Week 9 was good for H-Bomb fans after three straight weeks of losing records: 1-2, 1-2 and 3-4. In Week 9, three of the five underdogs covered spreads of at least 6.5 points and there was an outright win as the Carolina Panthers defeated the New Orleans Saints.
The aforementioned 3-4 record was from Week 8 and although only three underdogs were covered, two had direct hits: Cleveland over Baltimore and New England over the NY Jets.
There were three games with double-digit spreads this week. This week's seven games have none. In fact, the highest spread is 7.5 and there are three of them.
My choice of Tampa Bay as cover against the Chiefs allowed me to match Jess Root with a 6-3 record as he had Denver as cover against Baltimore. Jess owns the tiebreaker with three straight hits to mine.
The three wins bring the overall record for the season to 25-12 (67.6 percent) for underdogs with 14 total wins.
Here are this week's eligible games:
- NY Giants -6.5 vs. Carolina in Germany
- Kansas City -7.5 vs. Denver
- Chicago -6.5 vs. New England
- LA Chargers -7.5 vs. Tennessee
- Philadelphia -7.5 at Dallas
- San Francisco -6.5 at Tampa Bay
- Minnesota -7 at Jacksonville
Jess is going back with the Broncos. Before last week, Denver was 3-0 in H-Bomb games with two straight goals. I was tempted to take the Buccaneers, but it's a tough game not knowing how 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey will play after returning from injured reserve this week. So I'm taking a long walk to Munich and picking the Panthers to cover for the second week in a row. Until last week's win, Carolina was 0-2 in H-Bomb games, so I'm saying they've even evened their record at 2-2.
STANDS AFTER NINE WEEKS
Jess: 6-3 (3 direct hits)
Howard: 6-3 (1 direct hit)
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