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Posted Friday at 2:30pm EST and odds are subject to change.

NFL Week:

October 30

What you see below is our early leans. Many of the selections below will stay the same and some will be moved into official plays with wagers on Sunday. However, there is also the possibility that we see, read or get a sense that something is not right with one of our selections and change our pick. There are several different criteria we use to grade a game and make it an official play and a lot of things can happen or change between Friday and Sunday. We’ll have all write-ups (except Monday Night Football) posted on Friday but our actual wagers won’t be posted until Sunday morning between 10 AM and 12:00 PM EST

Pittsburgh -3½ over Cleveland 

1:00 PM EST The total in this game is 38.5, and that's not a typo — it's a warning label. Two 5-2 teams tied atop the AFC North are going to spend Sunday afternoon trying to strangle each other in the cold, and Pittsburgh  is the side built for exactly that kind of filth. The Steelers have won three straight behind the oldest formula in the division: run it, defend everything, and let Aaron Rodgers pick his spots. Last week in Paris, Rodgers threw his 540th career touchdown pass — passing Peyton Manning for third all-time, because of course he did — Jaylen Warren hammered out 101 yards on 18 carries, and the defence held New Orleans to a laughable 18 rushing yards while Payton Wilson picked off a red-zone pass to slam the door.

Cleveland's problem is that its whole season is built on surviving the fourth quarter, and surviving doesn't travel well to Acrisure. Deshaun Watson has already engineered five game-winning drives this year, which is a nice way of saying the Browns keep needing rescuing. Last week they fell behind Tennessee 14-0, clawed back behind Quinshon Judkins (96 yards, two scores), and still needed a walk-off field goal at the gun. That act eventually runs into a defence that doesn't blink, and Pittsburgh's front — which just spent a week making a professional offence look like it was running in wet cement — is exactly that. Mike Tomlin's team at home, in a game where points are rationed like wartime sugar, with the better quarterback and the better defence: that's how you cover in a rock fight.

The market has been sprinting toward Cleveland. This line opened at Steelers -5.5 and has been bet down to -3.5, and the Browns are 5-2 against the spread with five wins in their last six. Watson is playing his best football in years and Judkins is a genuine hammer. There's also a small Browns injury list to watch — Mike Hall Jr., Tytus Howard and Myles Harden are all questionable — but the money move is the real counterargument, and it's a loud one. We're siding with the home team anyway: when a division game projects to be this ugly, take the defense that closes and the quarterback who has thrown 540 touchdowns for a reason. Recommendation: Pittsburgh -3½.

Detroit -3½ over Minnesota 

1:00 PM EST. The last undefeated team in football is an underdog on Sunday, and the books are not confused — they're telling you Minnesota's 6-0 is built on a defence dragging a popgun offence across the finish line. We're laying Detroit -3.5 at Ford Field because the Lions finally look like the Lions again. Jared Goff has thrown 14 touchdowns without a single interception this season, Jahmyr Gibbs has piled up 620 rushing yards and nine total touchdowns on 166 touches, and Detroit has stacked back-to-back wins over Arizona (45-21) and Green Bay (20-17) to get its season pointed the right way. Gibbs and Amon-Ra St. Brown both popped up on the injury report this week, but both practised in full on Thursday and are expected to play,  the offence rolls into Sunday intact.

Here's the number that decides this game. Detroit's defense has allowed just 38 points and 106 rushing yards, total, across its last two games. That is a unit finding itself at exactly the wrong time for Kyler Murray, whose offence managed all of 275 yards and 16 points against Indianapolis last week and is averaging a modest 21 points per game on the season. Minnesota wins by putting opponents in a headlock; Detroit wins by scoring in bunches and turning games into math problems. At home, indoors, with Goff protecting the football like it's a family heirloom, the Lions can play this game at their tempo — and a defence-first team chasing points late is a defence-first team outside its comfort zone. Detroit ends the last perfect record in the league.

