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The NFL is back for Week 5, and we’re opening with the Chicago Bears hosting the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a Thursday Night Football game that will offer some insight into a pair of 3-1 teams. The game kicks off at 8:20 p.m. ET and airs on FOX, NFL Network, and Amazon Prime.
The Bucs opened as a 5.5-point favorite, but the line has come down to 3.5 at DraftKings Sportsbook. The Bucs will be playing without RB Leonard Fournette and WRs Chris Godwin and Justin Watson. Add in receivers Mike Evans and Scotty Miller as questionable, and this is a shaky situation for Tom Brady and the Bucs offense.
Each Thursday, I put together a list of straight up picks for the weekly schedule. I’ll have picks against the spread over the weekend, but this is a chance to just pick winners and losers. This year though, I’ve changed up the approach. Instead of simply picking winners and losers, I’m also grouping the picks by confidence — high confidence, medium confidence, low confidence, no confidence.
I stumbled last week, going 7-8 including a combined 1-4 on my low and no confidence picks. Below I’ve posted all my picks, with my record in that confidence level in parenthesis. A game with three asterisks (***) after it indicate a game where I’m picking the betting underdog to get the win. It’s a fairly chalky week.
High confidence (19-5)
Rams over Washington
Ravens over Bengals
Seahawks over Vikings
Medium confidence (15-8)
Bucs over Bears
Bills over Titans (if it plays)
Steelers over Eagles
Chiefs over Raiders
49ers over Dolphins
Cowboys over Giants
Saints over Chargers
Low confidence (4-7)
Cardinals over Jets
Panthers over Falcons***
Colts over Browns
Patriots over Broncos (moving it up if Cam plays)
No confidence (3-2)
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