NFL Weekly Update: Week 8

Last Updated on October 27, 2026 3:43 pm by Erwin Noguera

Kansas City scored three points on Sunday. They are road favourites this NFL week.

Minnesota are 6-0 and travel to Detroit as 3-point underdogs. The league’s best defence (12.33 points conceded a game, nearly five clear of second) goes to the league’s second-best offence, and the model and the market disagree about it by more than five points.

We analyse the games of the league’s best four sides each week. San Francisco are on a bye alongside Houston, New Orleans and the Giants, which leaves Minnesota, Kansas City, Buffalo and Chicago, and in three of those four games ESPN’s projection takes the side the market does not.

The totals have moved hard, and almost all in one direction. Philadelphia-Washington has fallen from 46.5 to 40.5, a six-point drop and the biggest move of the week. Los Angeles-Los Angeles is down four, Tennessee-Cincinnati and Indianapolis-Jacksonville are down three apiece. Against that, the Jets have climbed four, and Baltimore-Buffalo has risen two to 53.5, the second-highest number on the board.Cleveland-Pittsburgh has not moved off 39.5, the lowest total of the week.

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NFL Week 8 Games

NFL Week 8: Vikings vs. Lions

This is the cleanest strength-versus-strength matchup of the week, and the numbers are almost comically opposed.Minnesota concedes 12.33 points a game, the best figure in the league by nearly five points; Kansas City are next at 17.17. They also rank twenty-third in scoring at 20.83. Detroit is the inverse: second in the league in scoring at 30.67 a game, and twenty-sixth in points allowed at 27.50. Jared Goff threw for 303 yards and two touchdowns against Green Bay, Amon-Ra St. Brown caught nine for 153, and Jahmyr Gibbs carried 29 times for 116.

The model wants Minnesota, and it wants it clearly.Stripping the vig, the market makes Detroit a 60.4% proposition; FPI has them at 55.2%, a 5.2-point disagreement, the largest of the four games here. The case for the Vikings is that their six wins have come by 17, 6, 7, 5, 10 and 6, which is not a profile that scares anybody, and yet 74 points conceded in six games is not luck. The case against is that Minnesota has not faced an offence like this one, and that a side scoring 20.83 a game needs its defence to be perfect at Ford Field.

Two early-week items are worth tracking, and neither is on an official report yet: Minnesota’s Aaron Jones has been described as day-to-day with a left knee issue, and Detroit’s Amon-Ra St. Brown with an ankle tweak. Wednesday’s practice reports settle both. The total has eased a point to 46.5, which reads as the market splitting the difference between these two profiles rather than backing either.

Prediction: Vikings 20-17 Lions

NFL Week 8: Chiefs vs. Broncos

Kansas City were held to three points in Seattle and remain road favourites at altitude. That is the market telling you it reads the game rather than the scoreline. Patrick Mahomes went 19 of 33 for 165 yards (5.0 a throw), and Kenneth Walker III managed 36 yards on fourteen carries. The defence is the reason the number barely moved: Kansas City concede 17.17 a game, second-fewest in the league, and held the Chargers to six two weeks ago.

Denver are 5-2 with a plus-three point differential, and those two facts do not normally sit together.They score 20.57 a game, twenty-fourth in the league, and concede 20.14, seventh-fewest. They beat Arizona 30-16 with Bo Nix running seven times for 73 yards and a touchdown, and they beat Seattle 17-14 in Week 6. Kansas City won the Week 1 meeting 31-10 at Arrowhead.

FPI takes Kansas City at 55.7% against a no-vig market price of 52.6%, a 3.1-point lean to the Chiefs. The more interesting number is the total: 43.5 down to 41.5, the third-lowest on the board behind Cleveland-Pittsburgh and Philadelphia-Washington. Two of the league’s seven best defences, a Chiefs offence that just produced 213 yards, and a Broncos offence ranked twenty-fourth. The under is the cleaner read than either side.

Prediction: Chiefs 20-17 Broncos

NFL Week 8: Ravens vs. Bills

Buffalo leads the league in scoring at 32.83 points a game and ranks thirtieth in points allowed at 28.50. That is the whole explanation for a 53.5 total. They are 5-1, rested after a Week 7 bye, and their previous two games finished 37-34 at the Rams and 33-30 at the Raiders: both won by three, with 71 and 63 combined points.