Respect where respect is due, Minnesota's defense is legitimately the best in football — first in points allowed at 12 per game, first in EPA per play, second in yards per play — and the Vikings are 3-0 against the spread as underdogs this season, which means this exact spot has been printing money. Aaron Jones is questionable, and two Minnesota offensive linemen are banged up, but Brian Flores will have a plan to make Goff uncomfortable. If Detroit's offence stalls early, the hook on 3.5 will feel enormous. We just don't think it stalls: nobody has stopped this passing game all year, and perfection has to die somewhere. Ford Field on Sunday is as good a place as any. Recommendation: Detroit -3½

Tampa Bay -2½ over Atlanta 

1:00 PM EST. Tampa Bay minus a few at home is a bet that last week wasn't a mirage. The Buccaneers spent six weeks looking like a team held together with tape and spite, then Baker Mayfield came back from his thumb injury and they ran Carolina clean out of the building, 43-13, piling up 258 rushing yards while the defence forced three turnovers, Yaya Diaby collected three sacks, and Calijah Kancey housed a fumble. Mayfield only had to throw 11 passes — 64 yards and a touchdown — because Bucky Irving and the run game were doing all the violence. He's practised in full all week, glove and all, and a Tampa offence that can bludgeon you on the ground while its quarterback heals up is a nasty little problem for a Falcons defence allowing 24.7 points a game.

Atlanta's path here is obvious, and Tampa's answer to it is the whole ballgame: Michael Penix Jr. has been careful and efficient (1,157 yards, nine touchdowns, one interception), but the Falcons live and die on offensive balance, and the Buccaneers just showed what happens when they get to tee off. Tampa's run game is third in the league at 146.4 yards per game, its defence is the stingier of the two (21.6 points allowed per game to Atlanta's 24.7), and this is a division game at Raymond James where the Bucs desperately need to start stacking wins before the season files for bankruptcy. Grind it out, win the turnover battle, take it 27-23

And now the ugly truth, because there's a stack of it: Tampa Bay is 2-5 against the spread this season and a putrid 0-4 against the spread at home, which is the kind of trend that should come with a surgeon general's warning. The injury report is no picnic either — Emeka Egbuka, Antoine Winfield Jr. and tackle Luke Goedeke are all questionable, and if Goedeke can't go, Mayfield's blind side gets adventurous. Atlanta, meanwhile, just handed the 49ers their first loss of the season and is 2-1 against the number on the road. This is not a confident favourite; it's a flawed team in a good spot, at home, laying less than a field goal, with its quarterback back and its run game snarling. That's enough. Recommendation: Tampa Bay -2½

Baltimore +3½ over Buffalo

Start with the news, because the whole bet lives in it. Lamar Jackson is expected to play. After missing three games with a high ankle sprain suffered in Week 4, Jackson was a full participant in Wednesday's practice and took all the first-team reps, and both Ian Rapoport and CBS Sports' Matt Zenitz report he's on track to start Sunday in Buffalo, believed to be close to 100 percent. The Ravens have not stamped it official — he's still listed questionable, and head coach Jesse Minter is playing it coy — but every sign points to the two-time MVP being under centre. That turns Baltimore +3.5 from a prayer into a position, because Jackson walks back into the friendliest matchup a returning quarterback could ask for: Buffalo's defence ranks 30th in points allowed (28.5 a game), 31st in yards allowed (412.5), 31st in passing yards allowed, and has surrendered 15 passing touchdowns in six games. The Bills are 5-1 in spite of their defense, not because of it.

The Ravens don't need Jackson to be a superhero, either  they need him to be a problem. Derrick Henry (579 yards, seven touchdowns) pounds the middle, Jackson threatens the edges, and Buffalo has to defend both at once with a unit that misses tackles by the bushel. Baltimore has also been quietly better on the road this season, winning three of four away from home, and its run defense — just 96.6 yards allowed per game — is one of the few units equipped to keep James Cook and Josh Allen from turning this into a track meet on the ground. In a game with a total in the mid-50s, points will come in waves for both sides, and in a shootout you want the hook: 3.5 means a late field goal beats you outright or not at all. Buffalo wins a classic, 31-30, and the Ravens cover.

The risks are written in red ink. Baltimore is 2-5 against the spread, has lost two straight, and got buried 35-13 by Cincinnati last week. Jackson's game is built on his legs, and a high ankle sprain doesn't care what the practice report says — if his mobility is even 85 percent, a chunk of the Ravens' offence goes with it. Roquan Smith and Kyle Hamilton both missed practice time this week with knee issues, Buffalo is coming off its bye with Ed Oliver and D.J. Moore returning, and Josh Allen at home is Josh Allen at home. But laying more than a field goal behind the worst defence in the top half of the league, against an MVP coming back with something to prove? No thank you. Take the points. Recommendation: Baltimore +3½

LA Chargers +6½ over LA Rams

4:05 PM EST. The Chargers +6.5 is a bet on the saddest home-field advantage in football: none. The Chargers are the "road" team in their own building on Sunday, sleeping in their own beds, dressing in their own locker room, and taking the shortest commute in the league to face the Rams at SoFi. They're also the league's last winless team at 0-6, so let's not dress this up — but a team this bad getting nearly a touchdown in a game with no travel, off a bye, against a favourite whose defensive line is in the hospital is a different conversation than the standings suggest.

