This thing has my head twisted sideways. I always understand playing the rookie quarterback and/or giving the young guy reps. But it’s really weird when you’re 3-3 and sitting a game back of first place. Are the confident Tua can take them to the playoffs? Should they be? Kurt Warner about 2004 — the were 5-4 and hanging in there and benched him for anyway. If the Dolphins mi s the playoffs but Tua is the GUY moving forward, it’s a great move. It just feels like there’s a little bit of downside here given the early schedule for the Dolphins and the next four games. They just played the Jags and over the last four games. Now they have the , , and. in four straight games. Let’s say Tua looks incredible — it won’t matter. But if he isn’t good, people will lose their minds over the Dolphins benching Fitz. And if he’s just OK and Naz Reid Jersey the team loses more games before the break, fans won’t be happy. QB Wins are dumb but they get a signed anyway. Optics matter! I’m fine going to the rookie here, but it will be a highly scrutinized situation over the next several weeks. I’d be worried about being scrutinized but my picks were nuclear last week. Let’s stay hot. Thursday, 8:20 p.m. ET (Fox) Point spread: , -4.5 The trends here don’t favor the , with performing very poorly as a big home favorite. Since 2018, Wentz is 12-21 ATS overall, 7-14 ATS as a favorite (including 0-3 ATS this season in that spot) and 5-12 ATS at home. Yikes. But both Wentz and Doug Pederson have been fantastic on short rest and on Thursday nights — Wentz is 4-0 ATS and Pederson is 5-0 ATS and the Eagles are covering by double digits in every one of those spots. More importantly, they get to face off against fumble machine , who is being protected by a very questionable offensive line. The Eagles have one of the most dangerous defensive lines. The Giants are probably a better defense than people think, but they’re still not good. Jones could storm through the backdoor here potentially, but I’m going to take the Eagles with and likely to play. The Pick: Eagles 28, Giants 14 1 p.m. ET (Fox) Point spread:Washington (pk) Why are people still giving the credit for anything? Yes, Washington is a bad team, but the Cowboys are awful. They’re not “loaded with talent and trying to figure it out” folks. They are just BAD. The offensive line is in shambles right now and simply isn’t a good quarterback when he faces a ton of pre sure. The Washington Football Team can generate pre sure quickly, and I expect Rondae Hollis-Jefferson Jersey them to get after Dalton. The Cowboys can kind of score late, because they have good wide receivers, but Jerry Rice/Randy Mo s/Terrell Owens wouldn’t matter much here with Dalton under a sault from a very good front seven. and might have a big game here to surprise some people. The Pick: Washington 24, Dallas 17 1 p.m. ET (CBS) Point spread:Bills -13 Don’t want to oversimplify things here, but I’ve said it multiple times and I’ll say it again: I will not back the Jets against Jake Layman Jersey the spread as long as Adam Gase is the coach. They are 0-6 straight up and 0-6 against the spread. There’s plenty of backdoor potential but I’m not going to get in the way of the Trevor Lawrence Steam Train. The Pick: Bills 27, Jets 11 1 p.m. ET (CBS) Point spread: -1 Fascinating game! The Titans are one of the best running teams in football. The are the best run defense in football. My two biggest questions are: 1) how does Tenne see attack the Pittsburgh defense and 2) how much does absence impact the Steelers D? On the former question, I sort of feel like Arthur Smith is going to attack early with and the pa s game to loosen up the front seven and then pound the ball with . I don’t know that, but it’s what I would do. On the latter, we saw the Steelers lose and their defense completely fell off a cliff, basically until things clicked for Bush last year as a rookie. He was playing some outstanding football — how much will it matter for this defense? We won’t know until Sunday. I think it matters a lot and we get a shootout — since Ryan Tannehill took over as the Titans starter, the over is 13-2 for Tenne see. The Pick: Titans 38, Steelers 35 1 p.m. ET (Fox) Point spread: -7.5 Very concerned about taking Carolina here with how well Sean Payton and Drew Brees have performed against the spread following the bye in recent years, going 9-2 ATS in their last 11 games. But getting a touchdown or more is just an auto-bet at this point, given how well he’s performed against the spread as a starting quarterback, going a ridiculous 30-10 ATS! I also think the Saints defense won’t be magically fixed off the bye and Michael Thomas coming back might be BAD for New Orleans here, because they’ll feed him the ball instead of just letting run wild against a bad rush Malik Sealy Jersey defense. This feels like a backdoor/witching hour special for Bridgewater to me. The Pick: Saints 31, Panthers 24 1 p.m. ET (CBS) Point spread: -3 Color me petrified to get off the Joe “Backdoor” Burrow bandwagon here, but I’m going to go with the Browns in a bounce-back spot here. Cleveland will be especially run heavy in this game, trying to keep from throwing too much (I would bank on one or two shot plays) and if the Browns don’t stink against the Steelers while the keep it close against the , this line is very different. The Browns should run the ball aggre sively here, and Burrow will need to be efficient again in order to keep it within three points. You can’t pick the Bengals to lose and the Browns to cover — that’s too fine a margin. I’m taking a side here with a Browns team that has beaten up bad competition in the last three years. The Pick: Browns 31, Bengals 24 1 p.m. ET (Fox) Point spread: -2 This SHOULD be the shootout of the week, but be careful. The Falcons and went way over last week, but it took a bunch of pretty crazy garbage time touchdowns from both teams for it to happen. This is a ma sive over-correction on Atlanta — it shouldn’t be nearly a field goal favorite when home field doesn’t matter. The could — and some would say — easily be 4-2 and the line would be completely different if that’s the case. big game last week was impre sive, but I like the Lions off a bye here coming into Atlanta and putting up points early. If things start slow, feel free to live bet the over and/or take the second half over. I’ll be happy just taking the Lions here. The Pick: Lions 34, Falcons 31 1 p.m. ET (Fox) Point spread: -3.5 This is Jimmy Butler Jersey the trickiest game on the slate this week. It sure feels like this should be the “Steelers vs. Browns” situation from last week