NFL Week 8 Picks

NFL Week 8 starts Thursday night with the Minnesota Vikings playing the Los Angeles Rams. Here are my picks, as entered in ESPN's "Pigskin Pick'em" game. "Upset" picks -- that is, picks where I'm in the minority as to who will win -- have asterisks next to them.

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

At this point in the season, picks get easier in one way and harder in a different way.

They get easier because by now it's obvious which teams are great, which teams are potentially good, and which teams are almost certainly going to keep having a bad season.

They get harder because when every weekend is a series of all-out fights between gangs of very large, very strong, very fast guys, by Week 8 there are a lot of very large, very strong, very fast guys who are injured and not playing for varying periods of time. Those injured guys are being replaced by a lot of less experienced (either overall or within the season) very large, very strong, very fast guys. Determining which team is the most beat up, in the worst ways, and how well it will handle that, is a challenge.

BUT!

The former benefit ameliorates the latter challenge, because the teams that are great so far are probably great in part because they've been literally rolling with the punches the whole time, finding ways to win even with key players out on injury. That doesn't mean they can't lose -- every team except the Kansas City Chiefs has now lost at least one game -- but they've already established they can win repeatedly, too.

The season isn't over 'til it's over. Only one NFL team (the 1972 Miami Dolphins) has ever had a perfect season. Other than assuming -- because my religion requires it -- that the Chiefs will go to, and win, the Super Bowl, I'm not making any assumptions as to which teams we'll see in the post-season. Remember, in 2022, the Jacksonville Jaguars had a three-win, seven-loss start to their season ... then turned things around, made it two games deep in the playoffs, and only lost by a single score to the Chiefs in the divisional round.