Every week I give you 5 picks and more importantly storylines for this weekend’s games. I had an off week last week going 3-2 bringing my total to 11-4 over the last few weeks. Let’s see if I can get back on track this week. Also, how about that game last night. Baker, baby! And Raiders gonna raider. More on that in my weekly rankings next Tuesday. Here are this week’s games.

The Jets vs the Team from New York: Jets @ Bills

Do you ever find it funny that the teams that have New York in their name actually play in New Jersey? Meanwhile, the team that actually plays in New York, everyone thinks…where is Buffalo again? The Bills are riding high after the Chiefs loss as they now control their own destiny to have home field advantage. The most Bills thing to do here is immediately lose.

The Jets meanwhile are coming off a devastating loss when they had multiple opportunities to score at the goal line and were denied against a Vikings defense that apparently doesn’t try until the opposing team gets to the 3 yard line. The Jets have been much better offensively since Mike White took over. And by better, I mean functional. And they beat the Bills with Zach Wilson which is even more impressive.

Since losing to the Jets, the Bills have decided they should probably occasionally run the ball. That seems to be working. Everything seems to be pointing towards the Bills here. They just beat up the Patriots. They have had extra days of rest. They lost Von Miller but have been playing good defense without him. But something just feels funny here.

There is something I like about this Jets team. It’s hard to imagine the Jets sweeping the Bills but a lot of things that have happened this year are hard to imagine. It’s hard to imagine that the Rams would be this bad. It’s hard to imagine that the Russell Wilson trade would be potentially the worst trade in NFL history. It’s hard to imagine that the NFC East would have all 4 teams with winning records going into week 14.

But I go back to the Bills doing things that hurt them right after they accomplish something good. Mike White goes off and the Jets do enough to pull the upset victory. They drive down the field late and our boy from Mo West, Greg Zeurlein hits the game winner. Go Griffs!

Jets 27 Bills 24

The guy the Chiefs can’t touch vs the guy who wants to be touched by everyone: Browns @ Bengals

The Bengals have our number for sure. But on Wednesday I read two articles from people that watched the film. One was a Bengals article that showed how they doubled and tripled teamed Chris Jones every chance they got. The other one was a Chiefs article pointing out that our defensive ends aren’t really good at anything. Both were well written and depressing. Burrow was basically untouched and he owns the Chiefs. What is funny is you know who owns Burrow? The Browns. He is 0-5 against them.

Meanwhile, on the other side of things, Massage boy played his first game in 700 days and it showed. He was awful. It would be the most Browns thing ever to trade all those draft picks, deal with the controversy, and give him a bunch of guaranteed money only for him to be terrible. Creepo’s line last week was 12 of 22 for 131 yards and an interception and a rating of 53.4%. Surely he will be better this week but he is also playing a much better team. The Browns desperately need this win but there is nothing about this team that makes me believe they are any good. And honestly, I think Watson makes them worse because they feel like they have to try to be something they are not. Hand off to Chubb as much as possible. That is really all they should do. But we all know Watson doesn’t like to be hands off (see what I did there).

The Bengals could be in for a let down after the big win, but I just think the Browns are too bad for it to matter. This game is closer than it should be but stupid Joe Cool takes over in the 4th quarter and gets his first win over the Browns. All it took was for Baker Mayfield to leave. There’s a guy who went from leading the Browns to their first playoff victory to barely being claimed off waivers in less than two years. To somehow leading the Rams to improbable win after practicing for just 2 days. He’s had a a crazy year. Ironically, the Browns won more with Mayfield then they are now. Classic Browns.

Bengals 30 Browns 20

My Childhood team vs Dirty Detroit: Vikings @ Lions

If you like pretty good offense against subpar defense, then this is the game for you. The Vikings were actually my NFC team as a kid. I was always a Chiefs fan first but in the 80’s the Chiefs were pretty bad so you found other teams to cheer for as well. My older brother was a Bears fan. So naturally I picked the second place team in that division to cheer for. Plus I liked the color purple. The actual color, not the movie. I mean it is a fine movie, but not something I was watching at 6 years old. Anyway, I went pretty all in on the Vikes. I watched them almost make a surprise appearance to the super bowl in 1987. They beat the Saints in the wild card game and then upset the 49ers. All was going well until they ran into Doug Williams and the then Washington Redskins. A couple of years later they got a guy named Chris Carter on their team. He became my favorite player in the league. “All he does is catch touchdowns!” He did catch a lot of touchdowns but he also caught a lot of passes. A few years later, they drafted a guy named Randy Moss. In 1998 they went 15-1 and in true Vikings fashion became the first 15-1 team to not make the Super Bowl. Gary Anderson had not missed a kick all year but in that game, guess what he did. Missed a FG. If my wife is reading this, she is thinking why can you remember all these random facts from the 80’s and 90’s but you can’t remember what I tell you I want for Christmas. Literally, she tells me stuff all the time, texts me ideas and I immediately forget them. Don’t worry honey, your Patrick Mahomes jersey is on it’s way.

