Hey, it’s Moneyline Mo, the man in the know, and you better believe I am feeling great as we head into Week 8! I didn’t always feel this way though. In fact, I felt lousy after going .500 in Week 6. I looked back on the picks I made, I reviewed my analytics and my reasoning and, ultimately, I feel like that week was a fluke. I didn’t switch anything up or press the panic button to try to overcorrect, and I immediately bounced back in Week 7 with a 10-3 record.

The league did all local parents a real solid this year, scheduling Green Bay to play on Thursday night to avoid any overlap with Trick Or Treating on Sunday. Since it is Halloween, I just want to use this opportunity to question why there aren’t fun size Whatchamacallits. I feel like they might have existed when I was a kid, but that could be a false memory. Is there an investigative journalist that specializes in candy bars who can help me out with this? Can this be the new focus of the site? Here’s this week’s picks with my fun size commentary.

THURSDAY

ARIZONA OVER GREEN BAY
I’m 7-0 on Thursday nights this season! However, I’m also 1-3 picking against Green Bay this season! Will my hot Thursdays continue, or will Green Bay continue to prove me wrong? I hope I’ve made it clear that I’m a Green Bay fan, but I also think I have a realistic view of the team. I really felt this past weekend was Washington beating themselves as opposed to a Green Bay victory. Even looking at Strength of Victory, Green Bay is at .375 and the only opponent they’ve won against that has a winning record is Cincinnati. Of course, that was a squeaker of a game which could have gone the other way if Cincinnati hadn’t missed multiple would-be game-winning field goals.

But if my picks against Aaron Rodgers have served to motivate him and the team, I don’t mind being bulletin board material. As I’ve emphasized before, I’m not making these picks to be contrarian or do it as a bit. I just think the Packers are in for a rough Thursday night game and I felt this way before the news came out about some of the team’s star players being added to the COVID list.

One way to enhance your enjoyment of the game is to watch it at the Cactus Club on Thursday night and enjoy a halftime performance by Fight Dice. Do you think Mike Tice has heard Fight Dice? How do we make this happen? Mike, if you’re reading, check this out…

SUNDAY

BUFFALO OVER MIAMI
Even though they were defeated, Miami had a better showing against Atlanta than I thought they would after their loss to Jacksonville in London. However, they still don’t get a bye until WEEK 14! Last week, I pointed out how absurd it was that they didn’t get a week off after returning from overseas and not only that, but Miami also had to play a team that was coming off its bye in Atlanta. Well, guess what? Once again, Miami is playing a team coming off its bye and this time, it’s a much more talented team in Buffalo. The goal of creating a schedule should be to establish a relatively fair playing field for all teams, but Miami has not been given that courtesy this year.

ATLANTA OVER CAROLINA
Atlanta has quietly climbed back into contention for the final playoff spot in the conference. Do fans in Atlanta even realize this or are they too preoccupied with all the racist chants and arm movements in support of their baseball team?

SAN FRANCISCO OVER CHICAGO
Chicago is back in disarray, baby! They’ve never done an in-season firing before, but if they lose the next two weeks and go into their bye on a four-week losing streak, it must be within the realm of possibility that Nagy gets canned at that point.

CLEVELAND OVER PITTSBURGH
Soothsayer time! I see two futures for Case Keenum. In my first vision, he could be the next Ryan Fitzpatrick: just a guy that bounces around for the next decade playing for teams looking for that stop-gap quarterback as rookie prospects are developed. In the other vision, he sticks with Kevin Stefanski for as long as Stefanski is a coach since they seem so well-suited for one another. We’ll see how it shakes out, but I’m confident in either of these visions coming true.

PHILADELPHIA OVER DETROIT
Detroit tried to pull out all the stops in their attempt stun Matthew Stafford and Los Angeles last week, and they almost had it until a late interception thrown by Jared Goff. I can appreciate that from Dan Campbell. If I was a coach and it was clear that my team was not in contention, I would game plan as many trick plays as possible. Give me a flea flicker hook and ladder! I want a triple reverse Statue of Liberty play! And my greatest desire is to one day see a fake kneel. At some point, it will happen and then (AND ONLY THEN) I can die in peace. If I die before then, it’s on you readers to convince a professional football coach to run a fake kneel in my honor.

TENNESSEE OVER INDIANAPOLIS
I could gloat about Tennessee continuing to look like the team—that from the start—I predicted to win it all, but I have something far more important to discuss. Did you know that Jim Irsay has a huge collection of guitars and pop culture memorabilia and he’s currently touring cities trying to make arrangements for a museum of the Jim Irsay Collection? It sounds like a hybrid of George Lucas’s museum and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Is Milwaukee a potential suitor? Forget the 2024 DNC, let’s go all-in on the Jim Irsay Collection!

