NFL Picks Week 4: Final-Score Predictions, Vegas Odds and Updated Lines

While the 2015 NFL season may still be young, Week 4 will be particularly important for those teams that have endured slow starts.

The Seattle Seahawks, Philadelphia Eagles, Miami Dolphins, Kansas City Chiefs, Indianapolis Colts and San Diego Chargers have each won one game so far and will want to avoid a 1-3 start.

The Baltimore Ravens, New Orleans Saints and Detroit Lions, meanwhile, are all winless. Starting the year 0-4 would be nearly fatal to their playoff aspirations, even with the AFC North, NFC South and NFC North wild cards largely up for grabs.

With so many teams having something to play for this weekend, it should be an entertaining slate of games.

Week 4 Schedule

Time (ET)	Away	Home	Spread	Prediction
Thurs., Oct. 1
8:25 p.m.	Baltimore Ravens	Pittsburgh Steelers	BAL (-2)	BAL, 23-20
Sun., Oct. 4
9:30 a.m.	New York Jets	Miami Dolphins	Even	NYJ, 22-18
1 p.m.	Jacksonville Jaguars	Indianapolis Colts	IND (-8.5)	IND, 35-17
1 p.m.	New York Giants	Buffalo Bills	BUF (-5.5)	BUF, 27-19
1 p.m.	Carolina Panthers	Tampa Bay Buccaneers	CAR (-3)	CAR, 24-20
1 p.m.	Philadelphia Eagles	Washington Redskins	PHI (-3)	WAS, 20-17
1 p.m.	Oakland Raiders	Chicago Bears	OAK (-1)	OAK, 30-24
1 p.m.	Houston Texans	Atlanta Falcons	ATL (-5)	ATL, 31-18
1 p.m.	Kansas City Chiefs	Cincinnati Bengals	CIN (-3)	KC, 26-17
4:05 p.m.	Cleveland Browns	San Diego Chargers	SD (-7)	SD, 28-10
4:25 p.m.	Green Bay Packers	San Francisco 49ers	GB (-9.5)	GB, 34-24
4:25 p.m.	St. Louis Rams	Arizona Cardinals	ARI (-6)	STL, 21-20
4:25 p.m.	Minnesota Vikings	Denver Broncos	DEN (-4.5)	DEN, 24-20
8:30 p.m.	Dallas Cowboys	New Orleans Saints	NO (-7)	DAL, 21-19
Mon., Oct. 5
8:30 p.m.	Detroit Lions	Seattle Seahawks	SEA (-9.5)	SEA, 24-10

Most Intriguing Matchups

Baltimore Ravens at Pittsburgh Steelers

Tom Gannam/Associated Press

The timing of Ben Roethlisberger's knee injury couldn't be much worse for the Pittsburgh Steelers. They have a difficult stretch of games ahead, and that run begins on a short week against a division rival.

Starting Michael Vick at quarterback in normal circumstances would be enough of a concern for Pittsburgh. His completion percentage hasn't eclipsed 60 percent since 2010—not counting last week—and he has 38 touchdowns to 29 interceptions between 2011 and 2014.

ESPN analyst Cris Carter offered the hottest of takes when discussing Vick's value (via NFL on ESPN):

NFL.com's Dave Dameshek managed to paint the situation as somewhat of a positive for Pittsburgh in order to build some level of optimism:

The problem for the Steelers is that the Ravens will likely focus more on stopping Le'Veon Bell since they can ignore the passing game a bit more. According to Pro Football Focus, the Ravens own the fourth-best run defense in the league.

If Baltimore is limiting Bell on the ground, do you really like Vick's chances of delivering a win?

Kansas City Chiefs at Cincinnati Bengals

Patrick Semansky/Associated Press

Whenever Andy Dalton strings a few good performances together, it must be a source of both optimism and trepidation simultaneously for Cincinnati Bengals fans.

On one hand, the team will go as far as Dalton can take it, so when he's playing well, the Bengals are a strong contender in the AFC. On the other hand, history has proved any progress Dalton makes on the field will be balanced out by one or two bad games that make you tear your hair out.

Call me a killjoy, but I'm not sure he can continue his impressive pace through the first three weeks, per ESPN Stats & Info:

The Kansas City Chiefs will want to have a strong response after the Green Bay Packers outclassed them Monday. The Chiefs might have lost by just 10 points, but much of their offensive success came in garbage time when the outcome was all but a foregone conclusion.

As Bleacher Report's Matt Miller noted Monday night, the Chiefs will also have Sean Smith this week, which will be a massive boost to a struggling secondary:

Maybe Dalton truly has turned a corner and will fully repay all the faith Bengals management has shown in him over the years.

I'm not prepared to take that leap.

Detroit Lions at Seattle Seahawks

Rick Osentoski/Associated Press

Speaking of historically erratic quarterbacks, writer Mike Tunison perfectly encapsulated the essence of Matthew Stafford:

Stafford has posted better numbers than Dalton, but leave aside his great 2011 season and he has 95 touchdowns to 74 interceptions and a 58.8 percent completion percentage in the other six-plus years.

The skepticism about Stafford seems to be getting louder after his sluggish start to 2015. The Detroit Lions are 0-3, and he has turned the ball over five times.

The 27-year-old has a great chance to silence his critics against the Seattle Seahawks on Monday night, but he'll likely only make things worse.

Through three games, Stafford is completing just 40.8 percent of his passes under pressure (25th) and has a 50 percent accuracy rate (27th) when facing the pass rush, per Pro Football Focus.

Although the Seahawks have just six sacks as a team, they rank seventh in sack percentage (7.2 percent), according to Pro-Football-Reference.com. So long as Seattle is consistently collapsing the pocket, it could be a long night for Stafford.

Dallas Cowboys at New Orleans Saints

Brandon Wade/Associated Press

This game should be a lot of fun if only to see which team is worse off at quarterback with its regular starter out injured—the resistible force meeting the movable object, if you will.

Brandon Weeden may have missed just four out of his 26 pass attempts in Sunday's loss to the Atlanta Falcons, but he averaged a meager 8.9 yards per attempt. B/R's Cian Fahey made a good point about how so much broke right for the Dallas Cowboys and yet they still lost in Week 3:

"

I'm not sure how the Dallas Cowboys are going to win a game with Weeden if they couldn't win this Falcons game after the start they made.

— Cian Fahey (@Cianaf) September 29, 2015"

Cowboys head coach Jason Garrett didn't outright criticize Weeden's avoidance of deep throws, but he certainly seemed to hint the 31-year-old should have done a better job at reading the field and taking chances down the field.

"We'll evaluate the quarterback decision-making, but there were opportunities to throw the ball out there and he made some different decisions to throw the ball inside and was effective," Garrett said, per ESPN.com's Jean-Jacques Taylor. "The guy threw four incompletions the whole game, so he did a good job helping us move the football."

Meanwhile, Luke McCown had a similar game, throwing for 310 yards but averaging 8.2 yards per attempt.

"Like Weeden, he played fairly well until his team trailed and needed a quarterback who could play really well," wrote B/R's Mike Tanier.

Pro Football Focus actually graded McCown (-0.9) and Weeden (-1.0) as the 19th and 20th-best quarterbacks in Week 3, further illustrating how little separated the two last Sunday.

For both QBs, this will be their last best opportunity to prove they can hold down the fort and keep their teams in playoff position.