NFL Week 10 Picks: Brent Grimes, Dolphins Look To Pick Off Lions In Detroit

Wait, we’re still playing football?

Contrary to how it might have felt around New England, last week’s Patriots-Broncos showdown was not the Super Bowl. True, Tom Brady asserted his dominance and Peyton Manning admitted he “stunk,” but the NFL season marches on.

OK, not for the Patriots. They’re on a bye this week.

But just about everyone else is back on the gridiron, starting with a historic showdown between the Cleveland Browns and Cincinnati Bengals, who haven’t met up with both above .500 this late in the season in almost 30 years. The Philadelphia Eagles will start Mark Sanchez in a Monday night matchup with the Carolina Panthers, and the Miami Dolphins will look to keep rolling in Detroit.

Let’s see how our “experts” see this week’s matchups shaking out.

LAST WEEK
Ben Watanabe: 8-5 (74-38-1). Things aren’t looking good for our lovable loser.
Darren Hartwell: 8-5 (79-38-1). Choked like a choker.
Mike Cole: 12-1 (81-36-1). Colin Kaepernick’s butterfingers were all that kept Mike from a perfect week.

THIS WEEK
Cleveland Browns (5-3) at Cincinnati Bengals (5-2-1), Thursday, 8:25 p.m.
Ben’s pick: Browns. The Brian Hoyer Show comes to prime time, which is awesome, because The Andy Dalton Show always seems to underwhelm in that time slot.
Darren’s pick: Bengals. The Browns have yet to get a legitimate road win, and that won’t change against a team that hasn’t lost at home since 2012.
Mike’s pick: Bengals. Tough one, but the Bengals’ home dominance (12-0-1 in the regular season since start of last season) outweighs their prime-time ineptitude — at least for one night.

Kansas City Chiefs (5-3) at Buffalo Bills (5-3), Sunday, 1 p.m.
Ben’s pick: Chiefs. Buffalo’s defense isn’t quite good enough to contain KC’s rushing attack, and Alex Smith is a smidgen better than Kyle Orton.
Darren’s pick: Bills. The Chiefs are riding high on a three-game winning streak, but if Fred Jackson returns, he could lead the home team to a big statement victory.
Mike’s pick: Chiefs. The Bills have high expectations entering this game. They had high expectations entering Week 6 against the Patriots and got blown out. As long as the Chiefs can control the football, they’ll get a nice little road win.

Miami Dolphins (5-3) at Detroit Lions (6-2), Sunday, 1 p.m.
Ben’s pick: Lions. The Dolphins will discover taking on a big-play offense in a dome isn’t as easy as hosting a California team in an early kickoff.
Darren’s pick: Lions. Calvin Johnson is back, folks, and not even the white-hot Dolphins defense will be able to stop him.
Mike’s pick: Lions. Gut-reaction pick here. But if the Lions commit to running the football on offense and are able to contain Ryan Tannehill defensively, they should be able to make home-field advantage stand up.   

San Francisco 49ers (4-4) at New Orleans Saints (4-4), Sunday, 1 p.m.
Ben’s pick: Saints. After last week’s Dolphins-Chargers debacle, I’m all in on the theory that West Coast clubs don’t do well in 1 p.m. games coming East, even if Louisiana is in the Central time zone.
Darren’s pick: Saints. I’m done picking against the Saints, especially after they beat the Packers and won on the road on a short week. Plus, this Niners team just ain’t what it used to be.
Mike’s pick: Saints. Talk about two teams going in different directions. I just don’t see how the Niners go play a 1 p.m. game in the Superdome and find a way to win.

Pittsburgh Steelers (6-3) at New York Jets (1-8), Sunday, 1 p.m.
Ben’s pick: Steelers. If Tom Brady wasn’t destroying worlds, a whole lot more people would be talking about Ben Roethlisberger right now.
Darren’s pick: Steelers. The “Fire John Idzik” plane will be joined by the millions of touchdown passes that Roethlisberger will hoist against the pathetic Jets secondary.
Mike’s pick: Steelers. Roethlisberger is all kinds of hot right now (12 touchdown passes in two games), and the Jets have allowed a season-high 24 TD passes — six more than any other team.