CINCINNATI OVER NEW YORK (A)
If the season were to end today, Cincinnati would have the number one seed in their conference and get a bye week PLUS home field advantage for the playoffs. Their win over Baltimore was a huge surprise for me and brought them to same Strength of Victory as Green Bay with .375. Joe Burrow has looked good and Ja’Marr Chase is having an absolute breakout rookie season.

My son collects Funko pops, and as a result, I’ve watched hours of YouTube videos (a Canadian teenager named Tristan in particular) and picked up got to some of the lingo surrounding the toys. One frequently used term for special, limited run Funko pops are “Chase Editions.” If Funko isn’t already working on a Chase Edition Ja’Marr Chase figure, then it’s time to close the business.

LOS ANGELES (N) OVER HOUSTON
Houston has a few more wins coming their way once Tyrod Taylor gets healthy and they face off against less dominant competition. Last week, they had Arizona and now they have Los Angeles, so even if Tyrod Taylor returns this week, this won’t be one of the hypothetical wins I proposed in my opening sentence. Speaking of Houston, I’m thinking of re-watching that Enron documentary. I last watched it when in was in high school and at the time, I remember liking it, but also not really understanding exactly how the scandal worked. I’m only marginally smarter now in the grand scheme of things, but I bet I’d like it even more.

LOS ANGELES (A) OVER NEW ENGLAND
Consider this a consolation game for fans of the baseball teams in these markets since both of those teams missed out on playing for the championship. But wait…this game was announced 5 ½ months ago. Did the league know what the outcome of the championship series in baseball would be? Could this be the next bipartisan investigation by our government? Is there even any advantage to bipartisanship anymore? I don’t know the answers to any of these questions, but it’s suspicious to me!

JACKSONVILLE OVER SEATTLE
That’s right, for the first time this year I’m picking JACKSONVILLE to win a game! They’re coming off a win and their bye week, while Seattle has a short week after their Monday night game. That seems like another imbalance that could have been easily avoidable when putting together the schedule, but what do I know? I think the natural inclination for this game would be to pick Seattle over Jacksonville based on reputation alone, but with the way the season has gone if the draft were to take place with the current standings, Jacksonville would pick 4th and Seattle would pick 6th. I think Seattle is cooked for the season. Depending on the standings and when Russell Wilson will be cleared to return, I don’t know if it’s even worth it to play him and risk any injury down the stretch.

WASHINGTON OVER DENVER
I had hope for Denver after they started the season 3-0, but last week’s loss to Cleveland’s second-stringers could be the beginning of the end for my guy Slick Vic Fangio as a head coach. I hope he gets one more year because I think he deserves to be a head coach, but he’ll need an offensive coordinator unafraid to try something new. Someone like…Moneyline Mo! Vic, let’s run the fake kneel!

TAMPA BAY OVER NEW ORLEANS
If you watched Tampa Bay’s win over Chicago, you saw the ball for Tom Brady’s 600th touchdown pass made it into the stands and had to be negotiated for the fan to give it up. He definitely didn’t get fair market value for the ball, but he’s still going to make money off of a totally happenstance thing that fell into his lap.

However, what was really upsetting was that Tony Romo on the broadcast said that the fan should have held out and only given the ball back in exchange for a date with Gisele Bündchen. What the fuck Tony Romo? Meanwhile, Jim Nantz was cackling at the suggestion as well, so it was a gross boys club moment that a national audience got to hear on-air.

DALLAS OVER MINNESOTA
After back-to-back rain games on Sunday night, we’re now indoors and out of the elements. I miss interim stretch after Minnesota stopped playing at the Metrodome but before their stadium was built when they played outdoors at a college stadium. We knew it wouldn’t last, but at least we got one truly miserable weather playoff game out of it with one of the greatest missed field goals of all time.

MONDAY

NEW YORK (N) OVER KANSAS CITY
I might as well dress up as Babe Ruth for Halloween because I’m calling another shot! Kansas City’s remaining schedule features six games against teams with winning records and four games against teams with losing records. Since they’re already at 3-4, they really can’t afford to lose to any of the teams with losing records to have a realistic shot at returning to the playoffs. With that being said, I feel like this is the perfect opportunity for New York to steal a game and absolutely stun Kansas City. I predict a big game for Daniel Jones on the ground, as long as he doesn’t trip over himself.

Have a happy and safe Halloween! If you have kids, since they can’t get fun size Whatchamacallits, I hope they end up with some bite size Pearson’s Salted Nut Rolls in their Trick Or Treat buckets.

LAST WEEK: 10-3
SEASON: 71-36