NFL

Week 12 NFL Picks: An All-Instincts Set of Picks

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

old-man-crystal-ball

Another week, another losing record against the spread. At this point with my season record being something like 20 games under .500 (refusing to actually go back and look), it’s time to try different things.

This week’s theme is: Don’t think, just do it. What it means is that I made all of my picks this week without visiting a single website to do any research. Every pick was based on either my instincts or knowledge I already have stored in my head. There was no visit to Football Outsiders, each team’s schedule, the NFL standings page or sites that would give me injury news on key players (this probably means there will be some major inaccuracies in this column). A typical picks column probably takes about five hours for me to research and write. This week’s picks took me less than an hour.

If I go 14-0 this week, I will feel like I wasted roughly 44 hours over the first 11 weeks of the season.

Before I jump into the picks, I want to address one oversight from my totally justified Patriots-Panthers rant from Tuesday’s column: The 49ers have almost as much of a claim to getting jobbed by the referees last week as the Patriots do. The Ahmad Brooks roughing the passer penalty when he tackled Drew Brees around the shoulder was outrageous. There were three marquee games in week 11. It was perfect timing for such good matchups because November is when the football season really feels like every game is of vital importance. I was looking forward to watching all three games and hoping they’d be memorable. Unfortunately the referees destroyed the joy in two of the three games (only the Broncos-Chiefs game was spared a controversial ending, but it was downright boring…so much for a good weekend of football). This week was the first time I’ve ever thought about reconsidering how much I really enjoy watching football.

In the words of the increasingly-looney Alex Rodriguez: “This is ridiculous!” (while slamming my hands on a table).

Let’s just get on to another week of failed picks and lost money:

New Orleans (-10) @ Atlanta

Atlanta is particularly horrible so even the fact that the Saints struggle on the road shouldn’t be enough to deter me from picking them to cover this very large spread. But the fact that it’s a Thursday night game is what’s really making me pick the Falcons to cover. New Orleans is coming off an intense, physical game against San Francisco, and we’ve already seen so many teams struggle with the quick turnaround on Thursdays. I like the Falcons to cover while the Saints take the road win, 30-24. 

Tampa Bay @ Detroit (-10)

The Bucs are on a roll! The Lions refuse to get on a roll! I feel like this game could see 147 failed trick plays because of the coaches involved. This line seems high based on the way Tampa Bay is currently playing. Tampa covers. Lions win 26-21.

Jacksonville @ Houston (-10) (CONFIDENCE PICK)

I want to make sure I fully understand this. Vegas made the Texans a 10-point favorite last week when they learned that Matty McGloin would be the starting QB for the visiting Raiders. Then Houston went out and got owned by those Raiders. And Vegas said, “Fuck it, let’s run it back…Houston by 10 again!”?? I guess we’re going with three heavy underdogs to start week 12. I say Jacksonville wins outright, 29-24.

Minnesota @ Green Bay (-5)

I meant to bring this up last week. I think the Vikings should treat the quarterback position like it’s a baseball pitching rotation & bullpen. Make one QB the starter. He gets to stay out there until he starts to have a meltdown or gets tired later in the game. Then they insert their middle reliever to be the bridge from starter to closer. The closer would be whichever QB is best at kneeling down and draining the clock because ideally your closer comes in when you have a lead and just need to end the game.

Anyway, as bad as I thought Christian Ponder would be coming into this year, I never thought the Vikings would have the most dysfunctional QB situation. Maybe it makes Minnesota fans feel better to know the rest of the country is genuinely enjoying the QB carousel and Leslie Frazier’s apparently strong motivation to lose his job.

None of those previous two paragraphs help me decide on this game because Mr. Scott Tolzien will be starting for Green Bay once again. I’m going with the Vikings to pull off the upset, making people even more aware of Aaron Rodgers’ irreplaceability. Minnesota wins 31-27.

Did I just pick four underdogs to start the week? Three of whom are on the road and all of whom are five-point or greater underdogs? I think I did. I’m sure that’ll work out perfectly.

San Diego @ Kansas City (-5) (CONFIDENCE PICK)

Either the Chiefs respond to their first loss in a big way by crushing the Chargers at home (after all, this Charger defense might make the Kansas City offense look competent). Or they start to fall apart…still burned by the Denver game, already thinking about the week 13 Denver rematch. Taking a frisky San Diego team lightly. This game almost feels like a coin flip, but there’s one important aspect. Let’s say the Chiefs have a narrow lead late in the 4th quarter. Traditionally they play conservative and rely on field position and defense to wrap up the victory, but knowing that Peyton’s offense comes to town in week 13, I think Andy Reid gets a little more aggressive offensively in this game to prepare for the Broncos. Instead of holding onto a three-point lead, maybe he takes a chance and gets an extra touchdown. Sure, let’s go with that. Chiefs cover and win, 31-21.

Carolina (-4.5) @ Miami

It’s tough to predict this game because we don’t know if the referees are fixing games for the Panthers only when they’re at home or regardless of where they’re playing (I’m joking, relax). Listen, Ryan Tannehill has been hit a lot this year, and he’ll still be dealing with an offensive line comprised of mostly backups. I can’t wrap my head around why San Diego wasn’t able to beat the Dolphins last week, but it might be as simple as “The Chargers suck.” We know Carolina is a solid football team. The only way they don’t cover is if this turns into a letdown game after two HUGE wins the past two weeks. I can’t make a pick based on a team maybe having a letdown. Let’s go with a Carolina cover as they win 33-21.

Pittsburgh @ Cleveland (-1) (CONFIDENCE PICK)

If you read my picks regularly, you know I’m going with Cleveland. The streak of the home team winning these AFC North matchups is unbroken this year. This should actually be Cleveland -3, but people are getting roped back in by the Steelers. The Browns win 24-20.

Chicago @ St. Louis (-1)

Don’t see how the Rams are favored here. Josh McCown hasn’t looked any worse than Jay Cutler for the most part. In fact, is there a chance the Bears let Cutler sign with another team in the offseason because they think they have his much cheaper equivalent already on the roster? Probably not, but it’s fun to think about Cutler taking over for Carson Palmer in Arizona next year. The Bears win 38-28.

NY Jets @ Baltimore (-4)

Well, it’s an even-numbered week so the Jets should win. But their road record doesn’t inspire much confidence. But on the other side of the ball, the Ravens don’t inspire much confidence no matter where they’re playing. The Jets defense is probably going to hold up pretty well against the anemic Baltimore offense. I think the Jets’ season record after this week will look like this: W-L-W-L-W-L-W-L-W-L-W. That means the Jets cover and win, 16-12.

Tennessee @ Oakland (PICK)

I hear Matty McGloin is starting again for the Raiders even though Terrelle Pryor is healthy…Hmm…I’m going to predict that Oakland will be punished by souring on Pryor so quickly. The Titans win 30-13.

Indianapolis @ Arizona (-1) (CONFIDENCE PICK)

Whereas the Colts don’t have any make or break games left to earn a playoff spot (because their division is really really terrible), this has make or break all over it for Arizona. They’re 6-4, right in the mix with teams like San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit and Carolina for a wildcard spot. To get to 10 wins, I think they’re going to need this game. Do you think Chuck Pagano takes it easy on Bruce Arians since Arians did such a good job of babysitting Indy last year while Pagano was undergoing treatment for cancer? Doesn’t really matter as I think a road game against such a good defense will be too much for the Colts. Arizona wins 28-20.

Dallas @ NY Giants (-3)

Sign me up for the Giants creeping even closer to the division lead. I’m hoping the three way tie between Philly, Dallas and the Giants for the division title comes down to at least the third tiebreaker (win-loss record in common games). There’s a reasonable chance all three teams finish with the same overall record and the same divisional record. Can’t wait. This is one of those games where I want to predict a push, but let’s go with a four-point win by the Giants, 24-20.

Denver (-2.5) @ New England (CONFIDENCE PICK)

Last time the Patriots felt boned/screwed/utterly perplexed by an end-of-game referee’s decision, they went on to win their next two games by a combined 34 points. I didn’t have to think that far back since the previous boning happened only five weeks ago. So that’s one reason why I think they take care of business on Sunday night.

