Can you believe it's already Week 4 of the NFL season?
Our first international Sunday morning game is here, bye weeks start up next week, and the crisp fall leaves mean autumn and football are fully underway.
It's been a rough start in this column, and for many bettors, both sharp and public. We did well on Kitchen Sink Week with sides and totals last week so we're calibrating there — props, not so much yet.
But it's a long season ahead! There's much to learn, adjustments to be made, and a full slate of Sunday football to get back on track again, just like there will be next week. Tail or fade, reduce units if you like, but we're gonna keep on firing.
Let's get to my NFL Week 4 picks and predictions.
NFL Week 4 Predictions
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Browns vs Lions
The Browns threw the "Kitchen Sink" at the Packers last week, shut down Green Bay's offense, and pulled off the miracle comeback late to steal a shocking win.
It's rare to see huge underdogs pull off wins like that in back-to-back weeks, but there's a lot of similar reasons to like Cleveland here. That Browns defense is so good, though Jared Goff at home in Detroit has been nigh invincible too.
Similar to last week, if the Browns do keep it close, it almost has to be an under — so that's our play.
I probably don't have to tell you Cleveland won't score many points.
The Browns have scored 16, 17, and 13 points this season, and actually haven't topped 18 points anytime in their last 16 games not featuring Jameis Winston. Per Clevta, they're an ugly 15-0-1 to the team total under in that stretch, if you prefer to bet that way.
I prefer the game under, because this is not just a bet against the Browns offense, but also one on their defense.
Jim Schwartz' unit was one of the best in the NFL two seasons ago and appears to be back in peak form. Cleveland ranks third in defensive DVOA through three games, and they are the best against the run, and it's not like it's been bad competition — the Browns have allowed just 204 yards per game so far to offenses led by Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, and Jordan Love!
Detroit's offense has looked like a monster the last couple weeks with the run game dominating behind a great offensive line, but that line saw precious little resistance against Bears and Ravens defensive fronts that have been among the league's worst thus far.
It was a different story against a terrific Packers' defensive front in Week 1, when the Lions ran for just 46 yards and scored only 13 points.
Cleveland has the league's best run defense thus far. Rookies Mason Graham and Carson Schwesinger have made huge immediate impacts, and Myles Garrett is matching his DPOY form.
Browns' games this season have seen 33 points, 23 points, and then 58 in their matchup against the Raiders — but that one was at 30 entering the fourth quarter before things really got away.
Detroit is on a short week after a tough, physical Baltimore game, and this is an emotional letdown spot after such a big win too. Cleveland's defense is good enough to keep this low-scoring and close.
Pick: Under 44.5
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Saints vs Bills
This does not look like a particularly bettable game with a line above two touchdowns.
Normally, if anything, I'd look at nibbling the long Saints moneyline at +900 here. Moneyline underdogs at +750 or longer are 4-16 SU since 2018 but pay out at over 80% ROI thanks to the long number.
However, the Bills are playing on extended rest, and the Saints look about as bad as any team, 31st in DVOA, and may be itching to give rookie QB Tyler Shough a shot.
New Orleans also has a secret "tank" sauce in that the Saints are by far the fastest team in football with a neutral pace of 21.1 seconds per play, far ahead of the next closest team over four seconds slower.
Faster plays means more opportunities for the better team to be, well, better.
Buffalo is certainly better. I probably don't need to make much of a case for that part. Josh Allen can probably name his number against this pass defense. I'll settle for 30.
Since the start of last season, the Bills have scored 30 or more points in 14 of their 16 regular season wins. That's 87.5% of them! In other words, 30 Bills points has become a pretty good proxy for a Buffalo win.
I want no part of Bills -15.5 or whatever this thing closes at. Buffalo's defense hasn't been that great, and by betting the team total, I don't need to worry about a backdoor cover on a late 17-point lead with Spencer Rattler trying to save his career.
Just give me Bills over 29.5 points, even at -170 (DraftKings).
Let's do the math.
At -170, that's 63% implied. Buffalo's moneyline price is -1400, which is 93% implied, but we know the Bills are scoring 30+ in 88% of their wins since the start of last season.
That would imply about an 82% chance of the Bills scoring 30 in a win here, which should mean a price of around -444 — and serious value on what looks like a heavily-juiced ticket at -170.
Sometimes you just need to get a win and skip all the extra escalators.
I have no additional interest in this game, but if you like to build Sunday parlays with multiple legs, this could be a good one to add in this week.
Pick: Bills Team Total Over 29.5 (-170)
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Colts vs Rams
Rams–Colts is actually one of the more intriguing games of the week.
I remain skeptical of the Colts. They've been incredibly impressive thus far, but against about as easy of a schedule as you can come by, and I ranked them most likely among the 3-0 teams to still miss the playoffs.
