Welcome back to The Degenerates Gambit! Once again, please remember that these articles are for fun, and while I love writing them and gambling on football, if you or someone you know is addicted and needs help, please get help or get help for them. The national helpline number is 1-800-522-4700.
Welcome back to the 14th installment of The Degenerate’s Gambit, the place where we feign optimism about the following week’s games. After sitting through three hours of both New England and Pittsburgh not only playing but playing EACH OTHER, I think we could all use a palate cleanser. Let’s hope the Thursday night game this week was the enema the league needed to get all the shit out of the way before a fun slate of Sunday games.
Minnesota Vikings -3
Josh Dobbs’ familiarity with the Vikings playbook will continue to grow, but oddly his performances have lost the spontaneity that made his win over Atlanta so fun. It could be possible that his reliance on the system has minimized his natural improv abilities, but against a shit team like the Raiders, I’m not worried about it. Justin Jefferson is back, and with three elite targets to throw to, Minnesota has a chance to destroy the Raiders in the heavyweight battle between Josh Dobbs and Aidan O’Connell.
Kansas City Chiefs -1.5
The Bills’ championship window seems to be collapsing quicker than, I don’t know, some sort of building. Tyler Dunne’s excellent piece on Sean McDermott that dropped this week not only brought out arguably the best meme of the 2023 NFL season, but also highlighted something I think we all knew: the playoff loss to Kansas City broke this organization. Kansas City is also confronting their own mortality, as a trap game loss to Green Bay last week was another speed bump in the season that I think the Chiefs organization has dubbed “What if we gave Patrick Mahomes NOTHING and see what happens?” I’m taking the Chiefs (even without Isiah Pacheco) to beat Buffalo and continue McDermott’s downward spiral.
Carolina Panthers/New Orleans Saints UNDER 37.5
My co-teacher is an offensive line coach, and the other day we were watching All-22 of the Saints and Lions. When the Saints took the field I said to him “Yeah man, Derek Carr blows.” He was immediately defensive as a former California guy. By the end of the Saints first drive, he turned to me, looked me dead in the eyes, and said “What a fucking bum.” I would love to expand upon this point, but I don’t know what else there is to say.
Long Shot Play of the Week: Philadelphia Eagles Moneyline
The Eagles are the inverse Bills: they always find a way to win, which begs the question: what does Nick Sirianni think about the brave fighters of the Mujahideen? If they want to stay a game ahead of San Francisco for the top seed (and the only bye), a divisional win staves off Purdy and the Boys for another week, while also giving them a two win lead on the Cowboys in their own division. This should be a marquee game, and with so much at stake, I’m rolling with the team less likely to completely shit the bed.
Last Week: 2-2
Year To Date: 29-23 (3-10 on Long Shot Plays)
[Image Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jalen_Hurts,_2020.jpg, cropped under CC BY SA 2.0]
