21 Nov

Ravens’ Lamar Jackson can’t explain past struggles vs. Steelers ahead of Week 11 matchup

Lamar Jackson’s kryptonite this point in his career has been the Pittsburgh Steelers. While he has been dominant in the regular season against just about everyone else, the league’s two-time MVP is just 1-3 against Pittsburgh entering this Sunday’s Ravens-Steelers AFC North showdown.

Jackson’s lone win against the Steelers came in his first start against Pittsburgh in 2019. He’s thrown four touchdowns against seven interceptions against Baltimore’s longtime division rival.

“I don’t know what it is, man,” Jackson said of his past struggles with Pittsburgh, via ESPN. “Last year, we [were] supposed to [beat] them, but things just didn’t go our way; the football gods weren’t on our side. But it’s a whole other year, it’s a new year, [and] I’m looking forward to the game.”

Dropped passes and an end zone interception by then-Steelers rookie cornerback Joey Porter Jr. and a game-winning touchdown pass from Kenny Pickett to George Pickens were the primary reasons why Baltimore was upset by Pittsburgh in Week 5 of the 2023 season, the only time Jackson faced the Steelers last year.

The Steelers defense presents a daunting challenge for Jackson and the Ravens, who have scored more points than any team in football so far this year. Pittsburgh’s defense, which is currently second in the NFL in fewest points allowed, is also fourth in the NFL against the run and in red zone efficiency.

Pittsburgh’s defense has received big contributions this year from two former Ravens: safety DeShon Elliott and linebacker Patrick Queen. Both players are embracing being on the other side of the rivalry. They’re motivated to have success against a team that, in their words, didn’t want them.

“I didn’t get the offer back,” Queen said of not getting re-signed by Baltimore, “and it is definitely kind upsetting being there for four years and the bond that you grow with your teammates and stuff. The first few months, you definitely go through those feelings.

“Now after playing games, you just go by and just want to win games. You want to win with your teammates, your new teammates; you want to bond with those guys. Everything that you do as far as the organization that you’re at now. I will have feelings. Obviously anybody in my position would this week, so I’m just taking one day at a time, whatever happens, happens.”

Pittsburgh’s defense is surely motivated to drop Jackson’s record against them to 1-4 on Sunday. But Jackson is equally motivated to have success on Sunday. Jackson, a MVP candidate once again this year, has relied less on his legs and more on his arm this year more than he has in past years. Along with having an improved receiving corps and offensive line, Jackson has a perfect complement in the backfield in Derrick Henry, who like Jackson is enjoying an MVP-caliber season.

Unlike past years, Jackson doesn’t have the burden of having to be a one-man show for the Ravens offense to succeed. That could lead to a different result this time around against a team that has Jackson’s number up to this point.

“There were different guys last year, and it’s a different unit this year, but it’s always the same goal; we want to win,” Jackson said. “We want to be the ones that come out victorious, and that’s going to be the goal going into this game.”

21 Nov

AI, model, expert, DFS fantasy picks

A star-studded showdown takes place on Thursday Night Football when Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles host Jayden Daniels and the Washington Commanders. This NFC East rivalry has been lopsided in recent years with Philadelphia winning seven of the last 10 meetings. The winner of Thursday’s matchup will sit atop the NFC East standings. According to the latest Commanders vs. Eagles odds, Philadelphia is a 3.5-point favorite, while the over/under for total points scored is 48.5. The Eagles are -200 money line favorites (risk $192 to win $100), while the Commanders are +166 underdogs. If you are looking for NFL picks, AI predictions or NFL DFS picks for Eagles vs. Commanders, SportsLine has you covered with its proven model, AI PickBot and team of experts. They even have one pick that returns a whopping +13000, so be sure to see what they have to say.

Advanced NFL model simulates Commanders vs. Eagles 10,000 times
SportsLine’s model enters Week 11 of the 2024 NFL season on an incredible 17-7 betting hot streak on top-rated NFL picks this year. Longer term, it is on a 197-136 roll on top-rated NFL picks that dates back to the 2017 season and a 51-29 roll on top-rated NFL picks since Week 7 of 2022. The model has revealed its best bets for Eagles vs. Commanders and is backing the Over (48.5) to hit in almost 60% of simulations. You can find the model’s picks on the spread and money line here.