Dallas Cowboys (6-3) vs. Jacksonville Jaguars (1-8) in London, Sunday, 1 p.m.
Ben’s pick: Cowboys. If Denard Robinson and DeMarco Murray make it off that rough turf in London with their legs intact, chalk this up as a victory for both sides.
Darren’s pick: Cowboys. This game couldn’t have come at a better time for Dallas, which again can prove to the London faithful that the Jaguars do indeed suck.
Mike’s pick: Cowboys. As long as Tony Romo is in there, I like the Cowboys. If he’s not, I still think Murray can wear down the Jaguars’ run defense enough for Dallas to escape London with a win.

Tennessee Titans (2-6) at Baltimore Ravens (5-4), Sunday, 1 p.m.
Ben’s pick: Ravens. It’s high time I start making some #BOLDpredictions to get back into this race. This is not one of those times, however.
Darren’s pick: Ravens. The Ravens need a win to keep pace in the competitive AFC North. They should have no problem with that this week.
Mike’s pick: Ravens. Still no clue what the Ravens are, but I’m pretty sure they’re good enough to beat a Titans team that’s averaging just under 13 points per road game.

Atlanta Falcons (2-6) at Tampa Bay Buccaneers (1-7), Sunday, 1 p.m.
Ben’s pick: Falcons. The Bucs have made a habit out of losing to bad teams, and considering the fact they were blitzed by Atlanta 56-14 the last time out, this one’s an easy call.
Darren’s pick: Falcons. Yikes. The Bucs’ Week 1 quarterback will make his triumphant return, but his name is Josh McCown, so they’ll still lose despite Atlanta’s road woes.
Mike’s pick: Bucs. The Falcons are an absolute disaster, and good luck dealing with the Bucs’ outside weapons with the emergence of Mike Evans.

Denver Broncos (6-2) at Oakland Raiders (0-8), Sunday, 4:05 p.m.
Ben’s pick: Broncos. Back out of the limelight, Peyton Manning with throw for 8 bazillion yards this week and everyone will be breathless about his legendary greatness again.
Darren’s pick: Broncos. A quarter of Denver’s remaining games are against the Raiders. That sounds nice.
Mike’s pick: Broncos. No worries for the front-running Broncos and their crappy weather-fearing quarterback this weekend. The Raiders are awful, and it’s supposed to be 72 and sunny in Oakland on Sunday.

St. Louis Rams (3-5) at Arizona Cardinals (7-1), Sunday, 4:25 p.m.
Ben’s pick: Cardinals. The Rams rise (or fall) to the level of their opponent — three-point loss to Dallas, six-point loss to Philly, two-point win over Seattle, three-point win over San Francisco — so I could see this one being closer than expected.
Darren’s pick: Cardinals. The scrappy underdogs might hang in there for a bit, but the Cardinals are just flying too high these days.
Mike’s pick: Cardinals. The Cardinals are 17-7 under Bruce Arians and have the NFL’s highest winning percentage since Week 8 of last year. They will keep rolling.

New York Giants (3-5) at Seattle Seahawks (5-3), Sunday, 4:25 p.m.
Ben’s pick: Seahawks. The Seahawks just managed to eke out a home win over the Raiders (dead last in the NFL at 288.6 yards per game), so look for another tight one over almost-as-hapless Big Blue.
Darren’s pick: Seahawks. Something clearly isn’t right in Seattle these days, but they still can beat bad teams, especially ones with anemic offenses. Expect to see a lot of Manning Face.
Mike’s pick: Seahawks. The Giants’ offense has been painfully out of sync during this three-game losing streak, and there’s just no way the Seahawks will lose at home to an inept offense.

Chicago Bears (3-5) at Green Bay Packers (5-3), Sunday, 8:30 p.m.
Ben’s pick: Packers. Chicago has been outscored 78-37 in its last two games. The Bears only managed to avoid a third consecutive loss last week, thanks to a bye.
Darren’s pick: Packers. An Aaron Rodgers-led offense, at home, coming off a bye, playing a team that has lost four of its last five games. Sign me up.
Mike’s pick: Packers. The Bears have won only once at Lambeau in their last six tries, and it came last season when Aaron Rodgers got hurt. The Bears are worse this season.

Carolina Panthers (3-5-1) at Philadelphia Eagles (6-2), Monday, 8:30 p.m.
Ben’s pick: Eagles. Mark Sanchez last started an NFL game in 2012. I still could see Philly winning this one by double-digits.
Darren’s pick: Eagles. It really doesn’t matter who the Eagles’ quarterback is, because the Panthers just can’t score points these days. The Eagles can, so they’ll win.
Mike’s pick: Eagles. The best way to ease Sanchez into the starting role is to have him play at home against one of the NFL’s worst rushing defenses — which is exactly what he’s looking at this week.

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