Week 3 NFL Picks ...

... for FiveThirtyEight's NFL Forecasting Game.

I predict:

Pittsburgh Steelers to beat the Cleveland Browns -- 53%*
Baltimore Ravens to beat the New England Patriots -- 53%
Miami Dolphins to beat the Buffalo Bills -- 53%*
Cincinnati Bengals to beat the New York Jets -- 59%
Minnesota Vikings to beat the Detroit Lions -- 79%
Chicago Bears to beat the Houston Texans -- 71%
Kansas City Chiefs to beat the Indianapolis Colts -- 100%
New Orleans Saints to beat the Carolina Panthers -- 71%
Las Vegas Raiders to beat the Tennessee Titans -- 53%*
Philadelphia Eagles to beat the Washington Commanders -- 67%
Los Angeles Chargers to beat the Jacksonville Jaguars -- 79%
Jacksonville Jaguars to beat the Los Angeles Chargers -- 53%*
Seattle Seahawks to beat the Atlanta Falcons -- 73%
Tampa Bay Buccaneers to beat the Green Bay Packers -- 71%
Arizona Cardinals to beat the Los Angeles Rams -- 53%*
San Francisco 49ers to beat the Denver Broncos -- 53%*
New York Giants to beat the Dallas Cowboys -- 71%

Asterisks indicate where I disagree with the FiveThirtyEight model's picks. But for ALL picks, the percentage probability I've assigned differs from FiveThirtyEight's. I always go all in on the Chiefs, I usually go bigger than FiveThirtyEight even when I agree with their prediction, and I have a thing about prime numbers.

I had a bad week last week. I only correctly predicted eight of 16 games, and most of my bad picks were for big points. For the season so far, my score is 2.5 points, while the FiveThirtyEight model is as 38.2 points. I'm barely in the top 1/3 of players by percentile and rank 2,083rd of 6,228 players. Let's see if I can make up some ground!

UPDATE, 09/25/22: I've changed one of my picks. I had the Chargers to beat the Jaguars, 79% confidence. Now I've reversed that, 53% on the Jaguars to beat the Chargers. Why? The Chargers have an injury problem. Quarterback Justin Herbert may or may not be in the game due to a rib injury received playing Kansas City Thursday before last, and if he is back he probably won't be at 100%. They've got six players marked "doubtful" or "questionable" for today's game including their quarterback and their center, Corey Linsley. The Jaguars have one (cornerback Shaquill Grifin). The Jaguars had a good game last week, shutting down the Colts 24-0, so they're probably stoked for this game; the Chargers lost last week and half of them seem to be in the hospital. I don't change my picks lightly once I make them, but this one just kept looking more and more doubtful until I couldn't stick with it.