The NFL has a really solid Week 3 lineup with a Rams-Eagles playoff rematch, the Justin Jefferson vs. Ja’Marr Chase battle for WR1 supremacy, and a Monday night showdown between the high-scoring Lions and Ravens that we’ll have NFL picks for below.
In recapping our Week 2 picks, I’m very pleased the Eagles-Chiefs parlay hit (+388) with the Tush Push helping Philly to a one-score victory. We also got Jahmyr Gibbs’ Lions to deliver with our top pick, and even the 3-leg parlay worked out with the Cowboys rallying in overtime and the Saints and Dolphins keeping it close in losses. Unfortunately, the Jets’ offense no-showed against Buffalo, and while it was a great call for D.K. Metcalf to score a touchdown instead of putting up good yardage, the Steelers didn’t get the win.
Each Friday, we will share seven NFL picks for the weekend. These can be prop picks, spreads, totals, alternate lines, moneylines, teasers, same game parlays, etc. We like to think outside the box instead of just telling you to play the moneyline of big favorites. You can play any of the picks as singles or parlay your favorite choices together. I do tweet winners from time to time before island games kick off, by the way.
Note: Picks are ranked in order of confidence (highest to lowest).
Table of Contents
1. Cowboys at Bears: Dak and CeeDee Lamb Got Next
Even though he didn’t deserve it, J.J McCarthy was the NFC Offensive Player of the Week in Week 1 after scoring three touchdowns in the fourth quarter against the Bears. In Week 2, Jared Goff won that award for his five touchdown passes against the Bears, including three touchdowns to Amon-Ra St. Brown.
Are you seeing the pattern here? That’s not to say Dak Prescott is a lock to win NFC Offensive Player of the Week for Week 3, but he’s playing very well, and I think he tears up this secondary as a slight road favorite.
CeeDee Lamb has hit 110 receiving yards in both games this year but is still looking for his first touchdown on the season. I’m going with Lamb to score and put up at least 80 yards.
Scott’s NFL Pick: CeeDee Lamb Anytime Touchdown Scorer & CeeDee Lamb 80+ Receiving Yards (+160 at FanDuel)
2. Chiefs at Giants: 0-3?
Earlier this week, Patrick Mahomes turned 30, and we detailed how he’s already hands down the best quarterback in his twenties in NFL history. But he starts his thirties in a weird position as he’s on his first 3-game losing streak, the Chiefs are 0-2, he’s outrushed the rest of his teammates this year, and he desperately needs a win to avoid an 0-3 hole.
The Chiefs are a 5.5-point road favorite in this one, which feels a little high. Or does it? They probably circled the Giants as an easy win in May, but Russell Wilson threw for 450 yards last week and gave Dallas all it could handle before getting picked in overtime and losing 40-37. That came a week after a dreadful 21-6 loss to Washington, so you never know what to expect with this team.
But my gut says the Chiefs find a way to get a win and it probably won’t be pretty. Wide receiver Xavier Worthy is looking to play just two weeks after a fully torn labrum in Brazil, so that’s an iffy situation with re-injury a high risk.
By my research, the Chiefs will have played eight straight games against playoff teams should the 2025 Chargers and Eagles qualify, and that looks like a good bet that they will after 2-0 starts. Excluding the 1982 strike season, this would be the only time since the 1970 merger that a team played eight straight games against playoff teams.
What I’m getting at is the Chiefs haven’t had an “easy” opponent in a long time. The last time they did, they beat the Browns 21-7 and finally got some takeaways (six to be exact). The Chiefs have just one takeaway in the last six games, one of the worst spans in NFL history for any team.
It may be an ugly game, but I think the Chiefs get a turnover or two and they find a way to get a win here. But I’m also taking the under 44.5 points.
Scott’s NFL Pick: Under 44.5 Points & Chiefs ML (+163 at FanDuel)
3. Rams at Eagles: Playoff Rematch for Your NFL Picks
The Rams were 13 yards away from ending the Eagles’ dream season in the divisional round in January’s snow. That’s when Jalen Carter stepped in and sacked Matthew Stafford to bring up a fourth-and-long, which the Rams couldn’t convert.