The following year, me and some buddies wanted to watch the high flying Vikings play in person. They were playing in KC so we sat around and waited for tickets to become available. You remember when that was a thing? But unfortunately by the time we were able to select the tickets they were sold out. So then we decided that we could go to Minnesota and check out a game. We selected the very last game of the year against…you guessed it….against the Detroit Lions. See how things are coming full circle. We would see this awesome team play against Barry Sanders. How cool would that be? Well we will never know for multiple reasons. First, Barry Sanders retired like a week after we bought the tickets. Secondly, the Vikings weren’t nearly as good. Then when it became time to go to the game, all my buddies wanted to back out. I got them all fired up that it would be a great experience and it was still an NFL game and we wouldn’t always all be young and single with little responsibilities. It was a good speech, as you can imagine. So we loaded into Evan’s Dodge Shadow and headed north. We spent the night at his sister’s house in Iowa and then the next morning we were on our way to the Metro Dome. There was one little problem. It was January in Minnesota. I fell asleep on the drive and woke up to the dodge shadow spinning in the median because we were driving in a blizzard. My buddies decided to turn back and I could not convince them otherwise this time.

I stayed loyal to the Vikings but over time my fandom waned up until 2005 and the Boat incident. If you don’t remember this, just give it a google but don’t dig too deep. You might be disturbed. Just imagine if Deshaun Watson threw a party on a couple of boats. Squeaky clean Nate Burleson was on the boat. He is on like every show now. I doubt anyone will ask him about it though. That was the last straw and so from then on I just focused on the Chiefs and Mizzou Football.

Oh yeah, the game. The Lions just won at home and haven’t won two in a row at home since 2016. No one is better at keeping streaks like this alive than the Lions but neither team can play defense so it should be fun.

Vikings 30 Lions 27

The Goat vs Mr. Irrelevant: Bucs @ 49ers

This is such a great story line. Mr. Irrelevant Brock Purdy was the very last pick in the 2022 draft. With Trey Lance as the guy coming into the season, the 49ers unsuccessfully tried to trade away Jimmy G. No one wanted him. So despite them not giving him a playbook and letting him practice with the team, he just hung around. Purdy getting some of those reps instead seemed to have paid off. Jimmy G was thrust into playing after Lance got hurt and was out for the season. At some point you have to question the 49ers medical staff. They have had more injuries over the last few years than any team I can remember. Last week Jimmy G broke his foot of all things. Which made Mr. Irrelevant quickly relevant. Purdy did just fine leading his team to victory and throwing for 210 yards, 2 touchdowns and a pick.

The Goat on the other hand has had an uphill battle this season. First he retired and then came out of retirement which did not please his hot wife. The beginning of the season started rocky for sure both on and off the field as he lost several games and his wife. But once the hot distraction got out of the way, the Bucs started winning games. They still lost to the lowly Browns in OT and every game seems to be close, but they are in first place in their division at 6-6. Luckily for them they play in the worst division in football. They could likely finish 7-10 or 8-9 and win the division. But I think 9-8 is the worst they could be and could be much better than that if they win this game. They play the 49ers this week and the Bengals next week but even if they lose both of those, they finish with Arizona, Carolina and Atlanta. Nothing would be more Goat then winning the division at 8-9 and then leading your team to the super bowl.

Although, Tom can relate to Brock being a late round draft pick, it is hard to imagine him losing to a guy who has never started a game. I think the Tampa defense will be ready to go and Todd Bowles will confuse the young kid in his first start. Brock seems just arrogant enough for this not to matter to him. He is a funny kid that stated earlier in the week, Tom has been playing in the NFL longer than I’ve been alive. But in the end, I think this will be another low scoring game with a late touchdown drive by Brady giving the NFC South a team with a winning record for the first time in weeks. Spoiler alert, I think Tom Brady is the starting quarterback of the 49ers in 2023.