Self-learning AI reveals top player props
SportsLine AI hit a whopping 2,029 4.5- and 5-star sports betting picks since the start of last season. Now it has locked in its top player props for players like Jalen Hurts, Jayden Daniels and A.J. Brown. One of its top picks is Daniels staying Under 224.5 passing yards, which has earned a 4.5-star rating. The AI PickBot is calling for 185 passing yards on TNF. You can see all the top-rated NFL prop picks from the AI PickBot here.

NFL Vegas expert picks revealed for TNF
SportsLine has an expansive team of NFL experts who provide quality betting advice for every game on the schedule. NFL expert R.J. White, who is on a blistering 27-17-2 roll on Eagles games, has analyzed this rivalry from every angle and locked in his best bet for TNF right here.

Eric Cohen, who is 72-32 since Week 4, has revealed his exact score prediction for Commanders vs. Eagles, which returns a whopping +13000. That pick, along with his prediction for the other 13 games, is available here. SportsLine’s advanced computer model has also locked in its exact score predictions for Commanders vs. Eagles, and every Week 11 NFL game right here.

NFL DFS picks from top experts
SportsLine has a DFS optimizer that simulates every game 10,000 times and uses info from the SportsLine Projection Model and DFS Professional Millionaire Mike McClure to identify top DFS picks/plays for any slate on sites like FanDuel and DraftKings. Their NFL DFS Optimizer has Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts as its top overall player to include in your TNF DFS picks. Here are its complete Commanders vs. Eagles NFL DFS rankings.

DFS Professional Millionaire Mike McClure has locked in his top NFL DFS picks for Eagles vs. Commanders on Thursday Night Football. He’s building his NFL DFS lineups around Eagles running back Saquon Barkley. McClure is also targeting another undervalued player who could explode for huge numbers on TNF. This pick could be the difference between winning your tournaments and cash games or going home with nothing. You can only see who it is, and the rest of McClure’s NFL DFS picks, right here.

21 Nov

Colorado coach vows to step in if wrong team tries to draft his son

The NFL Draft is usually a pretty simple process: A team picks a player and then that player eventually signs a contract with his new team. However, things may not be so simple next year, and that’s because it sounds like Deion Sanders might throw a wrench into things.

The Colorado coach has two of the top NFL Draft prospects in the country playing for him: Deion’s son, Shedeur Sanders, is the quarterback for Colorado and the Buffaloes also have two-way star Travis Hunter, who plays both receiver and cornerback.

Both players are expected to be among the top-five picks in the 2025 NFL Draft, if not the top two. Although most players have no control over where they land, Shedeur and Hunter might, because Deion isn’t going to let them go to just any team.

During an interview on FS1 Wednesday, the Colorado coach was asked if he might “step in” if the the wrong team tries to draft his son.

“Yea, but I’m not gonna do it publicly, I’d do it privately,” Sanders said. “I’m going to be a dad until the cows come home, and with Travis as well.”

It’s been 20 years since anyone tried to pull a move like that in the draft. Back in 2004, Eli Manning said he wouldn’t play for the Chargers, which is how he ended up with the Giants. Just days before the start of the draft that year, Manning’s agent (Tom Condon) told the Chargers that Eli would sit out the entire 2004 season if the team drafted him with the first overall pick. The Chargers ended up ignoring the threat and taking Eli with the top pick anyway. However, Manning’s threats did ultimately work because he ended up getting traded to the Giants less than an hour later.

If Deion makes a similar threat, that could scare a team away from drafting either of the two stars.

When it comes to possible NFL landing spots, Deion didn’t name any specific teams for his son, but he did give a description of what he wants to see from a team that might draft Shedeur.

“Somebody that can handle the quarterback that he is, somebody that can handle, understanding what he’s capable of,” Deion said. “Someone that has had success in the past handling quarterbacks or someone in an organization that understands what they’re doing. Not just throwing you out there amongst the wolves, if you don’t have the support and the infrastructure of the team.”

The Colorado coach added that if a team has a bad offensive line, that’s something that can be worked around, he just wants to make sure Shedeur’s future team has some organizational stability.

“Forget the line, he’s played with lines that haven’t been great, but he’s been able to do his thing, but just the infrastructure of the team, the direction of where we’re going,” Deion said.

Our NFL Draft writers are pumping out new mocks every week and they all have a different opinion where Shedeur might land with teams ranging from the Giants to the Browns to the Raiders. Deion previously mentioned that he doesn’t want Shedeur to land in a cold-weather city, so that could knock out the Giants and Browns.

Deion was asked in July about the possibility of Shedeur ending up in Las Vegas and he was all for it, “That would be nice.” With Tom Brady now part of the team’s ownership, they now fit the bill of someone in the organization who knows what it takes to be a quarterback in the NFL.