That’s what makes this a highly anticipated rematch with the Rams reloading with Davante Adams, who scored last week, and they have that front seven who registered 7 sacks against Jalen Hurts last year.
Look, I have no idea what Hurts is doing this year. He’s not throwing the ball down the field at all. Maybe he’s saving it for this game, a big one for the NFC, but I have my doubts.
That’s why I’m going with what we can rely on for these teams in a 2-leg parlay:
- Saquon Barkley to score a touchdown after he lit up the Rams on long runs in both games last year.
- Matthew Stafford to go over 228.5 passing yards after throwing for 298 and 245 in the games this year and he had 243 and 324 yards in the two games against the 2024 Eagles.
Just keeping it simple as I don’t know what the passing offense is doing for Philly.
Scott’s NFL Pick: Same Game Parlay – Saquon Barkley Anytime Touchdown Scorer & Matthew Stafford Over 228.5 Passing Yards (+200 at FanDuel)
4. Packers at Browns: The Best Defenses?
As it turns out, having an elite edge rusher is a big deal in the NFL. Micah Parsons has helped the Packers shut down the Lions and Commanders in a 2-0 start. Myles Garrett is playing great for a Cleveland defense that shut down Joe Burrow and Derrick Henry but got screwed on field position by the offense and special teams against Baltimore last week.
But the Browns have allowed 46 and 45 rushing yards in the games this year. That 45 against Baltimore is the first time anyone’s held a team with Lamar Jackson under 60 yards, so that’s very impressive to me.
I’m going to lean in on it this week too. Let’s go with Josh Jacobs to finish under 78.5 rushing yards but Green Bay still wins the game because of Parsons making life hard on Joe Flacco. That’s some way to get negative correlation and boost your odds.
Jacobs is good but he only had 66 yards against Detroit in Week 1, so he’s not a lock to go over. The Packers also could be without Tucker Kraft (late injury in practice) and Jayden Reed broke his collarbone, so they don’t have the greatest set of weapons healthy. More reason to key in against the run.
Scott’s NFL Pick: Same Game Parlay – Josh Jacobs Under 78.5 Rushing Yards & Packers ML (+157 at FanDuel)
5. Running Backs Finding the End Zone on Runs
What do Jonathan Taylor (Colts), Travis Etienne (Jaguars), and Bijan Robinson (Falcons) all have in common? They have the three highest totals in rushing yards without scoring a rushing touchdown this season. They all have scored on a reception, but we’re going to parlay them together to score a touchdown with the thought it’ll be a rushing one. But hey, we’ll take receiving too. Still counts.
They have favorable matchups this week too.
Jonathan Taylor vs. Titans: He had 218 yards and 3 touchdowns in the last meeting with this team in 2024. The Colts can’t keep getting every short touchdown run on a Daniel Jones sneak can they? Taylor can also break one from outside the red zone.
Travis Etienne vs. Texans: He’s averaging 7.1 yards per carry and the team no longer has Tank Bigsby (traded to Eagles) to steal from him. The Texans struggled to slow down the Bucs’ running game even with a banged up offensive line. I think Etienne scores here.
Bijan Robinson vs. Panthers: Carolina is a poor defense and Robinson is a yardage machine. The Falcons struggled to finish in the end zone in Minnesota, but this is a much easier draw here.
I also want to bet on “Bill” from the Commanders (Jacory Croskey-Merritt) to score a touchdown against the Raiders to show that a seventh-round pick can give you production at this position that Raiders used the No. 6 pick on Ashton Jeanty for. But the lines for that game currently aren’t available because of Jayden Daniels’ questionable injury status. But with Austin Ekeler (Achilles) done for the year, Bill has a good path to RB1 value in this offense.
Consider him too before Sunday.