Start with that Rams front, because it's a ward. Kobie Turner, Poona Ford and Myles Garrett are all on injured reserve, which means the entire interior of the Rams' defensive line is watching this one in street clothes. That is oxygen for Justin Herbert and a Chargers offence that just got Joe Alt and Kayode Awosika back off the bye, restoring 40 percent of a battered offensive line in one week. Ladd McConkey is practicing again too. On the other side, the Chargers' defence is quietly the respectable half of this roster — top-eight in EPA per play — and Khalil Mack and Tuli Tuipulotu get to hunt Matthew Stafford behind a patchwork tackle room. The Rams are also down Davante Adams, gone for weeks with a hamstring, which funnels everything through Puka Nacua and lets the Chargers cheat coverage his way all afternoon.

Now the confession, because 0-6 is 0-6: the Chargers are 0-5-1 against the spread, own the league's last-ranked scoring offence, and their closest loss all season is six points. Herbert managed 204 yards and a pick in a 22-6 faceplant at Kansas City. Derwin James' hamstring is still unresolved and half the secondary is questionable, which is a scary sentence with Stafford on the other side. But the Rams have coughed up 30-plus twice in their last five, they're 3-4 for a reason, and this sets up as an ugly, low-ceiling street fight between roommates. Rams 24, Chargers 20 — the winless team finally covers one. Recommendation: Los Angeles Chargers +6½.

Kansas City -1½ over Denver 

4:25 PM EST. Kansas City -1.5 is a pick'em wearing a fake moustache. Forget the point and a half — this ticket asks one question: who wins at Mile High on Sunday? And the answer we're paying for is the team that has spent half a decade treating "who wins?" as a rhetorical question. The Chiefs are 5-1 and 5-1 against the spread, they outgain Denver by more than 110 yards a game (387 to 276), they've allowed 17.2 points a night, and their point differential is +40 against Denver's +3. One of these records is lying, and it isn't Kansas City's.

The timing is the real edge. The Chiefs walk in humiliated — shut out of the end zone entirely in a 20-3 loss at Seattle, held to eight possessions, with Patrick Mahomes failing to reach the red zone for the first time in his career. That is not a team you want to catch the following week. Mahomes off a public embarrassment is one of the league's most reliable genres, and Kansas City now has Kenneth Walker III to lean on while the passing game resets, against a Denver offence that still can't convert third downs and lives in the high 20s of the league in yardage. Bo Nix manages games. Mahomes, angry, wins them.

Denver has won three straight behind a defense allowing roughly 16 points a game in that stretch, Pat Surtain II is trending toward a return at corner, and that's enormous. Rashee Rice's hamstring has him somewhere between doubtful and questionable, the Chiefs' left tackle spot is a construction zone with Josh Simmons on IR, and Mahomes is still managing a knee. The total has cratered to 40.5, which tells you the market expects a fistfight — and laying points in a fistfight at altitude is nobody's idea of a spa day. Fine. In a fistfight, take the better quarterback and the better roster. Recommendation: Kansas City -1½

Miami +6½ over New England

4:25 PM EST. Nobody frames Miami +6.5 and hangs it in a gallery. The Dolphins are 1-5, they score 16.3 points a game, and their best player is in a knee brace on the sideline. But flip the ticket over and look at what New England is actually being asked to do: win by a touchdown, on the road, in a divisional game, with a defence that missed 16 tackles in its last outing and a turnover differential of minus-7 that ranks 31st in football. The Patriots don't just beat themselves occasionally — it's becoming a habit, and habits are what you bet on in November.

Miami's one functioning trick is a good one for this matchup. The Dolphins run it — seventh in the league at 131.5 rushing yards a game — and Malik Willis has become a problem defenses have to solve honestly: eight carries in each of his last two games, a rushing touchdown in both, and enough keeper threat to freeze an edge defender solid. New England just spent a Thursday night in Chicago getting gashed for yards after contact while its own run game produced a 20 percent success rate. Willis doesn't need to outplay Drake Maye. He needs to shorten the game, steal two or three first downs with his legs, and let a Patriots team on extra rest discover that rest doesn't fix tackling. Miami snapped its six-game skid 28-25 over the Jets last week, and a first win has a way of loosening up a locker room.

