I blame that stupid puck the Browns put in midfield for their play. This thing has cursed my team and my picks. If you’ve ever seen ‘The Ring’, the same thing happens when you look at the Brownie Elf, except you don’t die, you just make the wrong choices. The good news for me is that I don’t believe in elves or curses or the color brown, so I’ll have to make my choices this week. Even though I went 5-11 ATS, I went 9-7 straight up, so the week wasn’t a total loss. Speaking of options, let’s get to them. Actually, before we get to the picks, here’s a quick reminder that you can see the weekly picks from every CBSSports.com NFL expert by clicking here. I get 2.3 cents every time someone clicks on this link, so make sure you click early and often. Actually, that’s not true, I think the money goes to CBS’ budget for Will Brinson’s hair. Speaking of Brinson, he’s the host of the Pick Six Podcast, and in case I haven’t made it clear over the past two weeks, I’ll be with him three days a week on the podcast — Monday, Wednesday, and Friday — for the rest of the season of the NFL. Even though I’m only on three days a week, there’s a new episode every day from Monday to Friday and you should try to listen to it as often as possible (You can listen to Tuesday’s episode below and click here to watch and register ). Okay, let’s get to the options.
NFL Week 3 picks
Pittsburgh (1-1) at Cleveland (1-1)
Latest Odds: Cleveland Browns -4
If there’s one thing I’ve noticed about the Steelers this season, it’s that they basically show up every week without an offensive game plan and then make it up as they go. Unsurprisingly, that hasn’t worked out well for them so far, and I think people are starting to notice. I mean, we’ve only been playing for two weeks and the players are already starting to complain about offensive coordinator Matt Canada’s play-calling. I haven’t read such bad reviews since “The Emoji Movie” came out. At the rate he’s going, Matt Canada may be coaching Canada by the end of the season. You know things are going bad when a store uses your name to try to get fans drunk. Please, I’ll take a packet of Dragon’s Milk. The one thing about this game is that I have no idea which team will bounce back better from their loss in Week 2. The Steelers lost by three to the Patriots thanks in large part to their offense not being able to move the ball and the Browns led 30-17 in the final 90 seconds, which I guess shouldn’t have shocked me at all since no NFL team is better than the Browns at finding improbable ways to lose. The Browns had the kind of emotional loss that can lead to an upset next week and I think we might see that in this game. That said, even if the Browns are down, the Steelers offense isn’t good enough to take advantage of it. Through two weeks, the Browns and Steelers have each played two games, and four of those games have been decided by three points or less, so obviously, I won’t predict a blowout, but I will predict an upset. The pick: Steelers 16-13 over Browns.
Buffalo (2-0) at Miami (2-0)
1 p.m. ET (CBS)
Last Odds: Buffalo Bills -6
I have no idea how it happened, but this game is somehow the only one on this week’s schedule that will have two undefeated teams playing each other. I don’t usually tell people what to do with their lives, but if you have plans with someone at 1 p.m. ET on Sunday, you should definitely cancel those plans to watch this game. Well, unless you’re performing open heart surgery on a cat or taking your kid to a birthday party or taking your grandma to play BINGO.
If these are your plans, don’t cancel them. I would feel horrible if Grandma lost BINGO because you listened to someone who went 5-11 ATS with their picks last week. To be honest, I probably could have made more money playing BINGO in Week 2 than picking games.
Anyway, I’ve been watching the Dolphins play for two weeks now and I still have no idea what to make of them. I think they are definitely good, but I’m not sure how good. Sure, they’ve scored eight touchdowns in just two games, but half of those have come in just one quarter. They scored four touchdowns against Baltimore in the fourth quarter on Sunday, but have scored just four total in the other seven quarters.
They beat a Ravens team that had a bad defense and a Patriots team that had a bad offense, so what happens when they play a Bills team that isn’t bad at either of those things? It’s probably not going to end well for the Dolphins.
The other problem for the Dolphins is that they always seem to struggle against Josh Allen. The Bills have won seven straight games in this rivalry and those seven wins have averaged 19.3 points per game. Josh Allen has thrown multiple touchdown passes in every game he has ever played against the Dolphins, which is definitely not good news for the Dolphins. Some quarterbacks just excel against certain teams. We’ve seen Aaron Rodgers dominate the Bears, Ben Roethlisberger dominate the Browns and Tom Brady dominate the Bills, now we’re seeing Josh Allen dominate the Dolphins and I think the dominance continues on Sunday.
The pick: Bills 37-27 over the Dolphins.
Green Bay (1-1) and Tampa Bay (2-0)
4:25 p.m. ET (Fox)
Last Odds: Tampa Bay Buccaneers -1
Aaron Rodgers spent part of his offseason in South America, which I only mention because moving this game to South America is probably Rodgers’ best chance to win this week. If he can’t do that, that means he’ll have to play at Florida, and if I know anything about Aaron Rodgers, it’s that he hates playing at Florida State.
Rodgers has played a total of eight games in his career at Florida and has gone 3-5 in those games. Even worse, since the start of the 2020 season, Rodgers is 0-2 at Florida and has thrown four interceptions in those two games, which is crazy considering he’s only thrown six interceptions in 30 games outside of Florida . For those of you who hate math, that’s two interceptions per game in Florida and 0.2 when playing outside of Florida. He literally throws interceptions at 10 times the rate at Florida than he does at any other time. It doesn’t make sense, which I guess makes sense, because nothing in Florida makes sense. I mean, we’re talking about a state where a guy is trying to break the world record for the largest collection of “Titanic” movies.
And no, this tweet is not about me. I only own 19 VHS copies of ‘Titanic’, which is definitely not the world record.
Anyway, if you’ve ever been to Florida in September, you may have noticed that the air is so thick it feels like you’re breathing through a straw filled with maple syrup. You also sweat more than… You know what, I’ll just let Gronk explain how much you sweat.
Also, let’s not forget Tom Brady’s first training camp in Tampa Bay.
Aaron Rodgers went from college football in California to professional football in Wisconsin, so he’s never had to deal with the Florida weather, and I’m starting to think he might actually hate it, which would explain why he’s 3-5 in the Sunshine State. On the other hand, the Buccaneers practice in this weather every day, so I guess they’re used to it at this point.
Between now and Sunday all you’ll hear is how this game gives us Aaron Rodgers vs. Tom Brady but the biggest matchup is Aaron Rodgers vs. high humidity and I’m taking high humidity. Rodgers is 1-3 all-time against Brady and I think he might have an even worse record against high humidity.
I should also note that this is the first time Rodgers and Brady have faced each other since the NFC…
