NFL 2019 – Patriots Lose & Dolphins Win
Week Nine is normally a pivotal week in the NFL with every team having played at least half their schedule. Although we pretty much knew which teams had no chance of the playoffs before a ball was even thrown, for many that entered the season with hope or hype is now pretty much over. Of the 32 teams, we are 99% certain that 10 will not make the playoffs, while another few will pretty much need to win out and hope.
So what happened in this pivotal week?
Well, we are down to a single unbeaten team … San Fransisco, take a bow. They are off to their best start since the 1990 season when they won their opening 10 games and reached the NFC Championship. They reached this milestone with a solid if unspectacular performance against divisional rivals Arizona. The game was not as close as the score suggests though as the 49ers pretty much coasted through the last quarter allowing the Cardinals to rack up 11 unanswered points.
In Sunday Nights big game Baltimore took down New England, with more ease than most expected. The much vaunted Patriots defense simply couldn’t stop the run and were gashed for 210 yards rushing. The 37 points allowed was by far the most they had given up so far and before Sunday Night they had only conceded 54 all season! Its too early to start ringing alarm bells in Foxborough, but their schedule had been quite soft until now. Their next four games are all against playoff contenders so we will know soon enough just how good (or bad) this defense really is.
The race for 0-16 is down to one team.
The other noteworthy event of the weekend was Miami finally getting a win, admittedly against an equally hapless Jets side who must be secretly wondering if Sam Darnold is going to metamorphosize into a franchise QB or not. The Dolphins are improving as the week’s pass, and now suddenly they will be wondering whether trading away all their best player was a wise move, especially as they no longer have the inside track on the No 1 pick. Now only Cinncinati remain winless and it’s hard to feel too sorry for them after what they did to Andy Dalton (benched him on his birthday). The good news for them is that they have games against Miami, The Jets and two against the Browns to come, so there should avoid the dreaded 0-16.
What’s happening in Cleveland?
Before we look at the results it’s worth mentioning the much-hyped Cleaveland Browns. They entered the season as most peoples Super Bowl dark horses and even those who didn’t fully buy into the hype still expected progress. Last year, under Hue Jackson, Cleveland ended October at 2-5-1 which led to his firing. Guess what? the Browns are now 2-6 under Freddie Kitchens, despite him being given every shiny new toy he wanted. How much longer will it be before then knives are out again in Cleveland?
So how did we do?
Well, we couldn’t get near last weeks 14-1 straight up & 10-6 ATS and finished 9-5 & 8-6 respectively.
Week Nine Results
Thursday Night Football
San Fransisco 28 Arizona 25
Sunday Night
Houston 26 @ Jacksonville 3 (Wembley Game)
Washington 9 @ Buffalo 24
Minnesota 23 @ Kansas City 26
New York Jets 18 @ Miami 26
Chicago 14 @ Philadelphia 22
Indianapolis 24 @ Pittsburgh 26
Tennessee 20 @ Carolina 30
Detroit 24 @ Oakland 31
Tampa Bay 34 @ Seattle 40
Cleveland 19 @ Denver 24
Green Bay 11 @ LA Chargers 26
New England 20 @ Baltimore 37
Monday Night Football
Dallas 37 @ New York Giants 18 Spread +7.5
Bye Week:
Atlanta, Cincinnati, LA Rams, New Orleans.
