NFL Expert Picks: Vikings Favored by Most in 'TNF' Clash at Rams

Rams 23, Vikings 20 – John Breech, CBS Sports

On paper, the Vikings are definitely the better team in this game, but no one uses paper anymore, so that fact means nothing to me.

I only care about trends, and there are two trends telling me to pick the Rams to win this game. First, teams flying two time zones or more to the west for a Thursday game almost always lose. Since the return of Thursday Night Football in 2006, this has happened a total of 20 times and the Central/Eastern time zone team that flew west has gone 4-16 straight up and 4-14-2 ATS (And two of those four wins were by Aaron Rodgers while he was going through his MVP run with the Packers).

I have no idea why teams are so bad in this situation, but I have some theories. When you're playing on a Thursday, you only have 72 hours to recover from your Sunday game, and 3.5 of those hours are spent on a plane because you have to fly halfway across the country. Once you get off the plane, you then have to adjust to a new time zone.

Not only is it tough to turn around and play on a Thursday, but the Vikings have to do it after playing the Lions, which brings me to my second trend. No team has won a game this year the week after playing the Lions. Apparently, the Lions are beating up on teams so badly that it makes it impossible to win the following week. It doesn't matter whether a team wins or loses to the Lions, this trend only involves their next game after facing Detroit.

Here's a look at the Lions opponents so far in 2024:

Week 1: Rams (Lost 41-10 to Cardinals in Week 2)Week 2: Buccaneers (Lost 26-7 to Broncos in Week 3 – Tampa Bay was favored by 6)Week 3: Cardinals (Lost 42-14 to Commanders in Week 4 – Arizona was favored by 3.5)Week 4: Seahawks (Lost 29-20 to Giants in Week 5 – Seattle was favored by 7)Week 5: Detroit's bye weekWeek 6: Cowboys (Got a bye in Week 7, face the 49ers in Week 8)Week 7: Vikings (Playing the Rams in Week 8)

That's four teams that have gone a combined 0-4 after facing the Lions, and three of the teams were favored to win. Also, the four losses were by an average of 21.8 points per game. At this point, I couldn't even pick the Vikings if I wanted to. And let's not forget, the Rams will likely be getting Cooper Kupp back, which should provide a huge boost for the offense.