NFL Week 8 Betting Power Ratings: Why Packers and Eagles Aren’t Among Top Six, Plus Ranking All 32 Teams
We’re coming off the last Monday night doubleheader of the season that established two elite teams in the NFC. The Detroit Lions overcame a number of absences in their secondary to put together a dominant performance against an erratic Baker Mayfield. If the defense can play to that level consistently, then the Lions will be hard to beat. In the second matchup, the Seattle Seahawks controlled their game against the Houston Texans from start to finish despite turning the ball over four times. Their success against an excellent Houston defense gives me enough confidence to put the Seahawks alongside three other contenders in the tier just below the Kansas City Chiefs and Lions.
The remainder of the second tier includes a Buffalo Bills team coming off a bye hoping to perform better than it did going in, a Los Angeles Rams team that dominated on a neutral field without arguably the best receiver in football, and an Indianapolis Colts team that finally had a signature dominant win against another expected playoff team. The Colts have an argument to be right alongside our top two teams with how they’ve performed this year, and that’s why I was aggressive in adding two points to their spread power rating this week to get them fully into this tier.
Two teams missing from that top six that might surprise are the Green Bay Packers and Philadelphia Eagles. Green Bay hasn’t covered in a month as it finds itself consistently in competitive games against teams that aren’t supposed to be anywhere near the level of the Packers. An Arizona Cardinals defense that allowed a comeback victory to the Tennessee Titans had its best performance of the season against the Packers while Jacoby Brissett did enough on offense to keep Arizona in the game for a second straight week. While teams like the Rams, Colts and Seahawks are overcoming injury issues and putting together dominant wins, the Packers are consistently playing down to the level of competition, so I can’t put them alongside those teams. Their inability to consistently dominate opponents, even those considered weaker, is a significant concern for their playoff aspirations.
Then we have the Eagles, who are coming off a much-needed win against the Minnesota Vikings. Jalen Hurts was fantastic in that game, putting together one of the best passing performances of his career while the Eagles didn’t turn the ball over and intercepted Carson Wentz twice. And they still won by just six points, the margin of Jalyx Hunt’s pick-six in the second quarter. The Philadelphia defense wasn’t able to put the game away, letting Minnesota get within two points in the fourth quarter before Hurts iced the game with a touchdown to A.J. Brown. The Eagles clearly have the potential to be one of the best teams in the league once again but until the run game gets in gear, the defense can shut the door and the team doesn’t have to rely on outlier defensive/special teams touchdowns to win games, Philly will stay a step behind in my ratings. Their reliance on big plays and inability to consistently control the game is a red flag.
My spread power ratings measure how much better or worse a team is than average and allow us to create a spread for the game on a neutral field that we can then adjust to account for home field advantage and get the spread we believe should be offered by sportsbooks for this game. Maintaining power ratings allows you to project spreads and potentially get ahead of line moves early in the week. For example, we were able to grab 6.5 in the Browns-Patriots game before every book had the line at Patriots -7. The goal is to identify discrepancies between our projected spreads and the market, providing an edge for informed betting decisions.
I have several more spread picks already locked in at SportsLine, where members are able to get access to all my picks throughout the week as they’re made and hopefully take advantage of some good line value. This provides a more in-depth analysis and access to potentially profitable betting opportunities.
Let’s dive into our betting power ratings and highlight a few more teams of note.
