On a segment called “Sunday Soundtracks” during Monday Night Football, we heard a quarterback say to a referee, “Welcome back. Coulda used you last week.”

That was followed by the ref saying under his breath, “Oh, well, uh, this is awkward, but if you thought that last officiating crew had a big bet against you, wait til you see the fuck job we’re gonna pull on you today.”

That poor QB was Aaron Rodgers, and it certainly seemed like the refs had more than a passing interest in seeing the Saints get their first win. Unfortunately the Saints are still missing one or two pieces that will get them competitive enough to win a fixed game. But I really expected the Packers to come out and make a statement. In theory Green Bay is 3-1 on the season, but it’s been a very uninspiring first quarter for them. I’m officially lowering my expectations for the 2012 Packers to “playoff team that’s unlikely to make a deep run.” Sounds like they’re taking the role of the 2008-2011 Atlanta Falcons.

Does that mean it’s a full role reversal and Atlanta’s now the NFC favorite? You’ll have to keep reading to hear my thoughts on the NFC and AFC’s best teams.

Green Bay was one of my few misses on the week. If you’ve been waiting for me to get on a roll with my picks so you could hop in and ride the wave, you better get on me now before the tide passes you by. I was 10-5 last week and I’m now35-25-3 on the season. If you had been backing all of my picks with a $100 bet for these first four weeks, you’d be up $750, including a $450 profit in week 4. I’m thinking that every time I have a great day I’ll post my record and how much you could be winning if you backed the picks. And coming off bad weeks I’ll probably focus my posts as far away from my picks as possible. Molly’s only 2-2 with her picks. She’s gonna have to go on a little run if she wants to keep her job.

Anyway, I won’t go on and on about the great week I had with my picks, my fantasy teams, my pick ’em leagues, my suicide pick and the Patriots looking like a contender. Let’s focus on the topics from week 4 that had nothing to do with me:

One thought on Monday Night’s game…

-Did anyone else notice that Jon Gruden seemed a little…blackout drunk during the broadcast? I knew something seemed off about him so I searched “Gruden” on Twitter and found tweets ranging from “Gruden must have had some drinks before this” to “I’m pretty sure Gruden’s coked out right now.” And there was also this really strange analogy of Jay Cutler and Tony Romo being just like Clint Eastwood and John Wayne, which ended with Gruden awkwardly singing “God Blessed Texas” as Mike Tirico tried to figure out a way to quickly kill himself.

-Speaking of awkward video, I was going to save this one for the end, but I felt like the readers who abandon my posts after the first 500 words deserved to see this. We all know it’s fun to misconstrue certain things NFL announcers say into obscene-sounding quotes. Like any time an announcer says, “He got good penetration right there.” But what Andrew Siciliano says in this clip is the new benchmark. No one may ever say a more misconstrue-able sentence: 

Maybe I’m overreacting, but it just seems like you’d have to be trying to say that sentence on purpose. You wouldn’t accidentally describe what just happened as one NFL player raping another.

-Sticking with good videos for a little while longer, did everyone see what happened to the Redskins during warmups on Sunday? 

Sounds like Meriweather hurt some knee ligaments and might miss some time. Not that either guy was a key component to the team, but the Skins are getting closer and closer to being able to blame injuries for a subpar season. The fact that ‘Skins’ players are dropping like flies will make a .500 season or better even more impressive if it happens. RGIII gets a ton of credit if this team stays competitive.

-Final video of the post, and I’m sure it’s one most people have seen. Let’s just say it might be a nice visual representation of the Jets’ season: 

Am I the first person to question why Santonio Holmes had to deliberately throw the ball away when he got hurt? To hold his knee? Doesn’t it seem like at that moment he has the strength and wherewithal to purposely flip it in the air? Why couldn’t he have tucked the ball into his stomach area and then proceeded to writhe around on the ground in pain? Did he give the ball up on purpose because he only cares about himself? Seems like a real team player would have made sure he held onto that ball. Either way, I think we just saw the “crash” portion of the Jets crash & burn-themed 2012 season. Can’t wait to see the burn.

-Best new strategy for anyone remaining in their suicide pool: pick whoever is playing against Tennessee. The Titans are everything I thought Arizona would be this year.

-Speaking of the Cardinals, I’m planning to continue picking against them every week until they finally lose. They aren’t a good team, it’s gotta happen soon.

-If my memory’s correct, it’s usually after week 4 that Vegas adjusts their point spreads to respect the teams that are actually good, instead of overrating the teams they thought were going to be good. So I hope you capitalized because I don’t think we’ll be seeing things like “Lions -6.5” or “Kansas City -1” anytime soon.

-If you’re the type of person who cares about betting trends, you should know that there is one NFL team who is 4-0 against the spread and one NFL team who is 0-4 against the spread. You probably know that Houston’s the 4-0 team, but the 0-4 team? Detroit. As Nkilla referenced in our preseason predictions blog, it’s starting to feel like Jim Schwartz might be the first coach on the hot seat.

-I considered doing some version of a Power Rankings blog after week 4 for each team, but it still feels too soon (and like too much work). I’ll probably wait until after week 6 or so for that. But I did want to discuss the balance of power between the two conferences. If you’ve been paying attention at all this year, you’ve heard that the NFC is the powerhouse conference, constantly beating up on the bitches of the AFC. And it’s true that the NFC is now 10-4 against the AFC in 2012. But in terms of the top tier of each conference, is the NFC really better than the AFC?

Here’s my top 5 in the NFC:

1). San Francisco

2). Atlanta

3). NY Giants

4). Green Bay

5). Chicago

And the AFC:

1). Houston

2). Baltimore

3). New England

4). Cincinnati

5). San Diego

OK, fine. The NFC is still much deeper than the AFC. But I’d put the AFC’s top 3 up against the NFC’s top 3 any day. Houston is clearly the best team in football until they show a significant weakness. I’d give the 49ers the 2nd overall spot, and would put the Falcons, Giants, Ravens and Patriots all on the same level.

Anyone disagree?

But seriously, you should spend the time to go back and re-read my picks for week 4 from last Friday. I feel like out of the 10 I picked right, I nailed exactly how the game would play out in about 7 of them. You can pass the time waiting for my week 5 picks by thinking about all the things you’re gonna buy with the money you haven’t yet won on my advice.