Another reason: One of my high school friends passed away almost a year ago. Just a few weeks ago, a friend of mine who was also a good friend of his was trying to convince me that the deceased friend’s spirit had intervened in her life and communicated with her via a coupon to Banana Republic (long story to understand exactly what she was talking about). I laughed it off even as she told me others have felt this guy looking down on them over the past year. No more than 10 days later I had a dream that the Patriots lost to the Panthers 10-9 (didn’t exactly work out that way, but close enough) and I was pissed. But our new guardian angel came to me in the dream and told me not to worry, the Pats were going to take care of business in a big way sometime soon. I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about how this friend died on November 24th last year. And I immediately figured out that the 24th falls on a Sunday this year. And I felt like he was telling me big things were coming for New England on that specific day….without even looking at the Patriots’ schedule, I just knew the Broncos game fell on the 24th.

That was the most roundabout way that anyone’s ever said they think someone up in heaven is going to affect a sporting event. I probably should have just said, “I have a friend who’s going to pull an ‘Angels In The Outfield’ for the Patriots this week.”

Hey, if Danny Amendola is suddenly leaping 14 feet in the air to make catches, and LeGarrette Blount is running through tacklers like he’s got another person pushing him down the field, just remember that I warned you. Patriots win 49-35.

Side Note: The part of the story I’m leaving out is that I woke up thinking Tom Brady would throw 8 touchdowns against Denver in this game. But no amount of heavenly intervention can make me predict that.

San Francisco (-6) @ Washington

I have no spiritual intervention story for you on this particular pick. I just think the Redskins are a really really crappy team. There should be red flags all over this game telling us to stay away from the 49ers. They haven’t looked the Super Bowl contender we all thought they’d be, and they’re coming off a long road trip to New Orleans last week. But I think the Redskins’ crappiness trumps the 9ers’ mediocrity and tough travel schedule. San Francisco covers with a 23-14 win.

For those of you keeping score at home, in week 12 I’m picking:

  • 6 Favorites & 7 Underdogs
  • Of those 7 Underdogs, 2 are Home Dogs & 5 are Road Dogs

Enjoy week 12…hope the refs don’t fuck it up for everyone.

Week 11 NFL Recap: Packers Fans Will Understand Exactly How I Feel

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

patriots panthers

I went above and beyond the call of blogging duty to make sure I could author an incredible NFL recap from this weekend. There are very few reasons to miss the 10-hour window known as Sunday football…the birth of your child, that same child’s college graduation, a funeral, your triple bypass heart surgery.

And apparently your best friend’s 31st birthday celebration in Palm Springs. More specifically, a friend who will relentlessly guilt trip you if you don’t show up just because football is more important.

That’s where I was this weekend, and instead of simply missing most of the games on Sunday, I DVR’d the Red Zone Channel and plowed through over six hours of football when I finally got home. That meant I couldn’t check on my fantasy teams, my bets, my Pick ‘Em league failures or any other live sports news until I caught up on everything. That’s how important it is for me to see every possible NFL play over the course of each week.

And even though I started yet another job on Monday morning, I was determined to watch the Patriots-Panthers game and stay up late writing the recap blog so it would be ready to go before I left for work on Tuesday morning.

And, man, did I have some good material for you people (anyone think going into the weekend that we’d see seven out of the 30 teams have at least two people play quarterback at some point in their respective games?).

But I’m giving you none of my brilliant observations from week 11. And you can thank Clete Blakeman for that. Call it me boycotting the NFL for a few hours after the referees royally screwed my Patriots on Monday night.

The beauty of me being an even-keeled person is that when I do finally go berzerk over something, I carry so much credibility. A lot of New England fans got fired up when the Patriots lost to the Jets a month ago on the new “no pushing your own teammate” rule. But not me. I felt like it was a correctly called rule that just seemed sketchy to call for the first time in NFL history on such a defining play. But either way the Patriots should have never been in that position.

And because of my measured approach to that situation, I feel that when I say, “The Patriots got absolutely, totally, ridiculously fucked on that final play of Monday’s game,” I will be taken seriously.

The funny thing is usually I see so many people on Twitter saying the Patriots and their fans are just being entitled crybabies. But not this time. 100% of the people I follow on Twitter and every member of the media on TV (non-Gerry Austin category) agree that Gronk got bear hugged illegally in the end zone.

The funniest part about the whole thing is that Patriots fans would have been bitching about a non-call after seeing the replay even if there was never a flag thrown. But one of the officials obviously saw the penalty and threw the flag. There’s no logical reason to overturn that call except that the refs as a group feared for their lives by their correct call handing the game to the visiting team in Carolina. I can’t think of any other reason for it.

And now this awful call will play a huge role in the playoff races. If the Patriots lose to Denver on Sunday, they’ll have almost no chance left at getting home field advantage throughout the playoffs and might even be in trouble for the #2 seed. If it comes down to a one game difference in their seeding, this will be just as bad as Green Bay getting the #3 seed instead of the #2 seed last year because of the Seattle fake hail mary play.

So thank you, Clete Blakeman and the rest of your officiating crew, for illegitimizing the 2013 NFL season.

Week 12 picks coming on Thursday, but who cares about picking games for a sham sporting league anyway.

Week 11 NFL Picks: The NFC Returns To Being A Dominatrix

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

old-man-crystal-ball

One thing that always fascinates me more than the average human about the NFL is the balance of power between the AFC and the NFC. I’m not exactly sure why that is. I guess it’s easy stimulation for me. The two conferences face each other every now and then throughout the regular season, but for the most part, we think of them as entirely separate entities. And it’s a fun exercise to try to compare the top teams from each conference. Which conference has more juggernauts? Which conference has the easier path to the playoffs? Does the AFC winner stand a chance in the Super Bowl against whoever comes out of the NFC? What’s the deal with the Pro Bowl again? They cancelled it? No? They moved it back a week? They used one of those Men In Black mind erasers to wipe our memories of any past Pro Bowl games? Cool.

Through the early part of this season, it looked like the AFC might be taking some of the power back. The NFC has been the better conference over the past couple years. But the AFC got off to a fast start in head-to-head matchups with their rivals in the NFC, and it looked like Kansas City, Denver, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and New England were all true contenders.

Fast forward to mid-November and now the NFC vs AFC matchup in 2013 is an even split, 23-23. So the NFC has certainly caught up over the past month. But does that mean the conferences are finally balanced?

Not really. According to Football Outsiders (which, in case you didn’t realize by now, is like the Bible to me in terms of ranking teams), five of the top 6 teams in the NFL come from the NFC, and if we go farther down the list, it gets even worse: 11 of the top 16 teams are from the NFC. And just like that it feels like 2010-2012 all over again.

While the best team in all of football is Denver (AFC), the rest of the top five goes: Seattle, Carolina, New Orleans and Chicago (all NFC). In fact, Football Outsiders claims that the 10th and 11th best NFC teams ( Philadelphia and St. Louis, ranked 15th & 16th overall) are only slightly worse than the 5th best AFC team (Indianapolis, ranked 14th overall).

And that’s where the big difference is between the two conferences. While the best of the NFC continue to look like true contenders, the best of the AFC (Denver excluded) looks pretty weak. The Chiefs are 9-0 but no one really buys that they’re very good. The Bengals look great for a couple weeks, then drop back-to-back games against non-playoff teams. The Colts took down some of the best teams in the NFL earlier this year, but have looked horrible against lesser teams like Oakland, Miami, Houston and most recently St. Louis. And the Patriots have enough injury concerns that I can totally understand why people won’t take them seriously even if they beat Carolina and Denver in their next two games.

And in case you weren’t convinced that quarterback play has a huge effect on how good a team is overall, I should probably let you know that 9 of the top 11 rated quarterbacks in the NFL right now are from NFC teams. C’mon, AFC, we’re getting friggen owned out there. This is embarrassing.

The point of all this useless info? I don’t really have one. There are four NFC vs AFC matchups this week, and I honestly can’t picture the AFC winning more than one of them.

The beat goes on, I guess.

Speaking of the beat going on, let’s jump into my week 11 picks!

(Remember my week 10 NFL recap where I said I’d start telling my readers which of my weekly picks I was most confident in? Well I’m actually following through with that this week. If you see the words “CONFIDENCE PICK” next to a matchup, that means it’s one of my five most confident picks this week.)

Indianapolis (-3) @ Tennessee

With Ryan Fitzpatrick at the helm for the rest of Tennessee’s season, we know exactly what we’re getting: Many games of three touchdown passes cancelled out by three costly interceptions, frisky games at home and blow outs on the road. I think they’ll be pretty predictable. But I don’t have a friggen clue which direction this Indianapolis season is heading. Are they the team that seemingly solidified their contender status when they knocked off San Francisco, Seattle and Denver? Or are they the guys who played quit-on-your-coach football in three of their past four halves? As much as I want to believe Andrew Luck is one of those “don’t bet against him after a loss” level quarterbacks already, I can’t get past how bad they’ve looked since Reggie Wayne got hurt in week 7. Under normal circumstances I’d be backing the Colts blindly one last time this week. But nine times out of 10 this season, my instinct has been wrong on these 50/50 games. I’m picking Tennessee to cover and win, 29-23.

