There’s a decent amount of interesting storylines as far as individual teams are concerned even if some of matchups aren’t that compelling. Panthers favored over Dallas? Can Indy keep it going? I think the Pats might be for real? Can the Ravens turn the tide?

To The Games!

Cards/Colts:

Is Harrison finally finding his groove? During the last two weeks he’s had 7 explosive plays, more than doubling his total of two beforehand. The Colts ability to rush the ball will be tested as the Cards are surprisingly #1 in the league at defending designed run plays.

Chargers/Fins:

One more bad loss and McDaniel looks to be dead in the water. How likely is the L? The Chargers are 3-2 and the Miami coach is 3-14 vs teams with a winning record. Yikes!

Pats/Saints:

Olave has had only one game where he hasn’t been targeted less than 10 times-the problem is that with a qb like play-it-safe Rattler it hasn’t translated to more than a 59 yard outing. Does rook rb Henderson finally get the lion’s share of the carries? His buddy Stevenson has lost a fumble in three straight tilts.

Browns/Steelers:

That voodoo that he do has Pitt at 3-1 despite having a -2 point differential. Luckily the rest of the division are like deck chairs on the Titanic. The Steelers have won every single regular season game at Acrisure Stadium since 2004. Gabriel was cromulent in the way that rookie QB’s are in his first start last week. He was helped greatly by Judkins’ running-he looks like the real thing.

Cowboys/Panthers:

Dowdle was rightly full of himself (after running 200+ yards) last week, informing Dallas that they’d better “buckle up”. That run D that Jerrah sought to fix with the acquisition of Clark? It’s giving up 4.4 ypc. The Cowboys are unique in that to date they are scoring/giving up 30+ points on average. No pressure on Dak at all to keep the points flowing.

Seahawks/Jags:

I’d normally just throw Jax into the “weakest 4-1 team” slot but, hold on. First-time DC Campanile has improved the D in virtually every single category so last year’s book has to be thrown out. By the time opponents adjust the Jags will be fine in the division. Perhaps this will lead to Girlfriend playing more relaxed or is he just what he is?

Rams/Ravens:

Baltimore has allowed the most points over this five game stretch than at any other time in their history. They sure do need to slow the pace of games by, I don’t know, running the ball? The Ravens are 10-1 when King Henry runs for 90+ yards dontchaknow. Stafford will pass Marino for 9th in passing (he needs but 50) and he leads the league in air yards per attempt.

Do your thing.