Week 4 Thursday Night Pick

Here are five takeaways from week three and also a pick for the Giants vs. Redskins game tonight.

1. Bengals Good / Packers Bad

The Bengals are the best team in the AFC at the moment. At home they are very tough to beat because they don't let their opponents score. In two home games this year they have allowed 17 total points. Last season they went 8-0 (before the playoffs) in Cincy and only allowed two teams to score over 20 points. The will inevitably lose their first playoff game but they have a chance to be the number one seed in the AFC. As for the Packers and Aaron Rodgers telling fans to relax, they are in trouble. They could very easily be 0-3 had the Jets not allowed them to come back and win in week two. They play in Chicago this week. If they fall to 1-3 and 0-2 in division play, it is going to be an uphill battle to get to 8-8, let alone making the playoffs.

2. What Are the Dolphins Doing to Tannehill?

The 'Phins play in London this Sunday against the Raiders, however nobody seems to know who will be under center for the Dolphins. Third year quarterback Ryan Tannehill has not been announced the starter by coach Joe Philbin yet and Matt Moore is rumored to be in the running for the week four start. None of this makes any sense. Sure Tannehill only completed 48% of his passes against the Chiefs last week, but he threw no interceptions and how much of the blame should be on Tannehill, who is in a new system. It's his third year but it seems far too soon to call it quits on the Tannehill experiment. Personally, I don't think Philbin is the man for the job down there but that's above my pay grade.

3. Bortles Service

The Jaguars are in the running for the worst team in the league once again. In their three losses, they have yet to lose by less than three possessions. Thankfully it's Blake Bortles time to play. I never understood why the Jags were so quick to dismiss the possibility of Bortles playing over Chad Henne this year. Your team stinks, why not take a look at your future quarterback. It's not like Bortles is small and injury prone like Johnny Manziel. The Jaguars play the Chargers this week, so they are looking at 0-4, but at least we get to see Big Ben II on the field.

4. Rex Ryan's Time is Up

The Jets have found ways to lose the past two games and it doesn't seem like Rexy is too concerned about it. In week two the Jets sideline called a timeout before a 4th down play that turned into a touchdown and on Monday night the Jets returned a fumble for a touchdown but the play was ruled dead at the spot of the fumble. Both times Rexy sounded like a typical Jet fan saying things like, that's just our fashion and those type of things always happen to us. Well then fix something dude! If you allow the culture to always be "Why us?", things are going to go badly eventually. I've always liked Rex but I think it's time to move on from him and Geno.

5. Maybe the Steelers Are Good?

After the Ravens smoked the Steelers in week two I was convinced we were looking at another 8-8 season or even worse. They looked so atrocious in Baltimore that I expected them to get crushed by the 2-0 Panthers last Sunday. But somehow they dominated the defending NFC South champs in their own building. Now I don't know what to think. They are the definition of a Jekyll and Hyde football team. Their next two games are against Tampa Bay and Jacksonville. They should win those two games to get to 4-1, but for some reason I think they lose one of those games. In conclusion the Steelers have my mind in a pretzel.

Thursday Night Pick

Redskins 31, Giants 21 --- WAS -3.5 So far this year road teams are 0-3 ATS on Thursday night games. In fact all of the road teams have lost by 20 or more points. I'll take the points and the Redskins at home tonight. In the past two games with Kirk Cousins the Skins have scored 41 and 34 points. The G-Men finally got their first win of the season last week and they finally scored more than 14 points as they beat the Texans 30-17. They better score a lot of points tonight because the Redskins certainly will.