The ugly parts, stated plainly are De'Von Achane is done after knee surgery, Miami's passing game is 30th in the league at 162 yards a night, the Dolphins allow 26.2 points a game, they're 0-2 at home, and Maye — 1,784 yards behind a top-seven offence in total yardage — is the best player in this game by a mile. If Willis gifts New England a short field early, this gets out of hand fast. But seven-point road favourites in the division cover by surviving, and everything about the Patriots right now says survival, not style. Expect a very close, sweaty, and inside the number game.Recommendation: Miami +6½

Philadelphia +6½ over Washington 

8:20 PM EST. Let's say the quiet part first, because Philadelphia +6.5 deserves honesty before it deserves anything else: Jalen Hurts is on injured reserve with blood clots in his lungs and his season is over. Tanner McKee is the quarterback. And we're still taking the points — because the team laying them is 1-4-1. Washington is being priced like a functioning favourite, and Washington is nothing of the sort. Somebody has to win this pillow fight on Sunday night, and the market has decided it's the team with one win and a tie. We're not convinced, and at +6.5 we don't have to be.

Here's what Washington is working with: a defense that ranks 29th in success rate allowed and has let opposing quarterbacks post a 105.0 passer rating this season. That unit couldn't stop a nosebleed, and it's the reason a backup quarterback can survive in this spot. McKee, to his credit, has not been the catastrophe the depth chart promised — he threw for 426 yards and two touchdowns in his first start, and in Dallas on Monday he kept a gutted offence afloat in a shootout for as long as humanly possible. Makai Lemon, a name nobody knew in September, just posted seven catches for 67 yards and his first touchdown. Meanwhile Jayden Daniels is back but playing on a bad elbow, Terry McLaurin is done for the year, and running back Jacory Croskey-Merritt is on IR. Washington's weapons cabinet is nearly as bare as Philadelphia's, and the total sitting at 40.5 tells you the market expects a rock fight — rock fights are where 6.5 points go to thrive.

Now the damage report on our own side, and it's a novel. DeVonta Smith is out, Dontayvion Wicks has been missing, Saquon Barkley carries another questionable tag on his hamstring, and the Eagles' defence just surrendered scores on seven of Dallas' nine possessions without recording a single sack — Philadelphia generates 1.1 sacks a game, 31st in the league, against the most mobile quarterback in the sport. They're also on a short week off a Monday nighter while Washington is fresh off its bye. All of it is priced in, and then some: the Commanders still have to win by a touchdown to beat us, with a one-win team, a wrecked receiving corps and the league's most generous pass defense. The dog covers under the lights.Recommendation: Philadelphia +6½

Dallas -7 over Arizona 

1:00 PM EST. Clear your Sunday afternoon, because this one has shootout written all over it. In a shootout, you take the team with the bigger guns. That's Dallas -7.5 at home against Arizona. The Cowboys hang 27 points a game, fifth in the league, and they do it throwing the ball all over the yard: Dak Prescott is at 1,851 yards and 13 touchdowns, CeeDee Lamb is second in the entire NFL in receiving yards, and George Pickens is standing on the other side making defensive coordinators choose their poison. Arizona, meanwhile, owns the league's worst scoring defense at 29.7 points allowed per game. The Cardinals play a ton of zone, and Lamb, Pickens and Prescott are all certified zone-shredders. That's not a matchup, that's a feeding schedule

It gets worse for the visitors when Dallas runs it. Arizona's run defense is a rumor — 4.7 yards a carry allowed, bottom five in run success rate — and Javonte Williams has eight rushing touchdowns already and looks like a man who enjoys contact the way the rest of us enjoy brunch. The Cardinals counter with Jacoby Brissett, a backup's backup getting another courtesy start, on an offense that has produced the third-fewest points per play in football over the last three weeks. Arizona's ground game is in the infirmary: James Conner is done, Jeremiyah Love is out with an ankle, and the secondary is held together with tape — Budda Baker is questionable with a groin, Max Melton's knee is a question mark. Dallas just hung 38 on Philadelphia on the road. At home, indoors, against this defense, the number is covered by the offense alone.

Now the part where we keep ourselves honest, because Dallas's own defense is a screen door on a submarine: 29th in yards allowed, and Brissett is exactly the kind of steady veteran who feasts on bad coverage for four quarters of garbage-time dignity. The Cowboys are also on a short week after Monday night, Turpin is likely out, Pickens was limited all week with shoulder and hamstring issues, and Quinnen Williams is questionable — if Pickens sits or limps, the two-man wrecking crew becomes a one-man show and -7.5 gets sweaty. But Arizona has to score in the high 20s just to make Dallas nervous, and nothing about the last month says they can..Recommendation: Dallas -7.5.

