{"id":49700,"date":"2026-11-03T19:50:42","date_gmt":"2026-11-04T01:50:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gambyl.com\/?p=49700"},"modified":"2026-11-03T19:50:44","modified_gmt":"2026-11-04T01:50:44","slug":"nfl-week-8-winners-losers-and-overreactions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gambyl.com\/en\/nfl\/nfl-week-8-winners-losers-and-overreactions\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Week 8: Winners, Losers and Overreactions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tampa Bay won a NFL game 16-0 without completing a pass. Baker Mayfield went 0 for 3 and handed off 52 times.<\/strong>

Baltimore lost Lamar Jackson to a thumb injury on his first snap of the game, lost Tyler Huntley to a toe injury in the second quarter and finished with an emergency third quarterback who had been listed inactive.<\/strong> They lost 36-10. Head coach Jesse Minter has since said Jackson needs surgery and is going on injured reserve.<\/strong>

Cincinnati and Tennessee combined for 79 points on a total of 46.5. Joe Burrow threw for 462 yards. Tennessee, who averaged 18 a game, scored 36 and lost in overtime.<\/strong>

And Jacksonville beat Indianapolis 42-7 to get the best point differential in the National Football League at plus eighty-five.<\/strong>

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Winners<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jacksonville Jaguars.42-7, and a plus-eighty-five-point differential that is now the best in football by twenty-seven.Trevor Lawrence went 10 of 14 for 210 yards (fifteen yards per attempt<\/strong>), and Bhayshul Tuten ran sixteen times for 104.

The defensive number is the one that makes them real.Jacksonville concedes 15.86 points a game, second fewest in the league behind Minnesota’s 13.29.<\/strong> They scored 28.0. At 5-2, they have the best margin in the NFL and the second-best defense, and they played a bye in Week 7.<\/strong>

Tampa Bay Buccaneers.Sixteen to nothing, with zero passing yards. Mayfield, in his second game back from a fractured thumb, went 0 for 3 and was sacked once; depending on whether you count the sack, Tampa Bay finished the afternoon on zero or minus two passing yards.<\/strong> He handed the ball off 52 times in driving rain.

Bucky Irving carried 27 times for 170 yards and a touchdown, 6.3 yards per carry<\/strong>, with Kenny Gainwell alongside him. Yahoo Sports records it as only the second game in the Super Bowl era won without a passing yard.Tampa Bay is 3-5 with a plus-twenty-seven differential.<\/strong>

Pittsburgh Steelers.27-6, and the cleanest result of the weekend.Jaylen Warren ran seventeen times for 143 yards (8.4 yards per carry), and Aaron Rodgers threw only 25 times.Pittsburgh are 6-2 at plus thirty-six and concedes 18.0 in a game, third best in the league.<\/strong>

Cincinnati Bengals.43-36 in overtime, and Joe Burrow went 38 of 48 for 462 yards<\/strong>: 9.62 a throw at 79.2% completion. Tee Higgins caught ten passes for 155 yards.<\/strong> Cincinnati scored nothing in the first quarter and 43 afterwards. They are 5-2 at plus forty-eight.<\/strong>

Denver Broncos.28-24 over Kansas City, with fifteen points in the fourth quarter against the Chiefs side that scored none.Denver is 6-2<\/strong>, tied for the best record in the AFC.

Arizona Cardinals.33-30 in overtime in Dallas, as seven-point underdogs, with Gardner Minshew II at quarterback going 17 of 23.Tyler Allgeier carried 147 yards eleven times: 13.4 yards per carry.<\/strong> Arizona has the second-worst differential in the league and won in Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Losers<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Baltimore Ravens.This is the worst week any team has had this season, and it is not close.<\/strong>

Jackson hurt his thumb on his first snap and did not come back. Huntley hurt his toe in the second quarter.Joe Fagnano, who had been declared inactive and was eligible only as the emergency third quarterback (a designation that permits him to play solely if both men above him are knocked out by injury, illness, or ejection), finished the game.He went 10 of 21 for 91 yards, 4.33 yards per attempt.<\/strong>

Rashod Bateman was Baltimore’s leading receiver with one catch for 22 yards.<\/strong> Derrick Henry ran eleven times for 53. Josh Allen threw for 289 and Buffalo won 36-10.

