): Big test for the Chargers, coming off their worst game of the season in losing at Denver. It’s an early game on the East coast, never an easy task for the West coast teams. Yet they get an unexpected boon in the end of Daylight Savings Time, which means the early start is physiologically one hour later. Coupled with the extra rest--their Week 8 game was a Thursday nighter--and I think San Diego will overcome the negatives here. They’re the better football team, and as long as they protect Philip Rivers the Chargers handle their business.

Chargers 24, Dolphins 16

- Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Cleveland Browns (-6.5): The Browns draw a team in the bottom four of pretty much every power ranking for the third week in a row. No team is playing worse than the woeful Buccaneers, who tried to trade away anyone for pennies on the dollar this week. They dumped 2012 first-rounder Mark Barron, a major liability in coverage at safety but the only player in the secondary who could reliably tackle. Guess what Cleveland likes to do? Run the ball right at the defense with powerful depth at RB. The Browns run for over 200 yards in this one and the Dawg Pound woofs approvingly.

Browns 27, Buccaneers 17

- Washington at Minnesota Vikings (-2.5): This game will apparently mark the return of RG3 to the helm in Washington, just a few quick days after Colt McCoy impressively guided them to a huge win in Dallas.

I’m not sure I like the timing here. Washington has a bye after this week, and McCoy seemed to have a great command of Jay Gruden’s offense. Moreover, it’s a short week and a road game. The pressure on RG3 will be intense, and the last time he rushed back from an injury the results were not positive. The Vikings don’t do many things well, but one area they excel is getting to the opposing quarterback; only the Chiefs have a higher sack percentage. Griffin figures to have limited mobility and acceleration to escape the likes of Everson Griffen (8 sacks), Tom Johnson (5) and Anthony Barr (3). This figures to be a low-scoring affair decided by a turnover or special teams play, and the home team has the advantage in both areas.

Vikings 19, Ethnic Slurs 16

- Jacksonville Jaguars at Cincinnati Bengals (-11.5): The Bengals look like they righted the listing ship in the win over Baltimore, and the jungle is no safe place for Jaguars rookie QB Blake Bortles. Okay, technically the jaguar is a jungle animal. Which reminds me of the underrated movie Apocalypto, the last hour of which is one of the most intense chase scenes ever filmed. Alas, I don’t see Bortles pulling off the sort of savvy cunning Jaguar Paw does to survive in the movie. Do yourself a favor and see that film, but be warned it’s grisly. So is Jacksonville’s chance to win here.

Bengals 30, Jaguars 17

- New York Jets at Kansas City Chiefs (-9.5): I’ll let the picture of my Survivor Fantasy picks say all my words here…

   

Chiefs 30, Jets 9

St. Louis Rams at San Francisco 49ers (-9.5): The Niners are coming off a bye, while the Rams are coming off a blowout loss at Kansas City. The last two times the Rams have hit the road, they’ve given up 34 points. With an astonishing 21% of their salary cap investment now on IR after Jake Long’s second blown out knee in less than a year, there’s little reason to see anything different for the hopeless Rams against a fresh, motivated Niners team looking to edge back into the NFC playoffs and make up some ground on Arizona. I’ll put $1000 on the Niners to cover.

49ers 34, Rams 12

Oakland Raiders at Seattle Seahawks (-14.5): I’ll channel the great Gil Brandt here. Listeners to Sirius NFL Radio will know exactly what I’m saying…

Let me just say this about Seattle. The Seahawks here, they’re a real good football team and I think they know they need to play better. Pete Carroll is a good football coach, see, and he’s not going to let them look past the Raiders. You know, Al Davis was a great owner and a competitor and I like that these young Raiders compete. But right now they’re too young and the long and the short of it is they’re not quite ready to win a game like this yet.

Seahawks 24, Raiders 10

Baltimore Ravens at Pittsburgh Steelers (-1): These two fierce rivals seem to always play close games. Both contests last year were decided by a field goal. It’s odd that it comes down to such a close margin for two teams that throw the ball so much. These are not your older brother’s Steelers or Ravens; these two teams combine to average 73 passes per game (not counting sacks). In 2010 they combined to average just 58 per game. There’s all the evidence you need that the game is spiraling away from being run-oriented.

The Steelers offer a little more balanced production, and I’ll take Antonio Brown as the playmaking receiver over Steve Smith in a close game. Yet if it comes down to kickers, I’m not betting against Baltimore’s Justin Tucker. Sorry to my Steelers friends, of which I have a surprising amount being a native Clevelander who has lived in Michigan, Texas and Virginia, but I see Tucker kicking a walk-off field goal to give the Ravens the win.

Baltimore 34, Pittsburgh 33

Monday Night

Indianapolis Colts at New York Giants (+4.5): Several reasons why I really like the visiting Colts here:

- Andrew Luck in prime time >>> Eli Manning in prime time

- The Colts were embarrassed last week and are eager to prove the 51 points Pittsburgh hung on them was a fluke

- New York’s ground game will miss Rashad Jennings once again

- Luck found a talented new toy in Donte Moncrief, mitigating the questionable status of Reggie Wayne

- The Giants are 1-6 in their last seven games as a home underdog, including 0-3 last year

Colts 32, Giants 24