Are the Niners For Real? Will The Pats Slip Up? Will Mahomes Play? It's Week 8 In The NFL!

The 2019 NFL season has officially hit its technical halfway point as we approach week 8. We have two undefeated teams left in the surprising 6-0 San Francisco Forty-Niners and the unsurprising 7-0 New England Patriots, as well as two defeated teams in the 0-6 Miami Dolphins and the 0-7 Cincinnati Bengals. The least we say about those last two, the better--woof. In the middle we have a pretty mixed bag of contenders and pretenders.

With only two teams on a bye this week, there’s a ton of NFL action, so let’s take a look at the best games of week 8.

Carolina Panthers (+210) @ San Francisco 49ers (-265), over/under 42 (-110)

Carolina comes into this game at 4-2, winners of four in a row. Led by running back Christian McCaffrey, an early season MVP candidate, and quarterback Cam Newt--err, Kyle Allen. Allen has more than made up for the loss of the injured Cam Newton, as he’s brought some stability and an actual arm that can throw, to the Panthers offense. The Panthers will have some serious decisions to make when Newton is ready to go, which will be sooner than later. Will they want to mess up a good thing by putting Newton back in, or will they go with the franchise quarterback? Will be interesting to see what they decide. The 49ers have no such issues. They are the surprise of the league and flying high. They’re coming off of a 9-0 win over the Redskins that doesn’t look very impressive on the surface, but the game was played in 3-hour torrential downpour, so not the best game to show off your offense; survive and advance. This game will be a battle of two good defenses, we expect a low-scoring affair, and the winner will be the offense that makes the least mistakes. That will be the 49ers. The value play here then is Home team moneyline and under 42.5 Total Points (+163).

Cleveland Browns (+425) @ New England Patriots (-590), over/under 46 (-110)

The dominating New England Patriots welcome the under-performing Cleveland Browns in a pivotal AFC matchup. The patriots, and particularly their defense, have been an irresistible force this season. Their defense is putting up historic numbers and Tom Brady continues to defy Father Time. It’s just more ho-hum, nothing to see here, the Patriots are still great. That being said, the Patriots are making it look really easy against teams that are really bad. At least this week they face a team with talent, albeit one that hasn’t found a way to utilize that talent. The Browns had a bye last week, so they’ve had two weeks to prepare for this one game, a game that if they lose, would put them three whole games behind the Baltimore Ravens. It doesn’t get anymore “must-win” than this one. Unfortunately for them, the Patriots aren’t ready to lose. There’s zero value in the moneyline, so let’s take a look elsewhere. The Browns will make this a game, so ​Browns +12.5 (-110) ​is a value play here. Even more value is ​Away team +12.5 and over 46.5 Total points (+285).

Green Bay Packers (-190) @ Kansas City Chiefs (+155), over/under 48 (-110)

The big question for this once marquee matchup (before Patrick Mahomes was injured), is “will he or won’t he?”. Mahomes has gone from maybe out for the season, to out for three weeks, to practicing this week and not ruled “out” for this game yet. If he does play, then we get a matchup for the ages with him vs Aaron Rodgers, two of the elite quarterbacks in the NFL. The smart money is on Mahomes not playing this game, because why risk the season? He will most likely sit and leave it up to Matt Moore, a capable backup. He will have plenty of weapons around him with Lesean McCoy, Travis Kelce, Tyreek Hill...Moore is good enough to get all of them the ball. The Packers are 6-1 and playing some really good football. Over the last two weeks they’ve soundly beaten the Cowboys and Raiders, respectively, and that’s with being banged up themselves. One of Rodgers’ favorite targets, Davante Adams, has been out a couple weeks but it looks like he’s trending to play this Sunday. Rodgers is coming off of a phenomenal game last week where he posted a perfect quarterback rating, and is probably salivating thinking about playing this KC defense that has been a bit porous this season (though they only gave up six points to Denver last week). This will be a fun game to watch, regardless of who plays at QB for the Chiefs. The value here is solidly with ​KC moneyline at (+155). ​Cannot recommend enough to hop on that now. If Mahomes is announced as playing, that number will go way down. Again, hop on it ​now. W​e also like ​Home team moneyline and over 48.5 Total points (+330). ​Really it’s take Kansas City in any and all bets before they possibly announce Mahomes is playing.

Those are the favorite games of week 8, and the favorite value plays. Enjoy the games, and good luck!

*Credit to the main photo of this article belongs to Mark Tenally/Associated Press