21 Nov

Deion Sanders responds to speculation that he might leave Colorado for Dallas

With Mike McCarthy on the hot seat in Dallas, it’s starting to look like there’s a very real chance that he won’t be returning as their head coach in 2025. McCarthy is in the final year of his contract and with the Cowboys struggling, it will be pretty easy for Jerry Jones to make the decision to move on once the season is over (Jones has already said he won’t fire McCarthy during the season).

If the Cowboys are in the market for a new coach in January, one name that keeps popping up is Deion Sanders. The Pro Football Hall of Famer spent five seasons in Dallas and won a Super Bowl with the Cowboys in 1995.

One of his teammates during that Super Bowl-winning year was Michael Irvin, who got to interview Sanders on Wednesday on FS1. During the interview, Irvin didn’t shy away from the speculation and he mentioned that Sanders might be a good fit as coach of the Cowboys.

So how did Sanders respond?

He shut down the talk immediately.

“Oh Lord, don’t start that,” Sanders said. “I love it where I am. I love it where I am.”

At that point, Deion then took the FS1 crew on a video tour of his office, which is inside Folsom Field and has a view of the mountains.

“Let me take the computer in here, because you’re starting to talk that talk. I love it where I am,” Sanders said.

.@michaelirvin88 asked @DeionSanders about coaching the Cowboys… Watch until the end to see Prime’s response 😂 pic.twitter.com/wonYbtDR4H

— Speak (@SpeakOnFS1) November 13, 2024
This doesn’t necessarily mean he’s not interested, he might not just want to deal with any distractions right now.

Sanders currently has Colorado sitting at 7-2 and if he said he was interested or even hinted at interest in the Cowboys job, that would create a distraction for the rest of the season for both the Cowboys and the Buffaloes.

Deion is still coaching his son, Shedeur, who’s just happens to the quarterback for the Buffaloes. Shedeur will be leaving after the 2024 season, though, and at that point, it wouldn’t be completely crazy if Deion also decides to move on.

As matter of fact, the craziest scenario would be Deion going to the NFL and then landing his son in the draft so that they could reunite in the NFL.

Deion actually did want to coach the Atlanta Falcons at one point, but the team wasn’t interested in hiring him. We made a list this week of former NFL players who would also make solid NFL coaches and Deion was at the top. You can check out our full list here.

21 Nov

‘No bigger and no less than the last 10 games that we’ve had’

The matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Buffalo Bills is not just one of the biggest games in Week 11, but also one of the biggest games of the season. These teams have met three times in the playoffs recently and with both trending towards a playoff run this year as well, the outcome of this game could have significant seeding implications.

While fans are getting excited to watch two of the best quarterbacks in the league duel on Sunday on CBS, Bills’ quarterback Josh Allen is looking at this like any other game.

“It’s a Week 11 game,” Allen said, via the team’s website. “It’s no bigger and no less than the last 10 games that we’ve had. I know the media perception and the fan perception of what this game means. But for us, it’s just a Week 11 for us.”

Allen’s approach is not a surprising one from the offensive leader, who is clearly looking to stay focused for the next task at hand.

The QB is not the only one on the team treating this game as business as usual. Defensive end Greg Rousseau said he isn’t looking at it as a any different, but understands why some people may.

“I feel like they’re a good team so, you’re gonna get a lot of hype from the outside,” Rousseau said. “But at the end of the day, it’s like every single game, like one out of 17, so the same size, but obviously they’re a good team. It’s not a bigger deal than me, but I’m sure a lot of people look at it that way.”

Allen and Co. have the chance to ruin the Chiefs perfect season, as K.C. currently stands at 9-0 and have managed to squeak out wins no matter how close the games got. While the Chiefs seem to have the talent, and a little bit of luck, on their side to be the first team in a 17-game season to go undefeated, the last three times these squads met during the regular season, the Bills came out victorious.

If the regular season ended right now, the Chiefs would be the No. 1 seed and get the bye, while the 8-2 Bills would be the No. 2 seed. If Buffalo wants a chance at getting the one bye in the AFC, a win Sunday would significantly help their chances. Last season, the Baltimore Ravens finished No. 1 in the conference, followed by the Bills and Chiefs at No. 3. Buffalo and Kansas City both finished 11-6 last year.

The Bills and Chiefs will kickoff at 4:25 p.m. ET as the standalone national game on CBS.