Side Note: Believe it or not, this is going to be the Colts’ 4th nationally-televised primetime game already this season. Another reason I’m choosing the Titans is to try to offset some of my natural bias. Whenever I see a lot of a certain team, and they’re doing well most of the time I see them, I tend to get overconfident in just how good they actually are. I think our exposure bias (if that’s a thing) might lead us to pick the Colts when there’s no real reason to do so. Sticking with the Titans.

Atlanta (-1.5) @ Tampa Bay (CONFIDENCE PICK)

One of four unwatchable games on the Sunday morning slate. Blacklist it from the Red Zone. Welcome to the Week 11 “don’t think, just do it” Pick. No need to study stats and analysis for this one. Two bottom five NFL teams, and the home team’s getting points? Take those points. Go Tampa Bay. They win 34-24.

NY Jets @ Buffalo (-1)

Unwatchable game #2. It doesn’t matter that the Jets are balls deep in the playoff race and that this is a key divisional game. We’re talking about two of the worst offenses in the league against two top-10 defenses. Could truly see a field goals only game. I’m once again basing this pick solely on the home team. Buffalo covers with a 18-9 win.

Side Note: How many high fives do you think Rex Ryan gave out around the Jets’ facility after they signed Ed Reed? You know he was just going around slapping people on the ass, saying things like, “Belichick always wanted this guy, and look who got him again!” The thing is, if Reed was even half the safety right now that Nate Ebner is, you know he’d be in New England at this very moment. If Belichick didn’t want him, and the Texans thought he was dead weight…yikes.

Detroit (-3) @ Pittsburgh (CONFIDENCE PICK)

Even though I picked Buffalo to cover in Pittsburgh last week and they got blown out, I’m actually happy that it happened. Because now we get another week of people thinking the Steelers aren’t a terrible team. The Lions have already won three road games this year, no worries about their ability to win away from Ford Field. There’s simply too big of a talent gap between these teams. Detroit is so obvious it hurts. Lions cover with a 38-27 win.

Side Note: The level of confidence I have in this pick is borderline dangerous. Someone should lock down my online betting account before I’m allowed to put myself into debt over this game.

Washington @ Philadelphia (-4.5)

It’s frustrating that two teams this bad are allowed to stay in the playoff race. Even more frustrating is that I can’t get a read on either team. It feels like the Redskins truly suck and the Eagles just kinda suck. But the Skins have played a slightly more difficult schedule, and this whole thing about the Eagles never being able to win at home is just too much fun. I’m going to predict the streak continues. Washington keeps the NFC East looking terrible with a 30-27 win over Philadelphia.

Baltimore @ Chicago (-3) (CONFIDENCE PICK)

This is a huge mismatch. The line is obviously low because Jay Cutler’s out, but this offense is almost QB-proof. Matt Flynn could probably get inserted into the Bears’ lineup and put up 300 yards and a couple touchdowns. Josh McCown has so many weapons to work with, he’s experienced…he won’t be that big of a drop off from Cutler. I see no reason the Bears won’t win by at least a touchdown. Chicago wins 31-20.

Side Note: Caution! The Bears have been one of the worst teams against the spread this year as they’ve only covered two of their nine games. Personally I’m of the mindset that this type of record will even itself out in the long run. But I wanted to give full disclosure that Chicago has been really really bad for bettors so far this year.

Cleveland @ Cincinnati (-6)

As I predicted before last weekend, the home team continues to win all games featuring two AFC North teams. So I feel good saying the Bengals are going to win. They’ve lost two straight games on the road, but they haven’t lost a home game yet this year. It feels like Cincinnati will be playing their third consecutive overtime game, but this time they’ll win, 25-22 (meaning Cleveland covers).

Oakland @ Houston (-7)

The Raiders may not win a road game this season, but that doesn’t mean a Houston team in shambles should be favored by a full touchdown against them. The Texans are now without Matt Schaub, Arian Foster, Brian Cushing and Ed Reed. Has any team lost more guys that were supposed to be key contributors going into the season? How does this line make any sense? Houston’s going to win by more than a touchdown? It’s one of those “sure it might happen, but you can’t possibly pick it” games. Our hands are tied with the Texans being such a heavy favorite. Oakland covers and wins, 23-20.

Arizona (-7) @ Jacksonville

I’d like to be the first to congratulate the Arizona Cardinals for improving to 6-4 after this game and officially being in playoff contention for the first time since 2009! But to completely legitimize this season with a playoff berth, they’re going to have to win two of these three games: home vs Indianapolis, @Philadelphia and @Tennessee. That’s the only way they get to 10 wins. I think they’ll fall just short. Meanwhile, getting to bet against Carson Palmer as a 7-point road favorite seems too good to be true. Maybe it’s just Vegas’s way of saying “thank you” to all its loyal gamblers? I’m taking Jacksonville because no one should be betting on Arizona with this large of a spread on the road. Arizona wins, but only by 4…27-23.

San Diego (-1.5) @ Miami (CONFIDENCE PICK)

Regardless of how this Miami turmoil ultimately shakes out, nobody is making out better than Ryan Tannehill. If he continues to look average or slightly below average, he’s got a ready-made excuse now that his offensive line is decimated. And if he somehow performs at a decent level, we’ll marvel at how hard he battled even though he’s getting knocked down 46 times a game. I still think he’s going to be garbage, but we’ll have to wait until next year to really find out.

Even though the Chargers burned me two weeks ago when they traveled east and couldn’t finish off the Redskins, I’m backing them for this particular east coast trip. I just can’t see the Dolphins turning things around in six days from that ugly Monday night performance. Give me San Diego to win 28-17.

Minnesota @ Seattle (-13)

This is the Seahawks’ fourth and final “lambs to the slaughter” game. It’s exactly what it sounds like. A certain caliber of visiting team goes into Seattle and becomes the football equivalent of helpless little lambs being viciously slaughtered. In week 3 it was Jacksonville. In week 6 it was a Ryan Fitzpatrick-led Tennessee team. In week 9 it was Tampa Bay, though the Bucs put up a much better fight than the lambs usually do. And now it’s Minnesota. Due to the Vikings’ insistence on ruining as many QB careers as possible in one season, I’m taking the Seahawks to cover with a 42-17 win.

San Francisco @ New Orleans (-3) (CONFIDENCE PICK)

Usually when I preface a pick with “this is one of those lines you don’t bother wasting time analyzing,” I’m talking about a matchup between equally terrible teams. But I’m using that same advice on two equally awesome teams this time. It’s a classic case of the home team most likely winning any time these teams are facing each other. So you gotta go with the Saints to cover. And the added upside by picking the Saints this week is that Vernon Davis could miss the game. He’s pretty much the difference between the 9ers losing by only a touchdown or the 9ers losing by 28 points. I’ve got Saints over 49ers, 33-23.

Green Bay @ NY Giants (-6)

Had a lengthy discussion yesterday about the state of the NFC East with my friend who’s a huge Washington fan. By lengthy, I mean 90 seconds, the largest amount of time anyone can possibly talk nonstop about the NFC East and not blow their brains out. I gave him plausible scenarios for how each of the four teams cold win the division. One-by-one he pondered each argument and then said, “yeah, but they’re awful” and dismissed that team. He did that four times. That’s the best way to sum up the state of the NFC East. He agreed with me that the most obnoxious scenario is the Giants winning the division. Their fans have shown a lot of restraint by remaining quiet during the Giants’ slow resurrection to NFC East relevance. They will be slightly insufferable if this works out for them.