The Colts rank top-three passing on both offense and defense by DVOA, and I'm skeptical of both ratings, but we may need to see more.
I lean Rams as the better overall team, and a sneaky top-five overall team right now, but I don't love having to pay the hook at -3.5. So, instead I'd rather just play my favorite matchup of the week.
You may not know the name Kenny Moore, but he's an elite slot corner for the Colts, a Pro Bowler who was one of the main characters on Hard Knocks with the Colts a few years back. He's also out this week, a huge loss in this specific matchup.
Puka Nacua has played out of the slot in 50% of his snaps this season, more than double his rate from last season. That's the Davante Adams effect.
Adams' presence means he can play outside and absorb the top corner coverage, freeing Nacua to play in the slot where he's most dangerous as a YAC guy.
The Colts' linebackers have not been great, nor their middle-of-field coverage, and Sean McVay loves to pepper plays that work over and over again until the defense finds an answer.
Indianapolis might not have one for Nacua in the slot with Moore out.
Nacua leads the league in receptions with 29 so far. He's had 10, eight, and 11 in his three games, already over his receptions line of 7.5. That's a steep line for most, but not for Nacua, and we get it at plus-money at +108 (DraftKings).
Since Week 10 of last season, when Nacua returned fully to the Rams' lineup after an injury-filled start of the season, he's been absolutely on fire.
Including this season, he's played at a pace of 148 catches for over 1800 yards, including 8.7 receptions per game, and he had at least seven receptions in all but one of those games, a remarkably high floor that puts us one away from our over.
It's escalator season, and this time we'll take each step along the way, all at DraftKings.
Nacua has at least nine catches in 55% of 11 games since Week 10 last season, over half, and we get that at +183. He's hit 10+ receptions 36% of the time, and that line is listed at +303.
Those are the main escalator plays, but let's take a nibble on two steps further.
We can play 12+ receptions at +820, and even nibble 15+ at +3500, a number that would match Nacua's career-high back from the second game of his career.
Colts vs Rams Picks
Picks: Puka Nacua 8+ Receptions (+108), 9+ Receptions (+183), 10+ Receptions (+303)
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Chargers vs Giants
We played Chargers -5.5 on the Hot Read on Sunday.
There's a bit more variance to this game now with Jaxson Dart making his debut, but first-round quarterbacks making an in-season debut since 2010 are just 7-14 ATS and 5-11 SU.
I still like Chargers at anything better than -7, and Omarion Hampton is a big part of why.
Remember how the Giants were supposed to be a sneaky top-10-potential defense? Turns out not so much.
New York ranks 30th in Defensive DVOA so far and dead last against the run.
The Giants are so bad against the rush that even the Chiefs were able to run on them!
This isn't new either. The Giants allowed almost 1900 rushing yards to RBs last season, fifth-most in the NFL, with the median outcome for a lead RB at 87 yards. So, over half the games!
This season, the Giants are allowing 5.2 yards per carry, and that's against Washington, Dallas, and Kansas City — not exactly a murderer's row of opposing running backs.
Volume is key here.
Since the start of last season, RBs with 14+ carries against the Giants are averaging 121 rushing yards.
With Najee Harris out for the season, Hampton should see a huge workload under notoriously run-heavy OC Greg Roman.
Hampton had 19 carries just last week, even with Harris playing part of the game, and he had 23 carries the first two games even in a part-time role.
Play Hampton to go over 62.5 rushing yards (BetRivers), considering he hit that already last week with 70 yards against a far better defense despite playing part-time.
This is a great opportunity for a Hampton breakout game too. Six RBs hit 100 yards against the Giants last season.
So, let's play Hampton to do that at +475 (bet365). He's +1000 to make it to 120 rushing yards, right at that average outcome for RBs with 14+ carries against New York.
If Hampton does have a huge rushing game, we'll definitely want that Offensive Rookie of the Year ticket too at +900 (Circa).
I'm selling high on Emeka Egbuka with other Bucs' WRs coming back and on Tyler Warren since a tight end has never won the award, and I'm not buying Dart with a rough upcoming schedule.
This race feels open to some of the RBs slowly nudging themselves into a bigger role, and Hampton leads the pack.
If he has a big game against the Giants on Sunday, Omarion Hampton could wake up Monday morning as a Rookie of the Year favorite.
Pick: Omarion Hampton Over 62.5 Rushing Yards + Escalator
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Eagles vs Buccaneers
This looks like a hot and muggy, possibly rainy, game in Florida, and it might be the game of the week with two 3-0 teams facing off.
It also might be a bit of a fraud-off. Despite the pristine win-loss records, these teams hilariously rank just 16th and 17th by DVOA so far — the two most average ratings in the pack.