THE NFL TODAY will be live from Buffalo on Sunday. Fans can join the crew in Lot 6 at Highmark Stadium starting at Noon ET on Nov. 17.

21 Nov

NFL played no role in scheduling Chiefs-Bills showdown in Buffalo to coincide with Taylor Swift Eras Tour

The biggest game of the NFL season is upon us as the Kansas City Chiefs travel to Buffalo to face the Bills on Sunday afternoon.

Know who else will be around Lake Ontario this week? International superstar and Travis Kelce’s girlfriend Taylor Swift, who’s nearing the end of a nearly two-year Eras Tour.

Just a coincidence? Sources tell CBS Sports actually … yes.

“Completely unintentional,” a league source said earlier this week about the scheduling.

Though nothing has been confirmed in NFL circles yet, the expectation is Swift will attend Highmark Stadium on Sunday for the game, one day after she will have played three consecutive shows in Toronto.

Teams regularly ask the NFL to avoid — or book — certain dates for a variety of reasons. After six straight years of finishing the regular season on the road, the Jets requested and finally received a season-finale home game at MetLife Stadium this year, for example.

The league did work around Swift’s tour in some regards. The NFL did not plan home games for the Saints, Dolphins and Colts when their home stadiums were hosting Swift for the Eras Tour.

The NFL works with Amazon Web Services to devise each season’s schedule. This year there were one quadrillion schedule possibilities for a 272-game season, and the league considered more than 26,000 factors when making the schedule.

But Swift’s tour stop in Toronto was not one of them.

“The teams are honest with us about stadium availability,” Mike North, the NFL’s VP of broadcast planning, told CBS Sports in May ahead of the schedule release. “Some of these teams share their stadiums, whether it’s with Major League Baseball teams, if not stadiums, at least downtown footprint, municipal services, parking lots. We’ve got MLS teams playing in our buildings. Sometimes you’ve got a major golf tournament or a NASCAR race in the market.

“And yeah, every now and then a stadium asks for us to consider having the NFL team on the road a certain weekend because they have an event that they have an opportunity to book in their building, whether it’s the truck and tractor pull or a pop superstar concert or any other reasons. So try to take that all into consideration. Put it in the soup and just keep stirring and hope that where we land, at the end of the day, you know, if not satisfies everybody, disappoints everybody evenly and hopefully only a little.”

For the profile of this game, the NFL could have placed this rivalry matchup just about anywhere on the schedule. And whether the Chiefs were playing in Buffalo this weekend or any other stadium, it’s probable Swift could have gotten wherever Kelce was on the field.

In February for Super Bowl LVIII, Swift made it to Las Vegas in time for the game after playing a show in Tokyo that weekend. Getting her plane from Toronto to any NFL stadium this weekend would have been much easier than that.

After her three shows this week, Swift has open dates on Sunday through Wednesday before returning to the Rogers Centre for three more shows. She finishes the tour, which began in March 2023, in Vancouver in early December.

She has already attended all five Chiefs home games this season. Since her first appearance in a suite on Sept. 24, 2023, which was a 41-10 win at Arrowhead over the Bears, the Chiefs are 18-3 with Swift in attendance. Of course, they’re 23-5 since that date regardless of whether Swift’s in the building.

It’s impossible to know just how great the so-called Taylor Swift Effect has been on the NFL, but no one at the league is denying it. The NFL reportedly saw big ratings boosts in the female 12-17 and 18-49 demographics in her first appearance at a Chiefs game last September.

Her impact on the league from a social media perspective was “honestly unlike anything we’ve seen,” one league executive told CBS Sports last fall.

“Obviously the Kansas City Chiefs are a pretty big brand, seeing the 12-year-old girls wearing number 87 Chiefs jerseys. It’s fun for all of us to see,” North said in May. “And while I don’t have daughters, I do have nieces. And maybe my favorite thing about what’s happening now is, you know, if Taylor Swift is getting those little girls in front of a television screen to watch NFL football, yes, they’re looking to see Taylor, but they’re also starting to see an incredible amount of women in really prominent positions.

“They’re seeing women game officials. They’re seeing women coaches. They’re seeing women announcers. If we can bring more little girls to the television screen and they can see themselves looking back at them, there’s nothing but a positive there. So, yes, the Taylor Swift effect is real, but I can’t say that the Kansas City Chiefs got more national television because their tight end is dating a pop superstar. They got national television because they’ve played their way into those windows.”

THE NFL TODAY will be live from Buffalo on Sunday. Fans can join the crew in Lot 6 at Highmark Stadium starting at noon ET on Nov. 17.