Are any Packers fans out there starting to panic about the Aaron Rodgers era yet? I’m talking about panicking in a greedy way. Like saying, “Jesus, Rodgers could retire with only one Super Bowl title,” or, “I can’t believe after that start to his career, Rodgers never got to play in another Super Bowl.” Things just haven’t gone smoothly since that Championship in 2010-11. The season after that title run, the Packers went 15-1 just for a chance to implode against the Giants at Lambeau. No other 15-1 team has failed to win their first playoff game. Then last year was a strange one. They lost a key game in week 3 on that terrible non-interception call in Seattle, and they didn’t click on offense for most of the season. That debacle in Seattle forced the Packers to face San Francisco on the road in round 2 of the playoffs instead of Green Bay getting to host the 9ers. The Packers got embarrassed by Colin Kaepernick. And now in 2013, the Rodgers Era probably lets another year pass by without a 2nd title run. Even if A-Rodge comes back in time to get them a wildcard spot, they’d likely have to win games at New Orleans and at Seattle to get to the Super Bowl. No chance that’s happening. I guess this is my 2013 Green Bay Packers eulogy. Maybe year 4 of the title drought will be the one! Anyway, I’m picking the Giants to cover with a 34-20 win. I fear for Scott Tolzien’s body and psyche in this one.

Kansas City @ Denver (-8)

Denver has annihilated every team they’ve played at home this year…But I’m not giving more than a touchdown to a banged up Peyton Manning going against one of the league’s best pass rushes and overall pass defenses. This is a point too high. Kansas City covers as they lose to Denver 30-23.

New England @ Carolina (-1)

This game seems simple enough to me: If Carolina can run & field goal their way up and down the field, they’ll win. But if the Patriots offense cracks the code on this Panthers defense and suddenly Cam Newton finds himself in a shootout with Tom Brady, Patriots win. The run defense is a problem for New England, but it’s only a problem if an opponent commits to the run and follows through with it the entire game. As soon as they ditch that plan and Newton’s forced to throw the ball 30+ times, game over.

My pick for this game was always going to come down to whether or not Aqib Talib is playing. And unfortunately I’m going to have to turn in this column before we know if he’s officially playing on Sunday. My guess is that he will play. And my prediction is that Newton will have to win this game with his arm at some point, but a healthy New England secondary won’t let it happen. Pats escape with the win, 33-27.

For those of you keeping score at home, in week 11 I’m taking:

  • 7 Favorites & 8 Underdogs
  • Of those 8 Dogs, 3 are Home Dogs & 5 are Road Dogs

Enjoy week 11 while I murder your whole f*cking family (I wrote that while a smiling lady & cute dog stood nearby so it doesn’t count as an actual threat).

Week 10 NFL Recap: Gambling Depression & Playoff Excitement

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

ihedigbo gail

And the season of frustration continues…

If you’ve been betting on the NFL games based on my weekly picks, then you know how bad it’s going for me. But even if you haven’t gone with my recommendations, you can probably sense this has been a rough season for me because I haven’t updated the blog with my against the spread record in about four weeks. My loyal readers will remember that last year while I was rolling to a 57% win rate for the season, I couldn’t give enough updates about my incredible record. Not so much this year.

But let’s quickly dig through the carnage:

  • Going into Monday night’s game, I’m 5-7-1 against the spread for week 10.
  • A particularly maddening week considering 3 losses (Detroit-Chicago, Carolina-San Francisco, Denver-San Diego) and the push (Houston-Arizona) hinged on one or two plays in terms of which team ultimately covered.
  • For the year, I’m now 62-79-5 against the spread, 17 games below .500, a 44% win rate.
  • In other words, now you know why I’m working three jobs. Income from two of them goes directly into the black hole known as my gambling account.
  • If I want to end the regular season with any sense of respectability, I pretty much need to hit on 62% of my picks each week for the final seven weeks.

Based on how the first 10 weeks have gone, I have very little faith in hitting that goal. But here’s the funny thing: Over the past seven weeks, I’ve actually made a profit on my football bets and I continue to nip at the heels of the people in 1st place in my Pick ‘Em leagues. How is this possible?

Because more than in any other year, I’ve been nailing my highest confidence picks. Yeah, a 5-8 week overall may look like shit, but if I’m putting huge bets on those five wins and only small bets on those eight losses, the net result is still profit.

In one of my Pick ‘Em leagues, we rank our top five confidence picks. You assign 7 points to the most confident pick, 5 to the next most confident, and then 3 points go to your third, fourth and fifth most confident picks for the week.

Since week 4, I am 21-14 on my confidence picks (a 60% win rate!), and I’ve gotten 6 of the 7 “most confident” picks correct.

In my 2013 reality where my cumulative picks absolutely suck, thank god I’m crushing the confidence picks. What this means for my readers is that when I do my weekly picks going forward, I will indicate which picks are my most confident. That way we can still win some money together. Deal?

We have a lot of random thoughts in the notebook today so let’s jump right in:

More Gambling Facts

  • The desperate gambler in me spent time on Sunday going through every NFL team’s against the spread record for the year, trying to find any possible edge for the season’s stretch run. Unfortunately 26 of the 32 teams have covered somewhere in the range of 40-60% of their games, not far enough away from a coin flip to confidently bet on or against them blindly.
  • The teams who have been the best against the spread this year? Dallas (7-3), San Francisco, Carolina, New Orleans, NY Jets, Kansas City, Oakland (all 6-3).
  • And the worst teams against the spread? Atlanta (2-7), Jacksonville (2-7), Houston (2-7), Tampa Bay (2-6), Chicago (2-6-1).

Fun With Playoffs

  • By my count, 12 NFC teams & 11 AFC teams are still technically in the playoff hunt.
  • That’s an incredible 72% of the entire league still thinking they might be playing football in January.
  • Six of the eight divisions have at least three teams fighting for playoff spots (only the NFC South and AFC South have less than three teams with playoff aspirations).
  • We always expect the wildcard spots to come down to the final couple weeks, but the incredible part about this season so far is that no team has come close to locking up its division yet.
  • Usually we get a couple divisions (I’m looking at you, AFC East) where some team has a four-game lead by now. But this year, no division leader has more than a 2.5-game lead. If you want to say Seattle probably has its division locked up, I won’t argue too hard against you. But that’s the only one.
  • Correction: You can also pencil the Colts in for the AFC South title. Forgot that Jake Locker was done for the season when I wrote that previous paragraph. Sorry, but a Ryan Fitzpatrick-led Titans team is not overcoming a two-game deficit to Indianapolis.

Greatest Roller Coaster Game Of The Year

  • Baltimore 20, Cincinnati 17
  • Any week 10 recap column really should start and end with the Dalton-to-Green (by way of Ihedigbo) hail mary.
  • Sunday’s early slate of games was looking like a giant letdown in terms of excitement (except for the Detroit-Chicago game)…the majority were blowouts or close games between two teams we weren’t interested in watching. And with the Ravens leading 17-0 at halftime, there was no reason to think this game would be any different. But then the Bengals slowly cut it to a one-score game (really slowly…it took them until midway through the 4th to get to the elusive double-digit mark in points scored).
  • But when Andy Dalton threw an interception to James Ihedigbo with 1:55 left, it was a fitting end to a boring game between two teams that don’t look like Super Bowl contenders. Dalton would be the goat, Ihedigbo to some extent would be the hero.
  • The Bengals would officially be delisted as a power in the AFC, and the Ravens would join the rest of its AFC North brethren as possible division winners.
  • Except a 3-and-out on the ensuing drive by Baltimore gave Cincy the ball back with 1:28 left at their own 40 yard line. Exactly 88 seconds later, Dalton heaved the ball 51 yards into the end zone where a group of Bengals and Ravens tipped the ball to Ihedigbo, who was standing a little bit behind the cluster of players, and he promptly tipped it high into the air as if he wanted to buy extra time in the hopes that someone would swoop in and catch it. A.J. Green did just that, grabbing the most inexplicable touchdown of the season to force overtime.
  • It was at that moment that the roller coaster did more roller coaster things. For the Bengals it meant a second chance to improve to 7-3 and re-establish itself as a player for a #2 seed in the conference. For the Ravens it was the potential end of their season. Dropping to 3-6 would pretty much render the rest of their schedule meaningless.
  • But the final twist of the roller coaster was in overtime…nothing dramatic. Just a Cincinnati drive that ended when Marvin Lewis chose not to kick a 50-yard field goal so instead Giovani Bernard lost 11 yards on a 4th down attempt. Then the Ravens kicked a game-winning field goal, quickly ripped the goat status off of Ihedigbo, and staved off playoff elimination for another week.
  • Not a very pretty game, but a wild roller coaster ride that just so happened to include the craziest play of the year.

