By Travers Cummings
Colts over Falcons (Sunday morning): Coming off their second loss of the season at the hands of Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers, the Colts went out on trade deadline day and made a huge splash. Knowing they needed to improve their defensive secondary, the Colts sent two first-round picks to the New York Jets in exchange for cornerback Sauce Gardner. Gardner, the fourth overall pick in the 2022 draft, is a former Defensive Rookie of the Year and a two-time Pro Bowler. I don’t know if this move vaults them ahead of Buffalo in the AFC, but it definitely gives them a new defensive star to help shut down Josh Allen if and when those teams meet up in the playoffs. Daniel Jones looked like the old (not-good) version of himself from his New York Giants days last week, but I expect him to bounce back pretty nicely against the Falcons.
Bears over Giants (Sunday noon): The Bears pulled out a last-second victory in what turned out to be a very entertaining game against the Cincinnati Bengals. After that win, they suddenly find themselves only one win out of first place in the AFC North. I can’t say I was expecting to see that more than halfway through the season. The 2–7 Giants come to town looking to rebound from their loss to the 49ers. Like I mentioned last week, the Giants’ run defence is awful — hence the 160+ yards they gave up to Christian McCaffrey and Brian Robinson. Chicago rookie running back Kyle Monangai had quite the debut in his first official start, going for 176 yards against Cincinnati. Not sure if starting running back D’Andre Swift will be back for this one, but the combination of him and Monangai is going to spell trouble for the Giants.
Lions over Commanders (Sunday afternoon): In one of the bigger upsets of last week, the Lions were punched in the gut by the returning J.J. McCarthy and the Minnesota Vikings. Right off the bat, the Vikings never let Jared Goff get comfortable behind centre, sending blitz after blitz and sacking him five times. Luckily for him, a team that’s pretty much the opposite of the defence he just faced is next on the schedule. Detroit can’t afford another loss if they want to keep pace with the Packers and Bears in the NFC North. The Commanders not only lost the game last week to the Seahawks but also lost their quarterback, Jayden Daniels, to a pretty gruesome dislocated elbow injury. Unfortunately, that leaves them with Marcus Mariota as the starter for the remainder of the season, which does not bode well for them. They’re going to be hard-pressed to keep up with the Lions in this one, so don’t expect a close matchup here.
Last week: 1–2
Season overall: 15–12