Strong Side Sports

It’s that time of the season where you have to start seeing teams for what they’re doing on the field and not what you expected them to do at the start of the season. Add in the slew of injuries we’ve seen this year, and it’s time to face the fact that some of these teams just aren’t as good as we thought. Here’s the board:

Top 10

1. Chiefs – Blah blah blah, Patrick Mahomes is having a bad year, blah blah blah. Who cares. They don’t lose. Sure, they’ve had several big injuries on offense, but they just traded for DeAndre Hopkins. He may not be exactly the same player he used to be but I’m sure he’s gonna look stellar catching passes from Mahomes. They’ve got the Raiders this week, shouldn’t be an issue.
2. Ravens – This offense continues to be scary good. Not good news for their dysfunctional opponent, Cleveland, this weekend.
3. Lions – Detroit is the new King of the North after their victory over Minnesota. They play the Titans, who may slow down the Lions offense somewhat, but certainly will not stop it.
4. Vikings – It’s probably best that the Vikings went ahead and got a loss on the books. They’ll need to rebound quickly against a competitive Rams team on Thursday night.
5. Bills – Amari Cooper is looking like a nice pickup for the Bills, which is a good sign because they’re likely to get involved in a shootout with Seattle this weekend.
6. Packers – A huge win over the Texans on Sunday says a lot about this team. Given the state of affairs in Jacksonville, I think the Pack leave Florida with a dub this week.
7. Texans – Tough loss to the Packers. But, they’ve gotta have a short memory because division rival Indianapolis is knocking on their door. When these two teams played in Week 1, it was a bit of a shootout. Expect more of that this week.
8. Eagles – Philly looked a lot more like a quality team this past weekend, maybe playing Giants had something to with that…They’ve got a very tough game against a Bengals team that probably feels like they can’t afford to lose a single game after their horrendous start to the season.
9. Falcons – Are the Falcons the worst best team or the best average team? I’ll let you decide. They’ve got a very banged up Buccaneers team this week, and winning this one would put them in a great position to win the division.
10. Steelers – I’m always a little reluctant to put these guys here, given how many times they’ve disappointed me over the years. You brag on your guys and then they lose to a high school JV team. But I liked what I saw from Russ. I also know Tomlin as a 6.5 point favorite is just asking to be beat outright by the Giants. They should win, but they very well may not.

Better Luck Next Year

While some of these teams are pretty solid still and certainly not Browns or Panthers level teams, I think these guys should just mail it in:

13. Niners – The whole team is injured. They can be competitive but can’t put together wins consistently. It’s a mess. They play Dallas this week, and they’re also sort of a mess but I think they’re in better shape than SF right now.

18. Jets – Not many can claim to have predicted a 2-5 start for the Jets. And they don’t even have an ever-growing pile of injured bodies like some of the other teams on this list. They get the Pats this week and a win there may help stop the bleeding. But I’m out on the Jets.

19. Buccaneers – Losing Godwin for the season and Mike Evans for what looks like 3-4 games is almost insurmountable. I’m writing off the Bucs but I won’t be surprised if they find a way to win some games and stay competitive. But any sort of playoff run aspirations should be revoked.

27. Saints – They’ve been sliding for a while now, but the injuries keep piling up. At one point, this looked like a third team that could compete for the NFC South title. Now, I don’t even know if they have enough guys to field a team. They have the Chargers this week, and I don’t expect them to win.

Week 8 Picks >>> Tomorrow