NFL Week Eleven has a couple of highlights and a few crunch games, which although not elimination games per se would make it very hard for the losers to progress to the playoffs. One of these kicks the week off with the much-hyped Cleveland Browns facing divisional rivals Pittsburgh. Cleveland already has six losses and although the AFC is quite bunched its hard to see a seven loss team making the postseason. Pittsburgh has been on a mini-revival of late and after their poor start, they have suddenly jumped into the number six seed. This has been largely on the back of some great defensive play and thus this could be a low scoring affair.
Sunday night’s highlight is the inter-conference clash between the Patriots & Eagles, which is, of course, a repeat of Super Bowl LII. The two have not met since and you can bet that Tom Brady & Bill Belichick will be psyched up for this one.
In the AFC the nights big game is Houston travelling to Baltimore – with both leading their respective divisions. It is also a nice clash between two of the games brightest young Quarter Backs. The result could come down to which O-Line protects their’s best, and DeSean Watson will be hoping that Laremy Tuunsil & Titus Howard are fit for the game otherwise he could spend much of the night running for his life against the fierce Ravens pass rush.
The pick of the all NFC clashes is probably the Bears trip to the Rams. Both made the playoffs last season, and of course, the Rams ended up in the Super Bowl. Both had high expectations coming into 2019, however, both are languishing in third place in their respective divisions and in the Bears case at least a loss would pretty much end their season.
Cincinnati who are still looking for their first win have a tough trip to Oakland and sadly didn’t look to be getting any better last week against the Ravens. The only glimmer of hope left for them is that AJ Green might be back, which would be a huge boost for their now starting QB Ryan Finley. We don’t think the Bengals will go 0-16 this year but that elusive first win might have to wait a few more weeks.
Monday night sees the popular international series continue – this time with a game in Mexico. It should be quite an atmosphere in the Mexican capital and perhaps this might lift the Chargers. They are not getting much in the way of support in LA, hence the rumours of them moving to London. The Estadio Azteca is 7,200 feet above sea level so we might see a few long field goal attempts.
Anyway here are our predictions for the week’s games.
Thursday Night
Pittsburgh @ Cleveland -2.5
Pittsburgh to win 20 – 16
Sunday Night
Dallas @ Detroit +3
Detroit to win 24 – 17
Jacksonville @ Indianapolis -3
Colts 27 – 20
Buffalo @ Miami +6
Buffalo 21 – 14
Denver @ Minnesota -10.5
Minnesota 30 -14
New Orleans @ Tampa Bay +5.5
New Orleans 21 – 14
New York Jets @ Washington -1.5
Washington 20 – 16
Atlanta @ Carolina -5.5
Atlanta 28 – 26
Houston @ Baltimore -4
Baltimore 28 – 17
Arizona @ San Francisco -10.5
San Fransisco 31 – 24
Cincinnati @ Oakland -10.5
Oakland 26 – 20
New England @ Philadelphia +3.5
New England 34 – 24
Chicago @ LA Rams -6.5
Rams 24 – 16
Monday Night From Mexico City
Estadio Azteca (Aztec Stadium) venue for the AFC West Clash on Monday Night
Editorial credit: Ulrike Stein / Shutterstock.com
Kansas City @ LA Chargers +3.5 – at Estadio Azteca, Mexico City
Chargers 31 – 28
Bye Week
Green Bay, Tennessee, NY Giants & Seattle
