Sterling Pro Football Net Point Power Rankings™

  Intriguing Game of the Week New York Giants @ Seattle Seahawks Bias+ Score 3.4 Favors New York Giants The fun of writing your own blog is the ability to choose a match-up based on purely personal reasons. Of course the stats play a big part so when the two come together, it's a no brainer. In this case the NY Giants are one of the surprise stories of the year. So are the Seahawks.  Who forecast that at week 8, the Seahawks would lead the NFC West, touted as one of the stronger Divisions in the NFL. Much less, who envisioned the Giants at 6 and 1 only behind the undefeated Philadelphia Eagles.  On a personal basis, I have been hard on Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith. I issued an apology on our YouTube video at Ben and Barry of Football and now we look deeper at this match up. Let's look at the numbers. The NY Giants rank in the top 10 in Net Points at 8 th with +2.9. Offensively, they rank18th scoring 21.4 Points Per Game. They've been successful to a large extent due to

  NFL Intriguing Game of the Week Chicago Bears @ New England Patriots Bias+ Score 9.4 Favors New England Patriots The ‘Intriguing Game of the Week is the Chicago Bears versus New England Patriots and I really want to talk about the contrast in styles of PAT’s QBs Mac Jones and Bailey Zappe versus Justin Fields and the Brain Trust of the Patriots versus the Bear’s Brain Trust. The Patriots run basically a pocket-based offense. The Bear’s Justin Fields is kind of like Jalen Hurts of the Philadelphia Eagles in that he’s athletic and he can throw the ball but the offensive scheme around him is not as strong as the Eagles. Choosing the ‘Intriguing Game’ is always a challenge but one item I look at is the Bias+ score and especially if it’s the highest or lowest of the week. In this case, the Bias+ score favoring the Patriots is the highest of the week. This has been an extremely volatile NFL season so far and I may be bad luck for featured quarterbacks. Last week I praised Cooper

  NFL Intriguing Game of the Day Dallas Cowboys @ Philadelphia Eagles Bias+ Score 6 Favors Philadelphia Eagles   There are always at least a few somewhat intriguing games on any NFL Sunday. My cohort at Ben and Barry on Football got juiced at the thought of the Bills vs the Chiefs. He was not alone. However, after the work I put in early in the year in a segment called “Best Job in the NFL, Backup Quarterback”, we found this group intriguing in itself. They all had great life stories and were generally making a small percentage of what the starting QBs were getting. Factors that make this game intriguing are first, the Eagles are defending an unbeaten record. But also, it’s against a Division rival with plenty of bad blood. The deciding factor was Cowboy backup QB Cooper Rush and the question, ’Can a Backup come into Philly and upset their apple cart? Can Rush take it from Hurts? Can you imagine? Cooper Rush is a 29-year-old Undrafted Free Agent who has 4 Accrued Seasons. C

  NFL Intriguing Game of the Day Cincinnati Bengals @ Baltimore Ravens Bias+ Score: 0.5 favors Baltimore Ravens When I looked at today’s schedule to pick the ‘Intriguing Game’ there were some good ones. First, this is a classic matchup of a running quarterback vs a pocket passer. In both instances these QBs excel in their own way. The numbers are also intriguing. We’ll dive in further along but you’ll see the differentials and wonder how the Bias+ is only a half of a point. Lastly, Division matchups are usually weird anyway. Speaking of points, it’s always wondrous to me when my Bias+ agrees with Vegas odds makers. Considering this is a home game and as I understand it, the Homefield advantage is worth 3 points. The Bias+ does not add points for the home field advantage (we use the actual scoring history) but if we add the three points then the Bias+ at 3.5 points is the exact odds issued by the Vegas Odds makers at -3.5. Let’s look at these squads so far. Both teams have the