Is a hot dog a sandwich? The question provoked confusion, consternation and angry disagreement in the Bills’ locker room on Wednesday, which seemed like a suboptimal use of energy for a group of players who might otherwise have been sitting down with EJ Manuel and explaining the concept of progressions.  Especially when you consider the fact that a hot dog is, unequivocally, a sandwich.  Related: Cincinnati Bengals batter Cleveland Browns to go 8-0 for the season  A far trickier question to answer is this one: how do we go from consecutive weeks without a perfect score in the Pick Six contest, to having eight people run the board all at once? I’m still pondering that one, but in the meantime do join me in congratulating AK74, BengaTron, bethegnat, FatSamurai, Hobble, jezzan, MortonsFork and peteym.  Seeing as the season is now at its halfway stage, it’s probably about time I started providing updates on the overall standings up here too. Uma Blue continues to lead the way with 33 correct picks out of a possible 48. Full table coming up in the comments section shortly. Before that, here are this week’s games:  The comparisons were inevitable. In 2012, Adrian Peterson returned from a torn ACL to produce one of the greatest-ever seasons by an NFL running back - rushing for 2,097 yards. This year, Rams rookie Todd Gurley has returned from the same injury (suffered during his final year of college football at Georgia) to rush for 566 yards in his first four professional starts.  Even the Vikings’ own players have observed the similarity between the two tailbacks, contending that it runs deeper than a simple shared injury. “People don’t realize how big [Gurley] is,” observed Minnesota cornerback Captain Munnerlyn. “He can hit you with the home-run speed. He’s a young Adrian Peterson, but I like our Adrian Peterson better.”  Not everyone would share that last sentiment. Peterson is performing at an extremely high level yet again this season, but not even he can match Gurley’s 6.1 yards per attempt. The Rams are 3-1 since he came into the starting line-up, their only loss arriving on the road in Green Bay.  I expect Gurley to have the better day individually, not least because St Louis’s defense has been robust against the run – holding opponents to fewer than 100 yards per game. But I will still take the Vikings at home. With Stefon Diggs emerging (even if he has been hindered in practice by a hamstring injury) at wide receiver, they can pair Peterson’s efforts with a productive passing game. Vikings to win  Barely six weeks have passed since Buffalo trounced the Dolphins 41-14 in Miami. That, though, was back in the dark days of the Joe Philbin era. The Fins are a changed team since then, interim head coach Dan Campbell dreaming up a crazy new offense that actually makes use of the running game.  Leaning heavily on Lamar Miller, Miami walloped the Titans and Texans before being brought back down to earth painfully in a 36-7 loss to New England. Given that the first two of those teams are awful, and the latter is a Super Bowl favourite, we still do not really have a good sense of what Campbell’s Dolphins are capable of.  One thing we do know, however, is that all of their victories this season (under both head coaches) have come in games where they were able to establish the ground game. Buffalo rank sixth in the league against the run, and Tyrod Taylor’s return from injury should give them a significant boost on the other side of the ball. Bills to win  The overwhelming majority of Pick Six contestants (myself included) thought the Packers would roll into Denver last weekend and win. The overwhelming majority were wrong.  There had been little hints all season that Green Bay’s passing game – missing Jordy Nelson and with several other receivers carrying niggly injuries – wasn’t firing on all cylinders, and the Broncos exposed the flaws ruthlessly. Hurrying Aaron Rodgers on an extraordinary 63% of his dropbacks, and hitting him seven times, they were able to restrict the Packers to a mere 77 yards through the air.  Carolina will certainly have taken note. Denver’s pass rush is a class apart this season, but the Panthers have 20 sacks through seven games, and will have faith in their own ability to give Rodgers a chastening afternoon.  The quarterback will play better than he did at Mile High. There are good reasons why Rodgers has not lost consecutive games in any season since 2010. But the Panthers themselves have not tasted defeat in a regular season game since last November, making it time to give them the benefit of the doubt. Panthers to win  Here’s a statistic to compound the misery of Giants fans: the seven passing touchdowns they gave up during last week’s 52-49 loss to the Saints were more than three other NFL teams (Denver, Seattle and St Louis) have surrendered all season.  New York’s fans can take solace in knowing that their team remains top of the NFC East, and that they will not have to face Drew Brees again (in the regular season, at least). Jameis Winston has shown improvement for Tampa Bay lately, throwing four touchdowns and no interceptions in his last three games, but he is still averaging a modest 235 yards per game and is unlikely to torch them on the back end.  The Bucs run the ball rather better, Doug Martin looking more and more like the player who raced to 1,454 yards and the Pro Bowl in his rookie year. But when push comes to shove, the Giants have shown they can put up points in bunches, and I’m not sure Tampa Bay can say the same. Giants to win  Tony Romo was back at practice this week for the first time since breaking his collarbone. Sadly for the Cowboys, he is not eligible to come off the injured reserve list until the middle of this month; the 22 November game against Miami is the first game in which he can take part. By that point, the Cowboys may well be 2-7. They have lost all five since he went down hurt.  Even with moderate quarterback play, the Cowboys might have won several of those games. As Rodger Sherman observed for SB Nation this week, Matt Cassel’s performance in a one-point loss to Seattle last week was statistically inferior to the very worst of Romo’s career.  That the Cowboys stayed so close in that game despite Cassel’s lack of production illustrates how much else there is to like about this team. It is also true that they beat Philadelphia 20-10 on the day Romo suffered his injury, playing so ferociously on defense that the Eagles’ running backs finished up with a combined -2 rushing yards.  But it’s hard to get behind a team doing this badly at the single most important position. Especially knowing that the Eagles have already won on four of their last five visits to Dallas. Eagles to win  As if the season was not going badly enough for the Bears and Chargers, each of them lost one of their most important offensive players to injury last weekend. Matt Forte was not only Chicago’s leading rusher but also third on the team for receptions. Keenan Allen’s 725 receiving yards, meanwhile, were almost 300 more than the next player on San Diego’s roster.  For the Chargers, that is only the tip of the iceberg. Twelve of their players were forced off the field by injury during last Sunday’s loss to the Ravens. That figure does not include the six players – Eric Weddle, Manti Te’o, Craig Mager, Tourek Williams, Danziel Perryman and Orlando Franklin – who were unable to suit up in the first place.  The Bears have been beaten up themselves this season, but not to the same degree. Bears to win
The Vikings and Rams face each other this weekend, and St Louis’s rookie running back looks as good as anyone in the league