Every week I give you five picks and more importantly five story lines for this weekend’s games. I went 4-1 again last week bringing my total to 8-2. Last week I made the very bad decision to pick the Broncos to win. Don’t worry that won’t happen again this year. Let’s get started.

The fastest game of the week: Titans @ Eagles

These teams both like to run…a lot. This means the clock will be running. The Eagles are the much better passing team. They just choose not to throw sometimes. Last week Jalen Hurts had more rushing yards than passing yards. They have a good stable of running backs led by Miles Sanders. They will likely throw the ball more this week than last but even then they are usually high percentage throws or if no one is open, guess what, Hurts just runs.

On the other side, I am confident the Titans would prefer not to ever throw. The problem is the rest of the league also knows this. That is why they are focused on stopping Derick Henry. He is averaging less than 3 yards a carry the last 2 weeks. The Packers were able to run the ball well against the Eagles but they also had the threat of throwing. The Titans not so much. But this won’t stop them from running a bunch. They are who they are…even if who they are doesn’t beat good teams.

The other interesting storyline here is AJ Brown playing his old team that decided to trade him instead of paying him. This turned out to be a bad idea as the Eagles are way better at throwing with him and the Titans are way worse at throwing without him. AJ is a guy you can just throw it up to and he will win 75% of the time. This is the sort of receiver that Tannehill needs to be successful. Without AJ, Tannehill has been average at best. AJ was very vocal after the trade and I am sure he will be very vocal on the field. He doesn’t strike me as a guy who keeps his emotions inside.

If you listen to Skip Bayless, then first of all you are losing brain cells and secondly you know that he thinks Hurts is the MVP over Mahomes because he has won more games. This is a dumb argument because what happens if he loses a game? He is a Mahomes hater and it doesn’t matter what happens he will always pick someone else. But Hurts does have a fine resume. But there are also games where he doesn’t have to do a lot. This is one of the better defenses he will face and the Titans don’t let anyone score that many points.

Also, this could also be deemed the game of most grumpy coaches. Mike Vrabel always looks like he is ready for a fight and Nick Siranni looks like the most unhappiest 10-1 coach of all time and just a couple of weeks ago yelled at random Colts fans.

This literally might be a 2 and half hour game. Just like last week, I think the Titans are well coached, good football team that will keep it close. But in close games I go with the quarterback and kicker I trust most. And that is never the Titans. (Titans kicker missed a fg last week). The good news is if you are fan of either of these teams, you will be able to catch the end of all the other early games.

Eagles 24 Titans 20

Massage Gate: Browns @ Texans

This will likely be the only visit by the Texans in the five for Friday picks but this storyline is too good to be true. And I couldn’t resist the Massage Gate tagline to poke at my friend Evan. He rightfully has pointed out time and time again it doesn’t make sense to add “gate” to every controversy. This of course comes from Watergate which involved no water. So why do we add gate to spy gate or whatever controversy happens over and over again? It drives him crazy so I couldn’t resist here.

I am not here to claim Deshaun Watson is innocent or guilty. I like to do this crazy thing called letting the facts come out and seeing what happens before passing judgement. I know that is abnormal in this new world where Twitter decides the fate of everyone. I have said it many times before but I know our society will be back on track whenever news stories no longer report on what steve4712 said about something on Twitter. Why random strangers opinions on a social media platform where they can say whatever they want without consequence is news worthy is beyond me, but I digress.

Regardless of how you feel about Watson’s innocence you have to admit this is one of the weirder stories in sports history. Let’s say he is innocent. Even so, I don’t do anything as much as Watson get massages. I mean the rate he gets massages is higher than the rate at which the Texans organization pisses off their players. The sure number of people he got massages from is impressive. And we only know about the ones who have accused him of something.

Also, this might be controversial, but I think massages are weird. I’ve never had one because the idea of a stranger touching me that much freaks me out. I am like the anti Watson when it comes to massages. He wants everyone to touch him and I don’t want anyone to touch me. I am more likely to pay a stranger not to touch me than get a massage.

