Washington at Seattle
The Washington Redskins finally get Santana Moss back this week. Santana has been one of my favorite players for a few years now, he always gets decent numbers despite having a horrendous team in place around him. I think Moss has been a very underrated player, and it should be interesting to see if his return to the lineup can swing this Redskins team back into the win column. Seattle does little that impresses me every week. Marshawn Lynch has shown up a little bit over the last few weeks along with Sidney Rice, but I still have just not been impressed with them this season, and I don’t think that this week is going to be any different. Rice and Lynch can’t be enough to win week after week.
Santana’s return sparks the ‘Skins back into winning – 24-16
Chicago at Oakland
Jay Cutler is out which definitely hurts the Bears a little bit, but truly the Chicago offense is one of the few where the quarterback isn’t as influential as one of the other players. The Bears have relied on Matt Forte to win games this year. They’ve relied on Matt Forte to run the ball, they’ve relied on Matt Forte to catch the ball, they’ve relied on Matt Forte to put his body on the line during play action fakes, and defending Jay Cutler against the pass rush. Forte has been the direct target of just under 45 percent of the plays the Bears have run, but that doesn’t count all of the play actions and big blocks that he’s made. As long as Forte is still on the field Chicago isn’t in that bad of shape. The Raiders have evolved into a much better team with the addition of Carson Palmer, and if he can become the man they are expecting him to be then Oakland will be a force to be reckoned with for a few years. With one of the deadliest one two punches in the backfield with Darren McFadden and Michael Bush the Raiders are definitely a very dangerous smash-mouth kind of team, but will that be enough to derail a very impressive Bears team?
Matt Forte and the Bears win a close one 28-27
New England at Philadelphia
Going into the season I honestly thought that this was going to be a prequel to the Super Bowl. This season has been a let down for the Eagles though, and the Patriots have definitely had a few hiccups of their own. The Patriots secondary has been less than good more games than not, and hope that Brady can put up more points than they give up. To be fair, the Patriots give up a lot of yards between the twenties, but once they get into the redzone they can usually tighten it up and hold the opposition to a field goal. The bright side for the Patriots is Tom Brady and the versatility of the New England attack. They are the most fortunate team when it comes to tight ends in the NFL and they are blessed with incredible talent in the slots. Gronkowski, Hernandez, and Welker are going to need to do some big things this week and as long as they don’t get too beat up on the line I think they will be okay. The Eagles have had quite a few set backs. Early in the year they were 1-4 and no one was taking them seriously. Now they have a few more wins, but they are without Michael Vick, as one thing starts to get better for the Eagles it seems like something else has to fall. The Eagles have great players on either side of the ball. Their offense goes through LeSean McCoy, and their defense has one of the most dangerous secondaries on paper. If the Eagles could figure themselves out, I still think they can be one of the scariest teams in the league. I think the Pats attack is too strong this week, especially if the Eagles aren’t going to put up as many numbers with Vince Young throwing the ball.
The Patriots take one in Philly 34-24
Denver at San Diego
Simply put – I don’t know. Tebow is a player that doesn’t put his team in a good position until the last minutes of the game. The Broncos defense has completely turned their game around and is putting up some impressive numbers. But it all comes back to Tim Tebow. He doesn’t throw the ball a lot, and he doesn’t make a lot of completions or touchdown passes. Somehow throughout the game Tebow will make one or two big passes, and it’s enough to put his team in the position that they need to be. It doesn’t make sense, but somehow it has been working. Taking the snaps on the other side we have Philip Rivers – a guy who has always been good – until this year. Rivers has thrown pick after pick, and given the ball away far too many times to be a good player this year. In a game that should have been so easily in favor of the Chargers I can’t help but doubt this team after everything that they have done recently. One of my friends says “You don’t bet against Jesus,” and this week I’m going to follow him and go with Tim Tebow and the Broncos.
Broncos beat a weak Chargers team 20-13
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