NFL Week 8: Must Watch TV Picks
Two different coaching philosophies collide in LA, and Dallas looks to gut Minnesota from the inside-out.
🏈 Chargers -4 -110
🏈 Cowboys +2.5 -105
I’m jazzed for the Pats and Chargers. The Chargers are coming off a bye, and the Patriots are coming off a 50-burger against the Jets. It feels like a millennium since I’ve seen the Chargers play ball, but painful bye weeks will do that to ya.
I talked last week about Bill Belichick’s balls, and how he’ll need to get more aggressive to win games against teams like Tampa Bay, Dallas, and now the LA Chargers. Unfortunately, against a Jets team that lost Zach Wilson to injury in the second quarter, we weren’t able to really see if his coaching decisions remained conservative. Yet, throughout the year, they’ve ranked second last in the league on fourth down attempts, and the only time they’ve gone for it they had a 20% chance of winning the game. The other nine times, Belichick chose to kick a field goal three times (missing once) and punt six. On the other side of the field, Brandon Staley approaches his teams’ drives differently.
The Chargers have successfully converted eight fourth downs this year, ranking second in the league behind the Broncos. They’ve had success in late downs collectively, ranking 3rd in late down efficiency. Staley’s philosophy: keeping the ball in Herbert’s hands longer means more success for the team.
Yeah, it makes sense. Herbert ranks third in EPA per play on late downs behind Kyler Murray and Matt Stafford. Where the Chargers have have less success is on early downs.
The Chargers rank 25th in early down EPA per play. During their bye week, Staley said they were going to work on these early down plays in order to avoid getting into the late down situations. Even though they’re good at converting on third and fourth downs, avoiding these types of situations entirely would be ideal.
This is going to be a fun game. I like the Chargers by a touchdown because I think they can get ahead of the Patriots early with their aggressive play-calling. Yet, Mac Jones is the real deal. He’s tough and poise in the pocket, and he’s been given more opportunities to make big plays. Hell, he’s already finding himself on a list with Herbert, and that’s good news.
There’s also value in the Chargers at home, yet I’ve heard SoFi might be littered with Boston fans.
For the SNF matchup, the Cowboys and Vikings are coming off their bye weeks as well. This game felt like a trap when the line opened up at -2.5 in Dallas’ favor. Now, the line has completely switched 5 points at -2.5 in Minnesota’s favor. This would make me believe that the public bet heavily on Minnesota when the line opened, and now the bookies want to even it out. Is this now a double trap? Which would then cancel out all traps? I hate how much I love the Cowboys in this game.
The Cowboys are 6-0 against the spread this year, covering as dogs against Tampa and winning outright against the Chargers. Minnesota is 50% against the spread, playing competitively against Cincinnati, Arizona, Cleveland, and now have dome-advantage against the Cowboys.
These two teams are similar in more ways than I thought, but I’ll highlight areas where the Cowboys stand out. When it comes to passing, Dak Prescott is more aggressive with his throws, yet he still maintains a similar top-five completion percentage with Kirk Cousins. Dak has 16 touchdowns and 4 interceptions, while Kirk has 13 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. However, as we know, Kirk isn’t one for big-time throws, and Dak ranks 6th in that category with 15 on the year. Kirk’s air-yards are ranked last, behind Matt Ryan. Also, 43.7% of Dak’s pass attempts have resulted in a touchdown or first down, which leads the league. These quarterbacks also have great receivers to compliment their successes, so the opposing teams’ secondary will be a large factor.
Trevon Diggs will be up against Justin Jefferson. Diggs leads the league in interceptions—whether that’s all luck or good reads or a bit of both, this matchup will be fun to witness. Jefferson has the most receptions against man coverage this season (tied with Ja’Marr Chase), and Dan Quinn supplies heavy doses of man to man.
On the other end, the Vikings are without their leading corner, Patrick Peterson, due to injury. Go off CeeDee Lamb.
What I love most about this Dallas team is their physicality on offense. Trent Dilfer spoke on Russillo’s podcast and explained how physicality on offense is a must and why the Chiefs went nearly scoreless against the Titans last week.
“The defense has to be threatened from the inside-out. When they’re threatened from the inside-out, they have to compact. Every defensive player will tell you, they hate being gutted inside.”
The Chiefs run the ball 35.23% of their plays (ranked 27th). Against the Titans, they ran the ball 5 times—one of those runs was a jet sweep to Tyreek Hill. They ran the ball much more with Clyde Edwards-Helaire before his injury, but they’ve lost all sense of the run since.
“Once you do that (threaten the defense from the inside-out), everything the Chiefs do is incredible—it’s the best.”
The Cowboys threaten the hell out of defenses with their two stud backs. Ranked 6th, their offense runs the ball 46.19% of the time, letting Tony Pollard eat up yards in open space and giving the short yards near the goal line and sticks to Zeke. Per PFF, Pollard has the highest rushing grade, while Elliott ranks 8th. Pollard chews up 6 yards per attempt (ranked first) and gains 3.41 yards after contact per attempt (ranked 7th). Elliott’s total yards after contact ranks 6th. With these two monsters on the ground, Dak gets more and more dangerous.
The Vikings rank 17th in rush plays. They have Dalvin Cook and Alexander Mattison who are both great backs, but the Vikings offense ranks 24th in rush EPA, compared to 14th in pass EPA. These two backs definitely allow Kirk Cousins to make more plays with his arm, but not to the extreme Dallas’ backs provide for Dak.
I like the matchups in this game a lot. Mike Zimmer and Dan Quinn will duke it out on the defensive end, and if Mike McCarthy can manage to stay out of his own team’s way, the Cowboys will be 7-0 against the spread by the end of the day.