Scott’s NFL Pick: Anytime Touchdown Scorer Parlay – Jonathan Taylor vs. Titans, Travis Etienne vs. Bengals, Bijan Robinson vs. Panthers (+349 at FanDuel)
6. Bengals vs. Vikings: The WR1 Showdown
Don’t be too upset that we’re going to see Carson Wentz and Jake Browning at quarterback instead of J.J. McCarthy and Joe Burrow in this one. I think that’s the perfect storyline for this battle between Ja’Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson in their attempt to take the title of best wide receiver in the NFL. Who can lift their backup quarterback to a win?
Browning and Chase have an edge with experience as they had a big game together last week and played several games together in 2023. Oddly enough, Browning had comeback wins in 2023 and 2025 against the Jaguars. He also had one in 2023 against Minnesota, and now here he is again facing Brian Flores’ defense. In that game, Chase had 4 catches for 64 yards while Jefferson had 7 catches for 84 yards from Nick Mullens at quarterback. Another backup bowl as Kirk Cousins was injured for Minnesota. Weird déjà vu.
Since that game, Jefferson and Chase have reset the wide receiver contract market at over $40M per year for the top guy. They’re friends and they’re competitive with each other from their LSU days. They’ll try to top one another all afternoon.
While Carson Wentz is making his first start in this offense, it could be an improvement over J.J. McCarthy as he just looked overwhelmed and outmatched in these two games. Wentz could just throw it up and pray Jefferson comes down with it, which he can.
There are many ways to play this one as you can take the over for both in receiving yards with Chase (69.5) just behind Jefferson (72.5) as you can’t forget about Tee Higgins. You could go with both to go over 5.5 receptions as they eat up targets. You could get extra risky and pick both to score a touchdown (+467 at FanDuel).
You know what? Let’s go for it. Let’s go with both receivers to go over 5.5 receptions and score a touchdown. It should be exciting to watch unfold. With my luck, it’ll be Tee Higgins who goes off for 10-120-1.
Scott’s NFL Pick: Same Game Parlay – Justin Jefferson 6+ Receptions & Justin Jefferson Anytime Touchdown Scorer & Ja’Marr Chase 6+ Receptions & Ja’Marr Chase Anytime Touchdown Scorer (+948 at FanDuel)
7. Lions at Ravens: Monday Night Parlay
Finally, we have a 8-leg parlay for what looks like a shootout brewing on Monday night between the Lions and Ravens. Of course, it could be a dud like two years ago when Baltimore destroyed the Lions in a 38-6 game. I hit a +3469 parlay on that game, which felt like a miracle given Detroit’s lack of scoring.
Actually, that looks pretty good for Monday night except for the Mark Andrews leg as the tight end has 2 catches for 7 yards in two games this season. Should we run back a lot of this for Monday? I think we should with a few modifications:
- Over 50.5 Points: 51 is a key number in the NFL (think 27-24, 31-20 games), so if we want to go with the over, we’d like to get under that number with the alternate line of 50.5 points instead of 52.5.
- Jahmyr Gibbs Anytime Touchdown Scorer: He scored his first NFL touchdown in that 38-6 game and his first of 2025 last week, and we like him to score again here.
- Derrick Henry Anytime Touchdown Scorer: King Henry did not score last week but good luck keeping him out twice in a row.
- Jared Goff Over 259.5 Passing Yards: We saw Josh Allen approach 400 yards in Week 1, so this defense can be thrown on and Goff will need to deliver.
- Sam LaPorta Over 44.5 Receiving Yards: Could be a good matchup for him.
- Amon-Ra St. Brown Over 72.5 Receiving Yards: Usually shows up big in big games.
- Zay Flowers Over 68.5 Receiving Yards: Looks great this year as the WR1.
- Jahmyr Gibbs 50+ Rushing Yards: Maybe not the ideal pick as he’s had 94 and 19 in two games this year, but we’re sticking to the 2023 script, and 50 is good enough for an average of his last two weeks.
Should be a fun one to close the week.
Scott’s NFL Pick: Same Game Parlay – 8 Picks (+2800 at BetMGM)
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