Indianapolis +10½ over Jacksonville 

1:00 PM EST. Here's a funhouse-mirror stat to start your Sunday: Indianapolis and Jacksonville have scored the exact same number of points this season — 154 each. The entire difference between a 4-2 team and a 2-5 team is what they've given up, 104 against 180. So when the market asks Jacksonville to win by more than ten to cash against Indianapolis +10.5, it's not betting on an offensive gap. There isn't one. It's betting the Colts' defense falls apart on schedule, and that's a bigger assumption than the Jaguars' own season justifies — four of Jacksonville's six games have been scrapped down to the final possession, and the only two times they've actually buried anyone, the other side managed 10 and 6 points. This is a team that wins grinders, not routs.

The matchup bones for a grinder are there. Jacksonville's offensive line is a triage unit: Anton Harrison is on injured reserve, and the Jaguars are down to two healthy tackles standing between Trevor Lawrence and Laiatu Latu and Jaylahn Tuimoloau coming off the edge all afternoon. Every time the Jaguars have to keep an extra body in to chip, the downfield menu Lawrence has been enjoying shrinks. On the other side, Indianapolis can line up Charvarius Ward and Sauce Gardner and at least make Brian Thomas Jr. and Travis Hunter earn their Sundays. And yes, Jacksonville's run defense is the stingiest in football at 3.23 yards a carry, which is supposed to solve Jonathan Taylor — but the Colts don't need Taylor to take over. They need him to keep the game in the low-possession mud where a 27-20 kind of afternoon lives, and Indianapolis, for all its sins, is 4-3 against the spread precisely because that's the only kind of game it knows how to play.

The sins, since we mentioned them, are plentiful and we won't hide a single one. Daniel Jones has thrown four touchdowns against seven interceptions, the Colts' passing rating is second-worst in the league, and their turnover margin is minus-9, dead last — they don't just lose the ball, they gift-wrap it. Alec Pierce is on injured reserve, Tyler Warren is questionable with a groin, Gardner himself is questionable, the Colts are 0-3 on the road, and Jacksonville comes in rested off a bye with the league's third-best scoring defense. If Jones plays Santa Claus twice in the first half, +10.5 burns with everything else. But double digits in a divisional game against a favorite that specializes in one-score finishes? We'll take the points and the mirror image.Recommendation: Indianapolis +10½

Seattle -3½ over Chicago

8:15 PM EST.Seattle -3.5 is a bet that the best defence in football, at home, under the Monday night lights, beats a great story. The Seahawks rank No. 2 in defensive EPA per play and No. 1 in opponent yards per play, they allow fewer explosive passes than anyone, and last Sunday night they held Patrick Mahomes to a season-low 165 yards, three points, and not one single trip to the red zone. That is not a hot streak. That is a scheme, a pass rush and a building that eats visiting quarterbacks. Chicago brings the league's best cover record into Lumen Field; Seattle brings a wood chipper.

The matchup has one soft floorboard and Seattle is built to step on it. Chicago's run defence is the leak in an otherwise nasty unit — 26th in run-defence DVOA, giving up 4.4 yards a carry — and the Seahawks just traded for All-Pro guard Quenton Nelson this week, which is not something a team does unless it intends to run the ball down somebody's throat. With Zach Charbonnet expected back, Seattle can play keep-away: run it, lean on a defence that doesn't give up cheap yards, and let Jaxon Smith-Njigba — 150 yards last week, six 100-yard games in seven — win his one-on-ones when Darnold does have to throw. That script turns Caleb Williams into a spectator for long stretches, and spectators don't cover spreads.

 

The other side of the ledger is genuinely scary, so let's not pretend otherwise. Williams is playing at an MVP level — 71 percent completions since returning from his hamstring injury, back-to-back 300-yard games, seven total touchdowns and zero interceptions across his three healthy starts, with the Bears hanging 30, 31 and 59 points in those games. Chicago is 5-2 ATS, the best mark in football, they're rested off a Thursday game while Seattle played Sunday night, and left tackle Charles Cross is doubtful for the Seahawks. If this becomes a shootout, we've bet on the wrong team. But Monday night at Lumen, against that defense, shootouts go to die. Recommendation: Seattle -3½