Division Winner By Quarterback Attrition

  • So the Lions are in sole possession of 1st place in the NFC North. And they’ve certainly played well enough to be in that spot, but even Detroit fans have to admit that if the Lions go on to win the division, a big assist should be credited to the problems with the quarterbacks of the other three teams in the North.
  • The Vikings probably never had a chance this year, but the Ponder-Cassel-Freeman merry-go-round hasn’t helped.
  • The Bears looked like they had morphed into an offensive juggernaut just as recently as three weeks ago, but then Jay Cutler tore his groin, came back extremely early by playing on Sunday, and now has an ankle injury that forced him to exit his game early. No one knows if he’ll be able to play next week. Oh, and the Bears are two games behind Detroit now because the Lions swept the season series.
  • And then there’s Green Bay. Only one game behind the Lions and with the benefit of having beaten Detroit once already. But not only is Aaron Rodgers out for a few more weeks, the guy the Packers deemed as best suited to replace Rodgers is also out with an injury. So instead of Seneca Wallace, Green Bay will be starting Scott Tolzien next week.
  • Once again I’m not saying the Lions don’t deserve to be in the mix for the division title, but they probably don’t deserve to be the heavy favorite to win it either.

Football Makes No Sense (Week 10 Version)

  • If you had argued hard enough last week, you could have convinced me that Indianapolis isn’t quite as good as they’ve looked so far this year. You could even have convinced me that a Jeff Fisher-coached team would play hard no matter that their season is over and they’ve been forced to use their backup quarterback the rest of the year. Maybe you could have convinced me that the Colts wouldn’t totally dominate the Rams on Sunday.
  • But not even 100 of the best football minds and/or the best debaters could have made me think the 3-6 Rams would travel to 6-2 Indianapolis and cruise to a 38-8 win.
  • Football makes no sense.
  • Here’s how bad it was for the Colts on Sunday: I honestly thought they were going to set an unofficial record of their offense never once being shown on the Red Zone Channel. I’m not exaggerating when I say it took a few minutes into the 3rd quarter of that game before the RZC finally featured Andrew Luck and the Colts offense trying to put something together. No matter how horrific the game is (even some of the 9-6 final scores of years past), we always see every team’s offense in the red zone at least once during the first half of the games. Not Indy on Sunday.
  • One more note on this game: Jeff Fisher threw his challenge flag after the Colts finally scored a touchdown. Except as we all know by now (or at least we all should know), you can’t do that. Touchdowns are automatically reviewed. Coaches who throw the flag get penalized a timeout (or get assessed a 15-yard penalty if they are out of timeouts). Strangely enough, Fisher didn’t seem to know, the broadcasters never mentioned it, Andrew Siciliano, overseer of the Red Zone Channel, never mentioned it. Even the dozens of football writers, bloggers and analysts I follow on Twitter didn’t make much out of it. Am I the only one who still gets hot & bothered when coaches don’t remember this rule?

Fun With The Transitive Property

  • If Jacksonville just beat Tennessee by 2 points in week 10, and Tennessee beat St. Louis by 7 two weeks ago, and St. Louis destroyed Indianapolis by 30 yesterday, shouldn’t Jacksonville beat Indianapolis by about 39 or so when they play later this season?

The Opposite of Fun With the Incognito-Martin Situation

  • First of all, after reading THIS ARTICLE in which Terrelle Pryor shares his thoughts on locker room culture, I couldn’t help but think… Can we officially call Pryor the “Anti-JaMarcus Russell”? Russell was the 1st overall pick by Oakland who was supposed to be the team’s savior. Instead he sucked at football, got fat, had a substance abuse problem, was not a good locker room guy, and was out of the league within a couple years of being drafted, totally crushing the Raiders’ chances for the next few years. Then there’s Pryor…a guy who Oakland picked in a supplemental draft, was not supposed to be anyone’s savior, is making minimal money, was an afterthought because Matt Flynn was going to be the Raiders’ starting QB, and now he’s made football in Oakland fun again, seems to genuinely be a good leader and locker room guy, and looks like he’s actually cherishing his opportunity.
  • I heard Peter King report on “Football Night in America” that there was at least one contending team who would be interested in Richie Incognito if the Dolphins released him. I found myself repeatedly saying “Please don’t be the Patriots, please don’t be the Patriots.” And it’s not because I’ve formed an opinion where I think the guy is bad news. It’s just because the added distraction isn’t necessary. No need for another circus around the team during the stretch run (although a smaller part of me thinks, “If that’s what they need to solidify the O-line, giddy up!”).
  • I guess I’m throwing myself onto the “insensitive” side of the debate with this opinion: I personally think way too much media and public attention is being paid to this story. Remember when two Washington Wizards players actually brought guns into the locker room and threatened one another with them? We didn’t even spend half as much time and energy on that story as we have on this Dolphins story. Listen, I know this current situation is going to cost some people their jobs, and naughty words were said, and one guy is claiming to have a mental instability. But this is just way too much for a situation where no person was physically harmed. And the way in which the media decided to label the villains and victims of the story before having any real facts…it just bothers me that this is now going into week 3 of leading the news. Can we please focus on something interesting instead? Like maybe the amount of times Matt Flynn has been picked up and released over the past three months?

The Leftovers

  • It’s not going to happen, but if the Chiefs were to go 16-0, would that completely tarnish the accomplishments of the 2007 Patriots and 1972 Dolphins, the only two teams that have gone undefeated? It’s kind of a special accomplishment right now…only two teams have done it, both those teams capped off those seasons with Super Bowl appearances…
  • This Kansas City team doesn’t belong, and I’m sure we won’t have to worry about this much longer.
  • During the boredom of the early games on Sunday, I started wiping dog hair off my furniture. And I got to thinking: I use shed-control shampoo when I bathe my dog; I put fish oil in her food because it’s supposed to help with shedding; That food already includes “ingredients for a healthy shed-free coat; And I probably give her other things that help fight shedding. She still sheds a ton. If those products are all doing their jobs, does that mean my dog would have alopecia without them? If I stop using these products, will her entire coat spontaneously fall off?
  • Take it from someone who still gets flashbacks of the Pollard-to-Brady’s-knee hit from 2008, that hit Peyton Manning took on Sunday was almost identical, only Manning was turned slightly more away from the angle of the hit so his knee didn’t twist as much, and he also was lucky not to get his cleat stuck in the turf as he spun around. Otherwise it would have been goodbye to Denver’s season.
  • And hey, if you’re one of the five people out there who thinks Denver’s season could still be salvaged without Manning, then you must also admit that Manning is not the NFL’s MVP this year. You can’t have both.
  • THIS might have flown under your radar on Sunday. Worth noting the three football stadiums where throwing a football in the parking lot is a crime.
  • And finally, I’ll leave you with a peek behind the blogging curtain. Many times I get comments on the blog that are obvious SPAM. But every now and then I get a confusing comment that doesn’t look like SPAM but also doesn’t look like a real human wrote it. The one I got this morning was particularly…insane:

blog comment_11-11-13

Hope your week 10 was better than mine was. Week 11 picks coming on Thursday.

Week 9 NFL Non-Recap (Power Rankings Are Here!)

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

nfl power rankings

The week 9 recap is coming to you about 48 hours later than it usually does because my life is an absolute mess right now.

Instead of working no jobs, which is my preference, I’m now working two jobs and interviewing for more while trying to keep up with my writing schedule.

Instead of spending this past Sunday in the confines of my own home surrounded by TVs and nothing else, I was up in San Francisco…still watching football all day but not nearly as locked in and focused as I usually am.

And now that I don’t live in San Francisco, every time I return it’s an event. I party with my friends harder and stretch myself thinner than I normally would because I only have a couple nights to spend there. This past weekend also coincided with the going away party for one of my friends who’s moving back to the East Coast from the Bay Area. So there was even more beer chugging, Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey swigging and general buffoonery than usual.

I guess “my life is an absolute mess” is the wrong way to say it. I think “I’m busy” is more appropriate. So that’s why you’re getting a late recap blog.

The sad part about the friend who’s leaving California is that he was the definition of “wildcard” when it comes to my sports gambling group of friends. He was the guy who’d burst into the man cave three minutes before kickoff on Sunday mornings with all 65 of his bets written down on a piece of a Triscuit box that he decided would make for a good piece of scrap paper. He was the guy who would make futures bets during our Vegas trip (picking the winner of the upcoming Super Bowl, college basketball & football national titles, World Series, etc) and then lose the bet slips in his apartment two months later. He was the guy who would make a bet on Sunday morning, not remembering that he made a bet during an Ambien stupor on Tuesday night that directly contradicts this new bet.

While the rest of us would plod away with small, conservative bets, just trying to grind out a little profit over the course of the NFL season, this guy would have weekly swings so drastic that if we were talking about a bank account instead of a gambling account, that bank would put a hold on all of his assets due to suspicious activity.