Bucs 23 49ers 16

The Most uncomfortable game of the year: Chiefs @ Broncos

As you all know, I am big football fan and a huge Chiefs fan. What most of you also probably know is that my wife is a huge Broncos fan. She isn’t a fair weather fan and has been loyal since she was a little kid. She has experienced all the ups and downs and watches almost every game. She missed the game in London because she loves sleep more than she loves the Broncos. Here are her unofficial rankings.

1. Jesus
2. Me and the kids
3. The rest of her family
4. Our muppet of a dog
5. Sleep
6. Broncos

Anyway, every week we sit and watch football on Sundays. We both sort of cheer for each others teams. I don’t really like the Broncos and she doesn’t really like the Chiefs but we do like each other and more importantly we like when the other person is in a good mood.

But twice a year we have to awkwardly watch our teams play each other. Even though we have won 13 in a row…pausing for a sec to soak in that…several of the games have been close. Just last year the Broncos had us on the ropes until Melvin Gordon fumbled at the goal line and Drew Lock made a similar attempt that I could make to try and tackle Nick Bolton.

Most games during the season we are loud, celebrating touchdowns and big plays. Well, Danielle hasn’t done that much this season but usually she gets to do it at least a little. But when the Chiefs play the Broncos we both just sit their sort of quietly. It is almost better if it is a blow out because then at least we know it is over and can relax a little.

We literally sit on opposite ends of the couch and watch the game quietly. We don’t talk much during the game and then we don’t talk much after the game for a while. For most of you reading that are Chiefs fans, this is probably a fun week. I love Raiders and Chargers weeks especially lately. But I hate Broncos week. There are no winners in the Campbell house. And this year is even worse for me. If we lose, I will be very upset. Not because the streak would end but because the Broncos are so dang awful. On the flipside if we win, then we will have won 14 times in a row which is awesome but terrible for my wife. So this is really a lose, lose for us.

Now lets talk about the game for a second. We have the number 1 ranked offense against the number 1 ranked defense. So that is a good story line. The Broncos do have a good defense but it isn’t like they have played a ton of offensive juggernauts. Also, this defense has to be about ready to call it quits. I mean you can’t keep carrying this team to low scoring loss after low scoring loss without eventually cracking. Playing a pissed off Chiefs team after a loss is the perfect time for them to break.

On the flip side, the Chiefs defense is okay…sort of middle of the pack. But the Broncos offense is one of the worst things I have ever seen in NFL history. They aren’t good at anything. They are terrible on 3rd down. Russ gets sacked 2 or more times a game. They have a ton of injuries. They aren’t very good at running and they are worse at passing. I have sat through a lot of these games and I don’t see any possible way they can score enough points to win this game. The Broncos average 13.8 points per game. They have averaged 11.7 points per game the last 3 weeks. I can’t imagine a scenario where the Chiefs don’t score at least 20.

After all the offseason hype, the poor Broncos somehow got worse. Their quarterback is a ball full of positive energy and no self awareness. He has a lot of skill sets but reading the room apparently isn’t one. Russ has 8 touchdown passes. 8! A couple of weeks ago he was the #33 best fantasy quarterback. There are only 32 teams. The running joke on sports radio around here is that he will finish with more bathrooms than touchdown passes. Apparently he has 12 bathrooms in his house. It is looking more and more realistic that he will not hit that number in passing touchdowns. Their coach is even more lost and doesn’t seem to understand what he is even supposed to be doing or saying half the time. Then you tack on that they are missing about half their offensive starters and it is a recipe for disaster. The one thing they are good at is not turning the ball over so they have that going for them. But it doesn’t matter a whole lot when you go 3 and out most of the time.

The Chiefs usually play down to their opponents but I don’t think they can play this low. The Chiefs win big and the streak goes to 14. And I will be watching it all sitting uncomfortably on the far end of the couch. The only good news…we have is a new couch is being delivered today. Our current couch has all sorts of issues. It is beat up, broken springs, holes, you name it. It is the Bermuda triangle for remotes and other items. If you care about something, don’t bring it to our couch. You may never see it again. Anyway, we get a new one today. So that will make our uncomfortable Sunday a little more comfortable. So that is nice.

Chiefs 30 Broncos 16