Baltimore are 4-3 at plus two and have not scored a second-half point in two games. Against Cleveland, they scored all ten of their points in the first quarter. Against Cincinnati, they led 13-0 at the break and lost 35-13. Tyler Huntley’s passing improved to 23 of 34 for 298 yards in his third start and the margin got eleven points worse, while Derrick Henry ran seventeen times for 45 yards, 2.65 per carry.

The whole bet is Lamar Jackson. He suffered a high ankle sprain in Week 4 against Tennessee and has missed three games, with Huntley 1-2 as the starter. Head coach Jesse Minter said Jackson would be in a “decent spot” to play and that the club would know more on Wednesday; separate reporting says he is likely to return. The two accounts do not fully agree, and Wednesday’s practice report is the checkpoint.This is the one game on the board where the market and the model essentially agree (Buffalo 63.1% no-vig against FPI’s 61.4%, a gap of 1.7 points), which means there is no edge in the analysis and all of it is in the news. If Jackson plays, +160 against a defence conceding 28.50 a game is a live price. If Huntley starts a fourth time, 3.5 is far too few.

Prediction: Bills 30-23 Ravens

NFL Week 8: Bears vs. Seahawks

Seattle have just held the league’s last unbeaten team to three points, and they are the worse team on paper by record and the better one by margin. They are 4-3 with a plus-43 differential; Chicago are 5-2 at plus thirty-seven. Seattle outgained Kansas City 410 to 213 converted eleven of sixteen third downs (which NFL Research records as their most in a game since play-by-play tracking began in 1991) and, per ESPN, have now gone 36 straight games without allowing a 100-yard rusher. They concede 17.86 a game, fourth-best in the league.

Chicago are the eighth-highest scoring team in football at 25.71 a game, and they needed all of it against New England, winning 30-24 with Caleb Williams going 22 of 33 for 308 yards and Luther Burden III catching four passes for 130. Their defence sits tenth at 20.43 allowed. The caveat we flagged three weeks ago still applies: a 59-point game against Carolina in Week 1 is doing real work in that plus-37.

FPI likes Chicago more than the market does, by the largest margin of these four games.No-vig, Seattle are a 60.0% proposition; the model has them at 54.7%, a 5.3-point gap. Against that, Lumen Field is the most tangible home advantage in the conference; Seattle has shown what its defence can do to a good offence, and the total has eased a point to 46.5.

We are not going to pretend the model settles this one. Seattle’s defensive performance on Sunday was the best single showing by any team this season, and the argument for Chicago is a 5.3-point modelling gap built partly on a Week 1 blowout. We take the home side and the under.

Prediction: Seahawks 23-20 Bears

The Rest of the Slate in One Line

Panthers at Packers (Thursday): Green Bay -3.5 with the total up three to 48.5; two sides being outscored on the season, at minus one and minus seven.

Titans at Bengals: Cincinnati out to -10.5 with the total down three; Tennessee average 15.4 points and the market has priced the game accordingly.

Cardinals at Cowboys: the highest total of the week at 54.5, up five from 49.5; Arizona has the worst differential in football at minus sixty-six.

Raiders at Jets: the closest line on the board at -1.5, with the total up four to 45.5; both teams lost last week, and neither has a positive margin.

Browns at Steelers: 39.5, the lowest total of the week and unmoved since it opened; Pittsburgh host a division rival six days after playing in Paris.

Falcons at Buccaneers: Tampa Bay -2.5 after putting 43 on Carolina with 64 passing yards; they are 2-5 with a plus-eleven differential.

Colts at Jaguars: Jacksonville out two points to -9.5 with the total down three; the Jaguars have the best differential in the AFC at plus fifty.

Chargers at Rams: Los Angeles -6.5 with the total down four; the Chargers are 0-6.

Patriots at Dolphins: New England -7.5, the largest spread laid by a road team this week; Miami are 1-5 at minus fifty-nine.

Eagles at Commanders: the biggest move of the week, 46.5 down to 40.5; Philadelphia have lost five straight, and Washington has won once.

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