For a group of degenerate gamblers, he was the life of the party. He will be missed. And we will be holding tryouts for the rest of the football season for anyone who would like to take a stab at replacing him.

 

At this point in the week, I see no need to dig into the details of each individual week 9 game. Instead let’s take a step back and look at the season as a whole…the half that’s been played and the half that’s still to come. Let’s go team by team and try to figure out who’s in the best position for a Super Bowl run, who should just be happy to be in the playoff hunt, and who should be looking at the 2014 draft as the next relevant moment on their team’s schedule. Call it Power Rankings if you want. But unlike other power rankings, I’m putting a ton of stock in injuries and each team’s upcoming schedule. I’m trying to predict who will finish in the best position for that Super Bowl run.

In the interest of saving you time, the bottom 12 teams come with no explanation. These teams are already eliminated from playoff contention in my mind (which means at least one of them will definitely make it). And then from #20 through #1, I’ll try to give some reasoning on why this team is in the position it’s in. Here we go:

32 Jacksonville

31 Tampa Bay

30 Minnesota

29 St. Louis

28 Atlanta

27 Houston

26 Pittsburgh

25 NY Giants

24 Buffalo

23 Oakland

22 Cleveland

21 Philadelphia

 

20 Baltimore

You could argue some other teams deserve to be in the top 20 over the Ravens (Philly and Cleveland come to mind), but with five home games remaining (including the Jets, Steelers and Vikings in consecutive weeks) this team could still make a little run. They may also get the benefit of facing a Bengals team that’s locked into its playoff position in week 17. Marvin Lewis has a history of resting his starters. So despite their best efforts, the Ravens aren’t dead yet.

19 Miami

We all know the Dolphins aren’t making the playoffs at this point so let’s instead consider this now-realistic scenario that I would have never thought possible just one week ago: On Monday night, the Dolphins will travel to Tampa Bay for a nationally-televised game. But instead of Greg Schiano getting fired the following day after a loss, what if Miami loses and more stories continue to trickle out about the environment that Joe Philbin has allowed the Dolphins’ locker room to become, and HE GETS FIRED INSTEAD? That would be the biggest reversal of coaching fortunes I’ve ever seen. I’m now rooting for this to happen.

18 Tennessee

We won’t know anything about this team until they host the Colts in week 11. Since his return, Jake Locker has lost to San Francisco and beaten St. Louis. Now he gets Jacksonville at home in week 10. They will officially be in the playoff mix if they can beat Indy in two weeks.

17 San Diego

Just know this: For at least the past seven years, the team to finish dead last in Football Outsiders’ defensive efficiency rankings has not made the playoffs. And that’s where the Chargers sit right now. Not to mention they still face Denver twice, Kansas City twice, Cincinnati, the Giants, Oakland and Miami. They’ll need at least five wins in there to make the playoffs. When passing is your only weapon, things usually fall apart in November and December.

16 Washington

This seems aggressive for the Redskins, I agree. But when I look at all four NFC East teams’ remaining schedules, Washington actually has it pretty easy. They face two teams with a winning record (San Francisco, Kansas City) at home and don’t have any difficult road games. If they can win on Thursday at Minnesota and then 10 days later at Philly (where the Eagles still haven’t won a home game in approximately 17 years), they’re 5-5 and suddenly the playoffs become a possibility. It’s not probable, but it’s possible.

15 Dallas

Incredible that the “best team” in a division sits outside the top 12. The only reason I have the Cowboys ranked highest among its divisional brethren is because of the quarterback. Tony Romo is easily the best quarterback in the division and when everything else involved among the four teams is an absolute crapshoot, you gotta give the edge to the team with the most stability at that position. The Cowboys’ remaining schedule is not friendly: @New Orleans, @Giants, home Oakland, @Chicago, home Green Bay, @Washington and home Philly. I still think there’s a chance all four NFC East teams finish 7-9 (fingers crossed).

14 NY Jets

It makes me queasy to pencil the Jets in as a peripheral playoff team, but at 5-4, I can’t deny that they’re at least average. Aren’t the Jets essentially a less-disciplined version of the Chiefs? Very solid defense, tries to run the ball to avoid exposing its passing deficiencies, has a QB you’re unsure about if he has to lead the team to a big comeback. The only differences are the Jets lead the league in penalties, they have a -10 turnover differential compared to the Chiefs’ +15, and they’ve actually had a harder schedule. But the schedule softens for New York the rest of the way and it looks like 9-7 is very doable.

13 Arizona

Several weeks ago I predicted that the Cardinals would be 6-4 after week 11. Their next two games are home against Houston and @Jacksonville. Those are winnable games that would make me look like a genius. Whether this team can get to 9-7 and battle Carolina for the one up-for-grabs wildcard spot will all hinge on either beating Indianapolis at home or winning at Tennessee in week 16. And if the 49ers rest their starters in week 17, this Cardinals team could amazingly get to 10 wins. By the way, I’d rather be the #6 seed in the NFC and have to travel to Chicago, Detroit or Green Bay than be the #4 seed and “get” to host San Francisco or Seattle. That’s why the Cardinals are ranked higher than the best NFC East team.

12 Kansas City

Well since the 9-0 Chiefs are very likely to make the playoffs, I have no choice but to rank them in the top 12. But I’ll continue to patiently wait for their inevitable demise. Teams that can’t occasionally win a shootout or come back from a 14-point deficit should be very concerned. Some of the best defensive teams in 2012 (Seattle and San Francisco come to mind) had to get the offense going in the playoffs in order to advance. The same challenge will present itself to KC eventually (for instance, what if they get the #5 seed and travel to New England in the 1st or 2nd round of the playoffs). I have no faith in them.

Side Note: In 2012, I gave this exact same treatment to Baltimore. From about week 4 on, I constantly picked against them, noting how they weren’t very good and were getting luckier than any team. I bitched about their schedule being too easy and that they’d be one-and-done in the playoffs. So if you’re still looking for that Super Bowl bet, I’d go big on the Chiefs. My recent history almost guarantees that they win it all.

11 Green Bay

10 Detroit

9 Chicago

Let’s go ahead and group all these teams together since the fate of each of them depends on one man: Aaron Rodgers. Green Bay drops to the back of this pack because Rodgers is out probably a month. And let’s not forget they’re also missing key guys like Randall Cobb, Clay Matthews and Jermichael Finley. Oh, and the F word’s been floating around with this team…Flynn. As in Matt. As in “Matt Flynn might be the best option to start at QB while Rodgers is out.” They might be in serious trouble.

Chicago gets the nod over Detroit because their defense is better and the Lions lack that second reliable receiver that Alshon Jeffrey has become for the Bears.

8 Carolina

I don’t think the Panthers are a worse team than their NFC South rival who happens to be one spot ahead of them on these rankings. I just think their current situation is worse. They already have three losses and they have upcoming games at San Francisco, home New England and home & away New Orleans. Football Outsiders actually has Carolina ranked as the 3rd best team in all of football. My preseason Super Bowl bet on them has me irrationally invested in their success. I think they make the playoffs for the first time in the Ron Rivera-Cam Newton era. But the #6 seed would mean a likely trip to New Orleans for the inexperienced team. Don’t see them getting farther than that.

7 New Orleans

It’s no secret this team struggles on the road. And it really doesn’t feel like they’re getting home-field advantage in the NFC. If they’re the #3 seed, they’ll get to host one playoff game before going on the road for two possible games. I still don’t buy into the defense entirely, and it seems like every week an important offensive player is getting hurt. First it was Jimmy Graham, then Marques Colston and now Darren Sproles. If everything breaks right, they’re a contender. I just don’t see everything going their way.

6 Cincinnati

The Bengals are at a fork in the road. Now that we know they might be playing in the second worst division in football, it’s up to them to pull away from those sub-.500 lurkers or end up in a dog fight to see if they can beat out the Ravens or Browns for that elusive 9-7 division-winning record. The reason I stuck them a spot below New England, despite having beaten the Patriots already, is because of the two enormous defensive injuries that they haven’t had to really deal with yet. Leon Hall and Geno Atkins are out for the year and unless Andy Dalton plays the rest of the season like he did in the month of October, chances are they’re heading towards 10-6 and a 2nd round playoff game at Denver.

