Bullet Play Now Posted
Snow in Green Bay today where the Packers host the Tennessee Titans, while the rest of the outdoor National Football League games for Sunday offer clear skies.
Yesterday’s action moved the Tampa Bay Buccaneers into the playoff field after they gained their tenth win of the season in convincing fashion over the Detroit Lions, 47-7. In the late game, the heroics by quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick led the Miami Dolphins to a dramatic one-point win and enhanced their playoff prospects while eliminating the Las Vegas Raiders from postseason consideration. Even with their home loss to the San Francisco 49ers, the Arizona Cardinals are still in the hunt with a season closing win next Sunday in Los Angeles landing them a postseason date.
That is a tough game for the Cardinals, which will be made even tougher if the Rams were to lose today in Seattle and also need the game to advance.
Okay, that brings us somewhat up-to-date on the playoff picture, which finds seven teams looking to land the final three postseason slots in the National Football Conference and five teams in the running for the final four slots in the American Football Conference. Thirteen of the 32 NFL teams are assured their season will end after next Sunday’s games.
The Cleveland Browns are in the hunt in the AFC and meet the Jets at MetLife Stadium today. This game got a lot tougher for a Browns team looking to crack the playoff field for the first time since 2002 when they had their receiving corps sidelined with Covid-19 concerns. When the Denver Broncos were forced to play without a quarterback that was listed on their roster, they got crushed by the New Orleans Saints. When the Baltimore Ravens were missing multiple players because of the virus, they went on a three game losing streak.
The Browns are looking to avoid the same fate when they limp into New Jersey with a playoff berth on the line.
Last week, the New York Jets won their first game of the season … and Jets fans found something to complain about. Seems New York fans are more interested in securing the first pick in the draft than winning football games in 2020. It is the Trevor Lawrence sweepstakes, but the Jets already have a potential franchise quarterback on their roster, Sam Darnold, who they just need to develop.
Anyway, the Jets win last week gave renewed hope to the Jacksonville Jaguars for securing the top pick, and they need a quarterback. Today, the Jaguars host the Chicago Bears and have two things they could get done. One, lose, and get closer to getting Lawrence into a Jaguars jersey, or win, and eliminate the Bears from a possible playoff spot.
Jaguars fans are afraid they might win, even though the bettors are piling on the Bears and they are currently favored by a bloated point spread of eight points.
As for reality, once you tell a team they can benefit from losing the chances of them winning are enhanced.
What? Why?
I’ve got a long list of empirical evidence to illustrate this, but suffice it to say this morning that when the need to win is replaced by a healthy dose of skepticism and you are playing a team that does need to win to keep flickering playoff hopes alive, well the advantage shifts dramatically to the team without pressure on them.
Brace yourself Jaguars fans, this is going to be close, and I’m betting close enough to make the eight points the deciding factor on the point spread wager.
As for the public, their three favorite plays today begin with the Baltimore Ravens (-10) over the New York Giants, followed by the Kansas City Chiefs (-11) over the Atlanta Falcons and Chicago Bears (-8) over Jacksonville Jaguars.
As for the Qoxhi Sunday plays, our selections are now posted on this site and if a Bullet Play develops in the final hour leading up to the day’s first kickoff, that game will be added to the list of recommendations by 9:45 a.m. Pacific Time.