NFL Week 9 Picks: Guide for Latest Vegas Odds and Winning Predictions

We've reached the halfway point of the 2018 NFL season, and we're finally beginning to figure out which teams are actual contenders and which have purely been pretending. We also have an idea of which teams are—or at least should be—playing for next season.

On one hand, this makes it a little easier to predict how games are going to unfold. Predicting how they'll unfold as it relates to the latest lines, on the other hand, is a different story.

This is what we're going to attempt doing here, though, as we look ahead to Week 9. We'll examine the early lines and over/unders from OddsShark and make our own score predictions for each game. We'll also take a closer look at some of the top matchups of the week.

Week 9 Vegas Lines, Over/Unders and Predictions

Oakland Raiders at San Francisco 49ers (-3, 46.5 O/U): Raiders 27, 49ers 23

Detroit Lions at Minnesota Vikings (-5, 50.5 O/U): Vikings 30, Lions, 24

Chicago Bears (no listed line, O/U) at Buffalo Bills: Bears 26, Bills 17

Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Carolina Panthers (-6.5, 54 O/U): Panthers 32, Buccaneers 30

Kansas City Chiefs (-8, 51.5 O/U) at Cleveland Browns: Chiefs 35, Browns 27

New York Jets at Miami Dolphins (-3, 45.5 O/U): Jets 23, Dolphins 22

Pittsburgh Steelers at Baltimore Ravens (-3, 47 O/U): Steelers 23, Ravens 20

Atlanta Falcons at Washington Redskins (-1.5, 47.5 O/U): Falcons 22, Redskins 21

Los Angeles Chargers at Seattle Seahawks (-1.5, 48 O/U): Chargers 26, Seahawks 24

Houston Texans at Denver Broncos (-2.5, 46 O/U): Texans 28, Broncos 23

Los Angeles Rams (-1, 60 O/U) at New Orleans Saints: Saints 30, Rams 28

Green Bay Packers at New England Patriots (-6, no listed O/U): Patriots 27, Packers 22

Tennessee Titans at Dallas Cowboys (-6.5, 41 O/U): Cowboys 22, Titans 20

Buccaneers at Panthers

This week's matchup between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Carolina Panthers is intriguing for a couple of reasons. One is that it's an exciting game between divisional opponents with two different styles of offenses. The other is that it represents the official return of FitzMagic.

Yes, the Buccaneers are turning back to the Bearded Wonder, Ryan Fitzpatrick.

As Greg Auman of the Tampa Bay Times recently pointed out, this is good news for the Buccaneers offense:

Expect this to be a relatively high-scoring affair, even though the Panthers are likely to try grinding the game out on the ground. Fitzpatrick has shown time and time again that he can strike quickly with guys like Mike Evans and DeSean Jackson—they had a 60-yard touchdown connection last week against the Cincinnati Bengals.

The Panthers, though, are going to have to answer.

This will be a back-and-forth battle that will be won by whichever team manages to get a stop at the end. The Panthers have done a solid job of limiting scoring this season—they've allowed just 21.7 points per game, 11th in the NFL—so we'll take them for the win.

Tampa Bay, however, will pull within a touchdown before it's over.

Steelers at Ravens

When the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens get together, it's almost always a physical and entertaining battle. It was earlier this season, though the Ravens defense outperformed Pittsburgh's explosive offense, and the Ravens pulled away early in the second half.

Expect this game to be closer, for a couple of reasons. For one, the Steelers defense has been playing a more efficient brand of football as of late. It's allowed 21 points or fewer in the three games since last facing Baltimore and is now up to 24 sacks on the season.

The Steelers have also gotten more out of second-year running back James Conner. He had just 19 yards rushing against the Ravens in the last meeting. He's had at least 110 yards rushing and two total touchdowns in each game since.

"I'm just running hard," Conner explained, per Jeremy Fowler of ESPN.com.

This is accurate, and Conner's hard running is allowing Pittsburgh to play a more methodical game, which will be beneficial against the Ravens.

Expect the Steelers to get revenge in a relatively low-scoring rematch.

Packers at Patriots

How can we not get excited about a Sunday night game between the Green Bay Packers and the New England Patriots? This will be only the second time Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers have faced off.

On one side, we'll have a guy who has mastered, remastered and solidified the Patriots' offensive system. On the other, we'll have a quarterback whose system is making magic almost on his own. This has the potential to be a shootout in the mold of the Brady-Patrick Mahomes matchup we had earlier this season. However, there are a couple reasons to believe it'll be on the low-scoring side.

The Packers are almost certain to lean on the running game in order to keep Brady, Josh Gordon, Rob Gronkowski and Co. off the field as much as possible. Bill Belichick and the Patriots, meanwhile will have a week to focus on containing Rodgers and limiting his big-play potential in Foxborough.

Because of their collection of weapons and home-field advantage, we're going to go with the Patriots here—but it's going to be close, and it's going to hit the under.