5 New England

As a devout Patriots fan, it was great seeing a healthy Gronk and Amendola doing what they’re supposed to do while Tom Brady finally looked like his usual self. That was fun. But it’s not the reason I’m so bullish on this team. The defense is the reason. Yes, the defense that lost Jerod Mayo, Vince Wilfork and Tommy Kelly (Wilfork’s replacement) to season-ending injuries. And really it all rests on one player: Aqib Talib. I know the Pats are suddenly susceptible to the inside running game, but please tell me which team is going to march up and down the field ever-so slowly against New England by running for 4-5 yards at a time. This isn’t a league where a run-only team wins. You’ve gotta be able to throw, and if Talib’s healthy, this team is tough to throw on. And if that offense really is rounding into form, any team that wants to beat New England in January will have to throw a lot. Good luck to them.

4 Indianapolis

An astute observer will notice that the Colts have beaten the top three teams in my rankings, and yet here they sit at #4. Why? It’s not because I think their second half schedule’s tough or they’re due for much of a drop off (I see 11-5 as their worst case). It’s because they beat all those contenders with a healthy Reggie Wayne. I know they won in their first try without Wayne, but eventually they’re going to miss him. And once they do get to the playoffs, we’re talking about a very young team that has little to no experience playing multiple games in January/February. For that reason I have to put them as the worst of the final four.

3 Seattle

If I’m saying the NFC West juggernauts are the top teams in the conference, it would make sense to have the Seahawks ranked over the 49ers. But I’ve gone the opposite way. Seattle scares me just a tiny bit. They are very beatable on the road, and what the hell was their problem at home against Tampa Bay last week? Maybe they peaked a little early and we all just assumed they’d roll to the Super Bowl? I’ll admit that if they find a way to stay ahead of San Francisco for the division (and likely the top seed in the NFC), it’s going to be tough to beat them in January. But they won’t stay ahead of the 49ers because…

2 San Francisco

The 49ers are going to win the rest of their games! That’s right, a 13-game win streak to close out the season for San Francisco. If that happens, it’ll mean getting revenge on the Seahawks for their week 2 shellacking in San Francisco on December 8th, and a big road win in two weeks at New Orleans. The 49ers might sneaky be the best team in football. They’re getting fully healthy at the right time and they’ve just been flying under the radar, handling their business (if handling their business = winning each of their last five games by an average of 22.6 points).

1 Denver

They’re the best bet to be playing in February because they are relatively healthy compared to their closest contenders, they have more offensive weapons than almost any other team and their schedule is easy enough that 12-4 is their worst case scenario. They have road games against San Diego, New England and Kansas City coming up. Those are the only three possible losses. They’ll likely have the #1 seed in the AFC.

(Stands back, admires his work)

And that’s how you nail a power rankings column.

Week 10 picks coming up on Thursday.

Week 9 NFL Picks (And My Search For Gainful Employment)

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

old-man-crystal-ball

This is shaping up to be a shorter-than-usual picks column. I’ll pause while you scream with joy.

……………………….

………….

Done?

Awesome.

Typically I spend most of my Tuesday and Wednesday combing through NFL results, stats, analysis…anything to distract me from my pursuit of writing.

But this week I’m learning a tough lesson. And that lesson is this: Restaurant jobs are a young man’s game.

Deciding after 18 months of semi-retirement that getting some income might not be the worst idea, I spent the last few weeks debating what type of work I wanted to dabble in. The key is for that work not to take away too much time from my writing.

I have experience in only two professions…selling software and waiting tables.

Oh, make that three professions actually. Sunglass sales too.

OK fine, four professions. Library security guarding would be the fourth.

I’ve been out of the sunglass game so long I wouldn’t even know where to begin. And I haven’t seen the inside of a library in 10 years. Do they exist anymore? Didn’t the internet + Kindle + iPad + the world moving towards an uneducated majority put libraries out of business?

So that leaves two options. And I came to the realization long ago that the reason I become voluntarily unemployed for a few months every couple years is because I hate software sales so very much.

The pattern is: work at 70% effort level for three years, save money, don’t put money towards the things adults eventually need money for (house, wedding, kids, timeshare in Aruba), instead drain all that money by “taking a break from the sales career,” decide during that break that I’m never going back to sales, beg my way back into sales when the money runs dry.

Long story long, I started a job at a fancy Mexican restaurant this past Tuesday. Even though I interviewed to be a server, they start everyone off as a busser for training purposes. When I first worked in a restaurant 10 years ago, it was the same thing. But back then I had a young man’s body and energy. Back then it was a bunch of college kids socializing and flirting throughout our shifts. Back then I spent more time figuring out which waitress I was going to bend over a barrel and show the 50 states to later that night.

These past two days I’ve come home from three-hour shifts and felt like I needed to soak in one of those ice baths for 30 minutes. I can hardly walk. I dislike the thin layer of sweat, cooking oil and salsa that covers my entire body. It doesn’t feel like a bunch of college kids hanging out and planning the after-work party. It feels like adults who are actually trying to make a living. I almost threw out my back hauling a full trash barrel to the dumpster on Wednesday.

Part time restaurant jobs do not typically include benefits. Therefore if I do throw out my back, it’s going to take somewhere in the range of 15-20 shifts to make enough money to cover the costs of a chiropractor.

This is not good.

In conclusion, it turns out I don’t hate software sales that much after all.

In further conclusion, my football research time this week was spent trying to play a young man’s game. And I lost.

 

Here are the week 9 picks:

Cincinnati (-3) @ Miami

When I did my line guessing on Monday night, I had Cincinnati as a 6.5-point favorite. So you can probably guess which way I’m going in this game. Now that the Dolphins have lost four in a row to fall to 3-4 on the season, the only result that’s confusing through their first seven games is their win at Indianapolis. Don’t know how to explain that one. But wins over Cleveland and Atlanta don’t seem that good at this point, and they’ve lost home games to Baltimore (3-4) and Buffalo (3-5). They aren’t good and they’re also down an important receiver in Brandon Gibson. What am I missing? The Bengals roll, 27-16. 

Side Note: Another strike against the Dolphins’ chances on Thursday is THIS. If the prank was anything other than the rest of the O-line showing him pictures of them gang-banging his wife/girlfriend, he’s a friggen wimp and should be cut.

Atlanta @ Carolina (-7.5)

I would have loved to see Vegas still refusing to give the Panthers the respect they deserve. But alas, the Falcons have been so bad the line makers had no choice but to stretch this to more than a touchdown. I’ve placed my biggest bet of the week each of the past three weeks on a Carolina cover, and they’ve come through each time. I know my luck is going to run out sooner than later, but I just don’t want to bet against them until they face a team that actually has a chance to win. I think Cam Newton can tear up this atrocious Falcons defense. I say Carolina wins by 10….30-20 final score.

Minnesota @ Dallas (-10.5)

I’m making this pick before we even know which terrible option the Vikings are going with at quarterback on Sunday. And before we even know if Minnesota’s going to make the trip to Dallas or just forfeit the game. And I’m still picking the Vikings to cover. This Cowboys team doesn’t deserve to be this big of a favorite against anyone not named Jacksonville. And coming off that loss in Detroit…the Cowboys being the most mentally weak team I’ve ever seen. No way they cover. If Minnesota was starting someone at QB that was at least the caliber of Tim Tebow or Brady Quinn, I’d be picking them to win outright. Instead I’ll go with a Cowboys win, 24-20.

New Orleans (-6) @ NY Jets

I was hoping this line was a little bit higher so I could feel even more sure about the Jets covering. Yes, the Saints were one play away in that Patriots game from still being undefeated. And no team has lost a game by more points in 2013 than the Jets’ no-show at Cincinnati last week. I feel like people would bet on the Saints even if the line was closer to 10. But not me. I love the Jets in this game. I dare you to look at who the Saints have played so far this year and still feel like they’re a sure-thing Super Bowl contender (the combined record of the six teams the Saints have beaten this year? 16-28). On the road against a good defense (I know, I know, that “good D” just got torched for 35 points)…and don’t forget the Saints have the uglier Ryan twin. And looks are extremely important for determining who’s better just as much in football as they are in all parts of life. Give me a Jets cover, but a Saints win, 31-27.

Side Note: As I mentioned in my week 8 recap column, this Jets team might be really difficult to pin down for the rest of the year. Win one, lose one. Keep a game close, get blown out. It seems like as Geno Smith goes, so go the Jets. And rookies tend to be pretty unpredictable. A pick for or against the Jets will almost never be a confident one from me.