Philadelphia actually ranks lowest of any 3-0 team. Both these teams could've easily lost any or all of their games so far.
Philadelphia being favored by 3.5 on the road feels rich.
The Eagles have wins by three, four, and seven so far, but the seven-point win was really going to be a loss before that wonky blocked field goal return, so that makes -3.5 look tough.
But it's hard to put too much faith in the Bucs without knowing just how much Tristan Wirfs or Chris Godwin we'll see, if any.
We're burying the lede, though, because the real story of this game is Jalen Hurts against his NFL nightmare, Todd Bowles.
Hurts is 1-4 SU against Bowles in his career, including 0-2 in the playoffs, constantly struggling against all that Bowles pressure.
The games haven't been pretty. Hurts completed under half his passes with an interception in his first Bowles game as the Eagles had just 213 yards of offense. He lost both playoff games by at least 16 points, with three sacks and 276 Eagles yards in one and two interceptions and 53% completion rate in the other.
Hurts was sacked six times in the last meeting; he even had two interceptions in his lone win!
If we could just bet on "Jalen Hurts will struggle and have a bad game against Todd Bowles," we'd bet set. Unfortunately that's not exactly an available market, nor something like a completion percentage under.
Instead, I'll build a same game parlay around a potential game script here.
Tampa Bay consistently has a great run defense, and that's been the case this season. And Bowles' defense has consistently shut down Philadelphia's run game and forced them — one way or another — to go to the pass in these games.
In Hurts' last four games against the Bucs, he's attempted 37, 30, 43, and 35 pass attempts. He's also thrown four interceptions, an average of one per game, and the Eagles have lost by 16 or more in three of those four.
Let's get creative and build our SGP: Hurts 30+ pass attempts, at least one Hurts interception, and the Bucs to cover +3.5 is +465 at DraftKings.
Care for an escalator? How about Hurts 34+ pass attempts, two interceptions, and an easy Bucs win at Tampa -5.5? That's +3100, and it already hit once in this matchup, with two of the three legs hitting in two other games.
Until Jalen Hurts proves he can do it against Todd Bowles, it's the only play.
Pick: Fade Jalen Hurts vs. Todd Bowles Escalator
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Ravens vs Chiefs
This was supposed to be the game of the week, but now it's just a game of two teams trying to avoid falling to 1-3 heading into October.
I want to just keep backing the Ravens, especially at -2.5, but there are so many injuries.
The entire defensive line is banged up, along with top pass rusher Kyle Van Noy, and folks are starting to notice just how big of a deal it is for FB Patrick Ricard and TE Isaiah Likely to still be out.
What's crazy is, I'm not even sure Baltimore should be all that scared defensively this week. After all, it's "just" the Chiefs. How the mighty have fallen.
But it's still Ravens-Chiefs, and that means it's still Patrick Mahomes versus Lamar Jackson.
Mahomes is 5-1 against Jackson, but all but one of those games have come within one score. It would be huge if Likely can go.
Remember, he had nine catches for 111 yards and a score in the season opener last year — and was a toenail from a second score that could've sent the game to overtime.
Rashee Rice is a big miss for Kansas City in this matchup, with 15 catches in the last two times he played against Baltimore.
One consistent thing you see across those matchups is that Baltimore consistently runs the ball well on Kansas City — at least when the Ravens remember to. They had 200+ rushing yards in three of the games against Mahomes, but weirdly abandoned the run a couple other times.
Derrick Henry has only played in one of those matchups though, and really this was the exact matchup the Ravens went out and got Henry last offseason for.
The Ravens go as Henry goes since he's joined the team. In 13 regular season wins since the start of last season, Henry has found the end zone in nine of those games, and he's also rushed for 100+ yards nine times.
That's a huge hit rate, and it gets even crazier — he didn't have 100 yards in a Ravens' loss at any point until Week 1 against Buffalo, a game the Ravens were cruising toward victory before blowing it late.
Henry has rushed for 100 yards and a TD in nine of 13 Ravens wins since joining the team, so 69% of them. He's rushed for 100 and a score in a win in exactly half his games as a Raven.
We can play that combo — 100+ rushing yards, a touchdown, and Baltimore moneyline — at +340 at DraftKings, a worthwhile way to invest in the Ravens.
And when Henry has a big game, it's often a monster a game. He's found the end zone at least two times in five of those nine games. That means 100 rushing yards and two scores have hit in 5-of-13 Baltimore wins with Henry, 38% of them. We can play that at +750.
In three of those five games with multiple scores, Henry also scored the game's first touchdown. Henry first TD + 100 yards and two scores in a Ravens win is +1800 at DraftKings.
This is what Baltimore brought in the King to do.