Minter has confirmed Jackson needs thumb surgery and will go on injured reserve.Fagnano himself is dealing with an ankle injury; Baltimore has added Austin Reed to the practice squad, and they play Jacksonville on Thursday.<\/strong>

Baltimore are 4-4, and their point differential has gone from plus two to minus twenty-four in a single week.<\/strong>

Atlanta Falcons.Shut out by a team that did not complete a pass.Michael Penix Jr. went 8 of 24 for 125 yards.<\/strong> Bijan Robinson ran nineteen times for 76. Atlanta are 3-5 at minus eighteen.<\/strong>

Cleveland Browns.Six points, and Deshaun Watson threw for 324 yards.<\/strong> Harold Fannin Jr. caught ten passes for 154. They produced 324 passing yards and six points, which takes some doing.<\/strong>

Cleveland are 5-3 with a minus-thirty-four differential (the worst margin of any team in the league at .500 or better, by ten points) and they score 17.38 a game, fourth fewest in the NFL behind only the Chargers, Miami, and Philadelphia, all three of whom have won a combined three games.<\/strong>

Philadelphia Eagles.27-10 in Washington, ten points in the first quarter and nothing for the remaining three.A sixth consecutive defeat, 2-6, and a minus-sixty-five differential that is second worst in football.<\/strong> Tanner McKee went 23 of 34 for 212.

Indianapolis Colts.42-7. Daniel Jones went 19 of 28 for 144 yards.They are 2-6 at minus sixty-one,<\/strong> having traded Quenton Nelson and DeForest Buckner a week earlier.

Dallas Cowboys.<\/strong> Lost at home to the team with the second-worst differential in the league, in overtime, with Javonte Williams carrying 24 times for 56 yards, 2.33 a carry, a week after he ran for 155.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overreactions<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

“Denver are the best team in the AFC.”They are 6-2, and they have a point differential of plus seven.<\/strong>

Every other six-win team in the league is at plus thirty-six or better<\/strong>: San Francisco plus fifty-eight, Chicago plus fifty-four, Buffalo plus fifty-two, Minnesota plus forty-seven, Pittsburgh plus thirty-six. Denver is twenty-nine points behind the next-closest.<\/strong> They scored 21.50 and conceded 20.63. Beating Kansas City with a fourth-quarter comeback is a real win. It is not evidence of a gap that the margins do not show.<\/strong>

“Cleveland are a playoff team.”We have run this entry for five consecutive weeks, and the numbers keep getting worse while the record keeps holding.<\/strong>

Cleveland is 5-3 at minus thirty-four.Three weeks ago, we noted they had the best record of any team being outscored, at minus thirteen. The margin has since dropped another 21 points, and they have still won five.17.38 points a game is the fourth-lowest figure in the league, and the three teams below them have three wins between them.<\/strong>

We have been wrong about the result every week and right about the process every week, and at some point, that stops being a defense.<\/strong> What we will say is that no team finishes a season 11-6 while being outscored by thirty-four through eight games<\/strong>, and that if they do, we will write that down too.

“Tennessee are fixed.”They scored 36 points in Cincinnati, which is double their season average of 18.0, and Cam Ward threw for 304 with Tony Pollard running for 117.<\/strong>

They are 1-7 at minus fifty-five.The 36 points came in a defeat<\/strong>, and the week before Pollard ran for 129 with three touchdowns in another defeat. Two excellent offensive performances in three weeks, both losses, from a team that has conceded 199 points.<\/strong>

“Tampa Bay ais a joke at 3-5.”Tampa Bay has a plus-twenty-seven-point differential, the ninth best in the league, and just won a game without throwing for a yard.All five of their defeats came by seven points or fewer before this weekend.They are the most misleading record in football for the second week running, and the gap is widening, not closing.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where We Were Wrong<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One from four, and the fourth one is the one that matters.<\/strong>

