NFL media picks, Week 4: Chiefs heavily favored over Patriots

After a huge showing in Baltimore, the Chiefs are favored by the majority of the media to win against the new-look New England Patriots. We discuss.

The Kansas City Chiefs loudly reminded the NFL media in Week 3 that they were Super Bowl Champs a season ago. In what was expected to be a close game and perhaps a preview of the AFC Championship, the Chiefs made the Ravens look relatively pedestrian.

In the showdown against Baltimore, the Chiefs held last year’s NFL MVP Lamar Jackson to 97 yards passing while Patrick Mahomes threw for 260 yards in the first half. In lieu of the dominating victory against the Ravens, it is hard to find members of the media that are willing to pick against the Chiefs.

The Chiefs are entering an interesting stretch. In the next three games, their opponents are the New England Patriots, the Las Vegas Raiders, and the Buffalo Bills. In this stretch, the Chiefs should learn a lot about themselves. Not only are they facing off against a bunch of different styled teams in the AFC, they are going to do so without L’Jarius Sneed, who has been the Chiefs top cornerback to this point. They will be tested in both run and pass defense and will have to play well offensively to keep up.

This week it’s the Patriots, who have been outperforming expectations. Bill Belichick is showing that it wasn’t all Tom Brady in New England. He played a role in the success as well. He has coached up a team that had half of the defense seemingly opt out of the season. Cam Newton has played above expectations and has thrown the ball about as well as any point in his career this season. Despite this, the media is bullish on Kansas City this week after being wrong about the game in Baltimore last week. Here is what they had to say:

ESPN:

On the ESPN panel, there was only one soul brave enough to take the Patriots in the Week 4 matchup with the Chiefs. Seth Wickersham is taking the Patriots to upset the Chiefs. This means on a panel of 10, 90% of the experts chose Kansas City to keep on rolling. To be fair to Wickersham, he seems to think this will be a wacky week or loves to pick with his heart instead of his brain as he has picked the Jaguars over the Bengals and the Raiders over the Bills this week. Nonetheless, ESPN’s majority believes that Kansas City will prevail on Sunday.

CBS: 

The same exact thing could be said for CBS’s panel. There was only one brave soul that was willing to take the Patriots over Kansas City this week; Jason La Canfora. As someone who has a documented hatred for all things Kansas City sports, this should be no surprise. However, what he tweeted about the upcoming matchup was jarring for anyone that follows the NFL. Here is what he had to say:

Apparently La Canfora is under the impression that teams want to keep Gehrig Dieter off of the field. Perhaps they do, but no matter how you slice this, this is some bold analysis.

Nonetheless, La Canfora is the only one on the NFL panel with the bravery to make such a prediction.

NFL.com

In Gregg Rosenthal’s weekly prediction piece at the league’s official site, he is not about to take the Pats over the Chiefs. Here is what he had to say:

"“This is the fourth time Patrick Mahomes has faced the Pats in his young career. His PFF grade is 63.8 against New England, compared to 95.0 vs. the rest of the league, but this is not the Patriots’ defense of yesteryear. Stephon Gilmore‘s late-season slump in 2019 has continued into this season. Beyond Chase Winovich, the Patriots don’t have much of a pass rush. New England has the cornerbacks to limit some of Kansas City’s outside routes, but the Chiefs simply have more counters up the seams.It’s not the Patriots’ offense of yesteryear either, but that may be a good thing for this matchup. Cam Newton has led the most efficient rushing attack in football through three weeks, according to Football Outsiders. That matches up well against the Chiefs’ defense (fifth vs. the pass, 30th vs. the run), making the Patriots the perfect team to employ the “keep the ball away from Mahomes” gambit. That could lead to a fun study of contrasts, but it’s always seemed like a sucker’s move to me. Losing faster is still losing.”"

Fivethirtyeight:

While they love to talk about elections and the data associated with them, they also predict the odds of NFL games. These data driven predictions are interesting to read every week. This week, the nerds at fivethirtyeight.com are giving the Chiefs a 74% chance of winning over the Patriots this week.

Overview:

There are a few brave souls who are willing to pick New England to beat Kansas City. For the most part, however, the media is bullish on the Chiefs after a big time win in Baltimore. According to NFL Pick Watch, only about 7 percent of analysts and experts believe that the Chiefs will lose this weekend. Against a talented team that is coached well, that shows some serious belief in Kansas City’s ability.