Pick: Derrick Henry Escalator
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Packers vs Cowboys
Micah Parsons to Record a Sack (-144, FanDuel)
Listen, let's keep this real easy — there's absolutely NO way I'm passing on an opportunity to bet Micah Parsons sacking his old team.
Come on! This is the Parsons revenge game! You already know he's been salivating for this moment since the day he got traded.
I don't even have much of an additional case here, no analytics or percentages selling you on the price. Dallas's offensive line isn't what it once was, but Dak Prescott isn't particularly sack prone or anything — I'm just betting on Micah.
Parsons has at least one sack in over half his games in his career, 34 of 66. That's great, but also implies a number closer to even-odds. Books know we want this and are pricing it in, and I honestly just don't care. I'm not leaving Sunday without this ticket.
What I really want is a Parsons escalator for 2+ sacks.
When Parsons gets going, he can get sacks in bunches. He's had two or more sacks in 15 of 66 games, 23% of them. So, I'd take that bet if you can find it for anything around +300 or better.
We're all watching Sunday night for one specific reason. Might as well bet it!
Jordan Love TD Escalator
We already bet Packers -5 on the Hot Read, and I still love Green Bay if you've got anything below -7 available.
The Packers have won 10 of their last 11 games against the Cowboys, including winning each of the last five with at least 30 points in all of them.
Dallas's defense has been awful and ranks near the bottom of the league in explosive plays allowed. Plus, a banged-up secondary could be a nightmare against Green Bay's aggressive downfield passing attack.
I looked at Green Bay's team total over for possible escalators, but the line is at 27.5, and the Packers haven't topped 27 yet this season.
If the Packers do put up a big number, there's a pretty good chance Jordan Love will be heavily involved.
Matt LaFleur offenses love to pass the ball into the end zone, typically around three-fourths of Green Bay's offensive scores, and the Packers should find the end zone repeatedly in this one.
The Cowboys allowed the most fantasy points to opposing quarterbacks last season and are right back at the bottom again this season.
Need a reminder? Two weeks ago, Russell Wilson set a career-high in passing yards and threw three scores — and has since been benched. Last week, Caleb Williams threw a career-high four touchdowns.
Not that any of that is new. Dallas has allowed multiple passing touchdowns in 60% of its games since the start of last season.
Jordan Love has been a touchdown machine. He's thrown multiple TDs in 21 of 33 full games since become the starter (64%), almost two of every three. That should make us feel pretty good about Love over 1.5 pass TDs, even at -136 (FanDuel).
It feels like this is the escalator play too.
Love has thrown 3+ touchdowns in 24% of those healthy games as a starter. We can play 3+ pass TDs at +320 (bet365), basically right at that number, but that's before factoring in the tasty matchup.
Remember, both Wilson and Williams hit that number the last two weeks, and Williams had four. Love had a pair of 4-touchdown games last season too. So, let's nibble there at +1100 (bet365).
If you just want a fun narrative-based SGP for Sunday night, you can parlay three pass TDs for Love, a Micah Parsons sack, and Packers -6.5 at +632 at FanDuel.
Picks: Micah Parsons Sack (-144), Jordan Love TD Escalator
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Commanders vs Chargers (Week 5 Lookahead Pick)
In my study of 3-0 teams this week, I came away pretty impressed by the Chargers. Los Angeles is 3-0, all wins within its division, and the Chargers were pretty dominant in each of those games. Washington, on the other hand, has felt aggressively mid.
Just look at the quarterbacks. One is playing like an MVP right now, and the other one is barely playing at all.
Jayden Daniels got hurt Week 1 and hasn't played since, and there's no guarantee he plays this one either, along with go-to WR Terry McLaurin.
Washington has injuries all over the place. Will Harris is the only good safety on the roster. Veterans Jonathan Jones and Deatrich Wise are missing on the defense. Sam Cosmi has yet to play on the offensive line.
These absences all add up, especially against a better team.
Look at how the weekend may play out.
The Commanders are in Atlanta and may not be healthy, with plenty of sharps on Atlanta.
If Washington loses and drops to 2-2 while the Chargers run up the score on Jaxson Dart and the Giants en route to 4-0, there's no way this line stays below the key number.
Jim Harbaugh is an incredible 80% ATS over the course of his NFL career as a favorite of under six points, and there's still no more valuable key number than three. Grab Chargers -2.5 while it's available on the right side of the number.
Pick: Chargers -2.5 (-118)
Brandon's Week 4 Betting Card
- Browns-Lions Under 44.5
- Bills Team Total Over 29.5
- Puka Nacua Receptions Escalator
- Omarion Hampton Over 62.5 Rushing Yards + Escalator
- Fade Jalen Hurts vs. Todd Bowles Escalator
- Micah Parsons to Record a Sack
- Jordan Love TD Escalator
Brandon's Week 5 Lookahead Pick
- Chargers -2.5
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