We predicted Seahawks 23-20 over Chicago. Chicago won 34-17 in Seattle.We wrote, in print, that the model preferred Chicago by 5.3 points, that it was the largest model-market gap of the four games, and then said: “We are not going to pretend the model settles this one.”We took Seattle anyway.<\/strong>

That is the third time this season we have published a caveat and bet against it<\/strong>, after the Kansas City spread in Week 4 and Seattle again in Week 7. We have now named this error twice and committed it three times, which means naming it is not working.The rule here is simple, and we are writing it as a rule: when the model and the market disagree by more than four points, we take the model, or we pass. We do not take the other side and explain why we are brave.<\/strong>

We predicted Chiefs 20-17 over Denver. Denver won 28-24.Worse, we called the under 40.5, “the cleaner read than either side.” The game went 52, eleven and a half points over.<\/strong>

We predicted Vikings 20-17 over Detroit. Detroit won 19-15.<\/strong> The total was right to within a point; the winner was not.

We predicted Bills 30-23 over Baltimore. Buffalo won 36-10.<\/strong> Right side, and they covered the 3.

And the Baltimore recommendation needs owning squarely.In Thursday’s injury piece we wrote that Baltimore at +142 was the play if Jackson was cleared on Friday.He was cleared. He played one snap.Anybody who followed that lost, and the lesson is not that the reasoning was wrong; it is that a questionable tag on a quarterback returning from a four-week absence carries a risk we priced at zero.<\/strong>

What we got right.In the same piece, we wrote that the Cleveland injury report pointed at Pittsburgh covering rather than the 39.5 under, explicitly against our own Tuesday read.Pittsburgh won 27-6: they covered -3.5 by seventeen and a half, and the under landed at 33.We also had Cincinnati as the side against Tennessee, which was right, while calling the under the cleaner expression of it, which was wrong by thirty-two and a half points.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The One Number That Actually Matters<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Plus eighty-five.<\/strong>

Jacksonville’s point differential is now the best in the National Football League, twenty-seven clear of San Francisco.<\/strong> They have the second-best defence in the league at 15.86 points allowed, the fifth-best offence at 28.0 points scored, and a 5-2 record built with a bye in Week 7.

The reason this is the number rather than Denver’s 6-2 or Cleveland’s 5-3 is that differential has told the truth about this season from Week 4 onwards.Jacksonville were at plus fifty before this weekend, and we called it the best margin in the AFC. It is now the best margin anywhere, and the record has caught up.<\/strong>

And the two counter-examples are getting more extreme, not less.Cleveland at 5-3 and minus thirty-four. Tampa Bay at 3-5 and plus twenty-seven.Sixty-one points of margin separate them, and Cleveland has two more wins.<\/strong>

One of those two is going to look very different by December.The arithmetic says it is Cleveland, and the arithmetic has been saying so since the first week of October while being wrong about the result every single time.<\/strong>

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Tampa Bay won a NFL game 16-0 without completing a pass. Baker Mayfield went 0 for 3 and handed off 52 times. Baltimore lost Lamar Jackson to a thumb injury on his first snap of the game, lost Tyler Huntley to a toe injury in the second quarter and finished with an emergency third quarterback […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":46738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","page_builder":"","footnotes":"","_wpscp_schedule_draft_date":"","_wpscp_schedule_republish_date":"","_wpscppro_advance_schedule":false,"_wpscppro_advance_schedule_date":"","_wpscppro_dont_share_socialmedia":false,"_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_google_business_share_type":"","_bluesky_share_type":"","_mastodon_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[],"_wpsp_enable_custom_social_template":false,"_wpsp_social_scheduling":{"enabled":false,"datetime":null,"platforms":[],"status":"template_only","dateOption":"","timeOption":"","customDays":"","customHours":"","customDate":"","customTime":"","schedulingType":""},"_wpsp_active_default_template":true},"categories":[89],"tags":[564],"class_list":["post-49700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl","tag-american-football"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t