The Texans drafting a great quarterback with at a minimum a weird addiction to massages and at the worst a guy who gets massages to assault women is about the most Texans thing ever. Even when they get it right, they get it wrong. I have said for a few weeks now that this is the worst organization in Sports. You know you are a bad organization when your players don’t want to play for you. Before Massage Gate happened, Watson already said he wasn’t playing for the Texans anymore. He would rather take a 23 million dollar pay cut than play for the Texans. Think about that. Even good soldiers who don’t complain like Brandin Cooks don’t want to play for them anymore because even though he went out and played his best when they had the opportunity to give him a gift to trade him to a non terrible team, they declined. Knowing the Texans they probably even promised they would trade him. And now they have taken one of my running backs in fantasy football and made him completely worthless. Dameon Pierce was a top notch running back until teams figured out that literally all they had to do was stop him because the rest of the offense is so bad. He has had less than 10 yards rushing in both the last two games. The Texans are awful and seem to find a way to get even worse every week.

The Browns on the other hand are so desperate to not suck that they traded for Watson. Innocent? Guilty? The Browns don’t care. The Browns playoff history isn’t quite as sad as the Lions (check out my rankings to hear about that). But it is still really bad. Since 1994 the Browns have been to the playoffs twice. Their luck is so bad that the original organization actually moved to Baltimore and won a few championships. This isn’t even the real Browns organization. I know they got to keep the Browns history or whatever but we know who they are. Anyway they want to win in the worst way. They would take anyone on their team no matter what they had done if it helps them win. This might be frowned upon by most but I sort of appreciate this level of desperation. I mean I don’t condone it but I am not judging it either. The reality is most of us don’t care what it takes for our team to win, as long as they win. The Browns are just more honest about it. And I say good for them. Honestly is always the best policy.

The final character in this story line is the NFL. The NFL is all about saving face without really sacrificing anything. They also know they are a business. They let an outside source that they choose decide Watson’s Fate. He got 6 games because by NFL rules that is pretty much what he should have gotten. But the league knew the world wouldn’t accept that. So they simply didn’t accept the ruling. This forced Watson to settle and he got 11 games. This was perfect timing by the NFL. It is way far into the season…so much so that no one cares about this story anymore. The NFL knows America’s outrage is short lived. Where are the protests? Where is the anger? This is how America rolls. We get real angry about something for like a week and then we are like…That’s a lot of work….I’ll just go live my life now. And the NFL played it perfectly. And not even the NFL respects the Texans based upon inserting him so that his first game back is against his old team. This gives the NFL a story line that matters in a game that doesn’t. The other way the NFL won this battle is the Browns are not good. If Watson was coming back to a 7-4 team instead of a 4-7 team then there might be more outrage. But no one thinks this team is doing anything at this point with or without Watson. And by the time next year rolls around, America will definitely be over this story.

As for the actual game, the Texans are awful at everything and the Browns are less awful at everything so this won’t be close. It will be a great game for Watson to massage his stats (see what I did there) and the Browns will win big.

Browns 30 Texans 10

The Nerd Bowl: Dolphins @ 49ers

Are there two nerdier head coaches in football than Kyle Shanahan and Mike McDaniel? McDaniel is likely king of the nerds. I think we are all skeptical that this kid ever played a sport. He looks like he grew up playing video games instead of playing outside. Which is why he is probably such a good coach. I have always argued that ever NFL staff needs a madden player on it. But I never thought that person would be the head coach. He is a funny character that says funny things. My favorite moment was when he said Tyreek and the other captains decided to remove the ping pong table out of the facility so they could focus on winning. Tyreek came back the next day and said, nah…it is just broken and we are getting another one. McDaniel didn’t miss a beat and just kept on doing his thing.

Shanahan is a more serious nerd that has grown up in the game his whole life under the tutelage of his dad who sort of looks like a rat. But man, that rat could coach. Kyle is a really good football coach. He is also really good at almost winning stuff.

Both of these teams are very talented. They have lots of fast guys running around that can do lots of different things. They have great coaches that know how to use those fast guys and they have limited quarterbacks that seem to find a way to win most of the time. Tua is undefeated this year when he finishes games. But besides the Bills they really haven’t beaten anyone great. Jimmy G is very limited but wins a lot when he isn’t stepping out of the back of end zones or playing the Chiefs.

