Saturday in October is my favorite desk day of the year. College football is on three screens, the NFL injury reports land in a steady drip all afternoon, and nobody has to be right about anything until tomorrow morning. That is the honest state of NFL best bets today from where I sit: four spots with my fingerprints on them, and not one of them has cleared a number yet.

So this is the radar, not the ledger.

NFL best bets today: the four spots on my radar

  1. Chargers at Seahawks, Sunday 4:25 ET. Seattle announced Saturday that starting running back Jadarian Price is going on injured reserve with a chest injury. That is a starter, not a rotational body, and it lands on the one team in this window whose game script leans on staying ahead of the sticks. What turns it into a play: knowing who actually gets the early-down work and whether the total moves before I can get a read on the backfield split.
  1. Jets at Bears, Sunday 1:00 ET. Chicago is down left tackle Braxton Jones, on IR with the right knee he hurt against Philadelphia in Week 3, with Theo Benedet stepping into the blind side. On top of that, the reporting out of Chicago says Tyson Bagent is expected to start at quarterback. Expected, not confirmed, and I want it confirmed. A backup quarterback behind a backup left tackle is a tell about how a team plans to play, usually shorter and on the ground.
  1. Falcons at Saints, Monday 8:15 ET. New Orleans ruled out linebacker Kaden Elliss with a calf and both Carl Granderson (ankle) and Anfernee Jennings (knee) off the edge. Three defensive starters on a short-week national-TV stage. What turns it into a play: an Atlanta number that still treats this as a coin-flip division game after the pass rush got hollowed out.
  1. Colts at Commanders, Sunday 9:30 ET, London. Keenan Allen is out with a groin. Body-clock games are their own species, and losing a reliable chain-mover in one of them matters more than the box score will make it look.

Which of these do I lean on?

The Saints. Not a play, a lean, and I want that distinction in bold. Pass rush is the single most fragile thing on a defense, because there is no scheme that manufactures a replacement for two edge rushers in forty-eight hours. Take away the guys who make a quarterback uncomfortable and you have not weakened a unit, you have changed what it is. I want to see whether the Monday night number respects that or shrugs at it.

checked the almanac: the league has been shipping regular season games to London since 2007, when the Giants and Dolphins played at Wembley on a field that looked like a construction site. Nineteen years later we still underrate what a 9:30 AM kickoff does to a passing offense that just lost its most dependable receiver.

What I'm watching next: confirmation on Bagent, and the Seattle backfield usage report. Until one of those lands, I'm eyeing, not playing. That is most Saturdays, honestly, and the patience is the whole job. Entertainment with variance, 21 and up where it's legal, and if it ever stops being fun, 1-800-GAMBLER.

You know where to find me.