I talked about this on the pod a little bit, but when you look at this game, you really wonder why the hell it’s in prime time. Sure, several months ago, this might have looked good on paper… maybe? I don’t blame Jay Cutler as much as Bears fans do, Alshon Jeffery is a lot of star power… but there’s not much else there that your general football fan might recognize. And the Cowboys? Yeah, they usually anchor any prime time game with Bryant, Romo, and Witten… yeah, the match-up would have made some sense if you squinted really hard… but boy, now that we’re here… Wow. Jay Cutler is doubtful for the game, leaving us in the derpiest of all time periods: “Hoyer Time”. Jeremy Langford is not who we thought he was, and even over on the Cowboys side, Tony Romo is out (for his career, if we care about his future aspects to live the rest of his life in a healthy fashion), leaving something called Dak in charger. Ezekial Elliot is suffering from some rookie over-hype (made of phrase, I’m sure), and Jason Garrett is still head coach. I’m sorry, why are we watching this game tonight?

For some reason this week, there’s a somewhat-crowded slate of games… I’m not sure on the science of this, the when, the how, the meaning of it all (in terms of scheduling, not life), but I’ll take as many games in the afternoon as I can until the bye weeks hit. And today, we’ve got five selections to choose from… Rams at Buccaneers, 49ers at Seahawks, Jets at Chiefs, Chargers at Colts, and the Steelers at Eagles. Okay, now that I’ve listed them, maybe I take it back… wanting that many games, what was I thinking? I could honestly do without four of these, and not even my Chargers bias can keep them in this small group of watchable, including, and definitely limited to the Steelers and Eagles.  A tale of where two teams will go, the Steelers have a chance to go 3-0 with the impending return of Le’Veon Bell, making them seem like a potential playoff team. The Eagles? This is probably a “show me” game, in that the hype of Carson Wentz tries to prove itself for real. Then again, if that doesn’t interest you, I’m pretty sure there will be a good case to make the over/under for the Chargers-Colts game at 100. 100.5 if you’re into that who decimal point thing…

Well, seeing as how Thursday Night Football once again lowered the bar in terms of “quality”, more specifically, in terms of “nap quality was good because this game was boring as sh*t”, we really have no where to go but up. Granted, I’m seeing a Browns-Dolphins matchup here that’s already triggering me slightly, I’m sure the Ravens-Jaguars game will only… oh geez, who are we kidding? Alright, alright, it’s not all doom and gloom, as the Washington-Giants game should be full of derp, the Broncos and Bengals should be pretty interesting, and the Panthers will try their best to make sure Sam Bradford regresses to the mean. But what my lede presupposes is, maybe they won’t?

Be sure to check out Start and Sits for today’s games here, along with updated projections (which finished fourth overall last week), by clicking here. And as always, our updated rankings are available after the jump!