The Chiefs game is what makes me nervous about this one for the 49ers. The Dolphins can score a lot and Jimmy G is not good at keeping up. The 49ers have the better defense and are healthier now but they could not slow down the Chiefs at all. Also, I am sure the 49ers will have 3 or 4 injuries this game. Tua is playing well but this will be the biggest test he will face since he literally got knocked out of the Bengals game. This game should be a lot of fun. It will be my ipad game during the Chiefs game.

In a game like this, I don’t really trust either quarterback but I have less reason not to trust Tua. So I will go with the nerdier coach and the quarterback I have slightly more faith in. Jimmy G throws a bad, late interception to clinch it for the Dolphins.

Dolphins 27 49ers 20

The Hat Trick Game: Chargers @ Raiders

The Raiders have won back to back games in overtime. I don’t remember any team playing in 3 overtime games in a row but the Chargers are the perfect opponent to do it with. They also came off a very close win over the Cardinals by going for 2 at the very end of the game to win it.

Both of these teams are very competitive against everyone without actually beating anyone good. Both teams have had injury issues and both teams have had some brutal losses. Also, both teams along with the Broncos were overly hyped in the offseason. Unlike the Broncos both teams can score more than 10 points.

The Chargers are the perennial off season AFC West champs that become choke artists when the season starts. There run defense has been so bad that even the Chiefs ran for a lot of yards against them. On the flip side Josh Jacobs ran for like 300 yards last week. He does have a calf issue but is still probably good for 100 yards on 1 leg against the Chargers. I am not sure why their defense is so bad. They have good players and a “defensive” minded coach but that has not led to their ability to actually stop anyone.

The Raiders on the other hand can’t stop anyone either. But they are undefeated since Derek Carr cried. Davante Adams has been unguardable of late. And of course Jacobs has been running over everyone all year. The Raiders also had quite the hype train going in the offseason but started off terrible losing close game after close game.

These teams are in a lot of ways mirrors of each other which should lead to an exciting game. Both teams absolutely need this win and the Raiders are all but technically eliminated with a loss. Neither team is great but it should be a great game.

Herbert is the better athlete but those tears of Carr are hard to beat. I think the Raiders pull off the upset and the overtime Hat Trick for the win.

Raiders 37 Chargers 30 in OT

The Revenge Game: Chiefs @ Bengals

I love my Chiefs but I hate this match up. The Bengals are a good team. Lots of the media is jumping on their bandwagon. They beat us twice last year, both times in games we had no business losing. They have enough fire power to come from behind and Burrow seems to have our number.

To make matters worse, Justin Reid decided to talk some smack to give them extra motivation. This tends to never work out well. I was not pleased by his comments and based upon Big Red’s press conference today, neither was he. They have arguable the best receiver trio in the league with Chase, Higgins and Boyd. And even know Justin Reid doesn’t know his name, Hayden Hurst is playing quite well as well.

To make things even harder, when you look at our schedule, it is hard to imagine us losing any other games. We would finish 15-2 which seems too good. 14-3 for some reason just sounds more realistic. So losing this game seems about right. The bad news is if we lose, we would have lost to the Bills and Bengals who I see as our biggest threat to making it to the Super Bowl.

Also, for some reason we haven’t beaten the Bengals in Cincinnati since 1988. So I guess we are due. How we haven’t beaten them there since then is bizarre but also not the best sign.

There are some positives though. Although, I don’t think our defense is great it is better than last year. We have 35 sacks through 11 games. We only had 31 all last year. Chris Jones and Nick Bolton are playing at all pro levels.

Our offense also played bad last week which I think is good for us. When was the last time you remember Mahomes having two bad games in a row. Also, although he unlike stupid Justin Reid, has said all the right things, you know he is still pissed off about last year. The only quarterback better than Pat is pissed off Pat.

I don’t have a great feeling about this game but at the same time, the Chiefs have exceeded my expectations all year. I think it is a shootout, Mahomes drives us down for a game winning td and Chris Jones sacks Burrow to end any chance of a comeback and ends the game.

Chiefs 37 Bengals 30