Tennessee (-3) @ St. Louis

This is one of those games that leaves you feeling clueless about football. Should the Titans really be favored against anyone on the road? Should the Rams be even more of an underdog because Kellen Clemens is their best option at quarterback? It’s a waste of time to try to pick this game based off of statistics and research. I’m going to say that since the Rams were able to keep their game against Seattle on Monday to a five-point loss, they will also play Tennessee close. I’m taking the Rams to cover with a 21-18 win (I’d really like to call a push here and say the Titans win in overtime, but that seems like a very specific prediction).

Kansas City (-3) @ Buffalo

This line makes no sense. The 8-0 Chiefs against the 3-5 Bills. Of course it seems like this should be a 7-point spread regardless of Kansas City being on the road. But it looks like Vegas won’t let me outsmart them this time. I’ve been picking against the Chiefs the last two weeks and even promised to keep picking against them as recently as two days ago. I was just waiting for them to be a heavy favorite so I could roll over my World Series profit on the Bills (I did actually take the Sox to win it all back in April at 30/1 odds. Hurray for me!). You know what? Screw it. I’m still taking Buffalo to cover. Here comes KC’s first loss of the season. The Bills win 27-23.

Side Note: You know dynamic runner/receiver Jamaal Charles? The guy with all the speed who you think should be able to carry the load for the Chiefs in this game? Well keep in mind Darren Sproles had 0 rushing attempts and only 4 receptions (for 0 total yards) against the Bills last week. Not saying they’re the same player, but this Bills D might be really good against guys like that.

San Diego (-1) @ Washington

This is already the fourth game of the week where we have a road team favored by three points or less. These are frustrating games to pick. In the Norv Turner era, I would have quickly taken the Redskins and moved on, mostly because I would have felt like the Chargers would be looking ahead to week 10 where they’ll be facing Denver for the first time this year. But this is not the Norv era anymore, and the Chargers have had two weeks to prepare for RGIII. And don’t forget that while San Diego was relaxing on the beach last weekend, the Skins were getting beat up against the Broncos. Let’s dub this game “The One That Caused Obnoxious Media Personalities To Start Screaming For Kirk Cousins To Be Named The Starter So RGIII Can Get Healthy For Next Year.”

San Diego wins 31-24.

Philadelphia @ Oakland (-2.5)

On Monday I saw some websites that had the Eagles actually favored by the 2.5 points. Unfortunately my gambling website hasn’t posted a line for this game all week. Probably waiting on more certainty around the Eagles’ starting QB. But if Bovada had listed the Eagles as any kind of favorite at any point this week, I would have bet so hard on Oakland. You already know that I’m sneaky in love with the Raiders so the change to them being favored in this game does nothing to my pick. I’m taking the Raiders to cover and improve that sterling record to 4-4 with a 26-21 win over the Eagles.

Tampa Bay @ Seattle (-17)

Ahh, the final game on Greg Schiano’s season-long farewell tour. It’s the polar opposite of the Mariano Rivera farewell tour. Listen, I’ve been on a team where everyone hates the guy in charge (mine was a sales team, but still). It’s a toxic atmosphere. Guys stop doing their work and instead spend most of their time trash-talking the boss. They stop paying attention to details because subconsciously they want to sabotage the entire operation. Sometimes, like in almost every season of Survivor, a team wants someone gone bad enough that they consciously throw a game/challenge/whatever to further justify that person’s ousting. The Bucs will not compete in this game. And don’t forget that the Seahawks are coming off their version of a loss…a close road win that feels like a loss but still ends up in the win column. Seattle rolls to a 38-9 win.

Baltimore (-3) @ Cleveland

I’m not taking the bait on this one. I get it, you want me to take the Browns. Lots of people are going to be taking the Browns. After all, the Ravens have already lost road games to Buffalo and Pittsburgh, both by three points. And Cleveland played the Ravens very tough at Baltimore in week 2. And Jason Campbell didn’t look “that bad” against the Chiefs last week. And both teams are under .500 so why does it make sense that the road team would be favored? But my counter is this: It’s the NFL. Just when you think you’ve got it figured out, you don’t. Oh, and Baltimore’s had two weeks to get ready for a divisional matchup that they’re very motivated to win. These next two weeks are pretty much the season for Baltimore (they host Cincinnati in week 10). I’m picking the Ravens to cover with a 23-15 win.

Pittsburgh @ New England (-7)

I got incredibly lucky picking the Patriots last week. If New England doesn’t block that field goal late in the game, it’s a push. And if the Dolphins don’t screw up another field goal early in the 2nd half, where the ball hit the upright, the Dolphins easily cover. So I should say thank you to the football gods and not take my chances on another Patriots seven-point cover until they prove to be worthy of it. New England’s injury report is still alarmingly littered with important players. Gronk got added this week with a hamstring injury. Amendola, Bolden, Edelman and Marcus Cannon were already on there for the offense. And Aqib Talib’s status remains a mystery. Even if New England plays its best game of the year, this is ripe for a backdoor cover by the Steelers. I see the Patriots winning, but only by four. 27-23 is the call.

Indianapolis (-2.5) @ Houston

Ummmmmm….only 2.5? Is that real? And why isn’t it available on my gambling site so I can bet all of last week’s winnings + the Red Sox money + the cash advance I’m going to add to my balance later today? You want to tell me Reggie Wayne’s absence is going to hurt the Colts? Fine, but what about the fact that both Arian Foster and Ben Tate might miss this game? This Houston team is nothing without its running game. And Gary Kubiak’s worried enough about his running back tandem that he signed three free agent RBs this week just in case. This is not a trap game for the Colts as they literally have no difficult competition on the horizon (next 4 games: St. Louis, Tennessee, Arizona, Tennessee). And Indy’s already proved they can win on the road when they handled San Francisco earlier this year. Please let this game show up on Bovada with the current spread that I’m seeing on other sites. I could forego all restaurant and sales jobs if I can just get money down on this line now. I’m clearly taking Indianapolis by a score of 31-20.

Chicago @ Green Bay (-11)

I spent a solid 20 minutes looking for some logical reason to pick the Bears in this game. I’ve already picked enough favorites this week, including one double-digit favorite in Seattle. I want to go underdog here, but there’s just no statistical evidence that Chicago will put up a fight. Even with Jay Cutler the Packers have pretty much owned Chicago in Green Bay over the past five years. And you may have heard that they won’t have Cutler this time around. My only concern is the backdoor cover, but just like Aaron Rodgers was motivated last week to put up an extra score or two because of the Greg Jennings trash talk and playing a divisional rival, so too will he be motivated against their biggest rival in the Bears. Let’s ignore the backdoor potential and say Green Bay covers with a 36-20 win.

 

For those of you keeping score at home, in week 9 I’m taking:

  • 8 Favorites & 5 Underdogs
  • Of those 5 Underdogs, 3 are Home Dogs & 2 are Road Dogs

Now if you’ll excuse me, day three of the great restaurant experiment is calling.

Enjoy week 9.

Week 7 NFL Recap: The Good, The Bad and The Spilled Wine

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

calvin johnson catch

What a polarizing weekend of football.

In the “holy shit, what an amazing Sunday” department: Seven of the 13 games yesterday came down to a final minute score or failed game-winning drive. If you’re a betting man, you can add three more games to that list of excitement as the covers for three big favorites were in doubt until the very end (Atlanta, Carolina and Green Bay). So really we only had three games that didn’t register on the overstimulation meter (Dallas over Philadelphia, San Diego over Jacksonville and San Francisco over Tennessee). And the whole thing was capped off by one of the best games of the year when Indianapolis held on to beat Peyton Manning and the Broncos. A great, great weekend of football.

Or was it?

In the “holy shit, what a terrible Sunday for the NFL” department: Way too many players suffered season-ending/long term injuries. Sam Bradford is done for the year in St. Louis (and possibly done forever for that particular team). Jay Cutler could be done for a while in Chicago (like Bradford, he’s a free agent after the season, terrible timing). Nick Foles is the only one of these three QBs who suffered a possible concussion, but he might be the only one not out for the season. Either way Philly is screwed if Matt Barkley spends any time as their starter. Doug Martin and Arian Foster are causing fantasy football owners everywhere to hold their breath as we wait for word on the severity of their injuries (UPDATE: I just turned on the NFL Network and saw that Marin has a torn labrum and is done for the year). Poor Brian Cushing is out for the season for the second consecutive year with a knee injury. The Colts probably felt like their huge win over Denver was bittersweet as news spread late last night/early this morning that Reggie Wayne might have a torn ACL (UPDATE: I’m also seeing now that the torn ACL is confirmed. Welcome to infirmary Monday). And worst of all…Jermichael Finley is in an intensive care unit with a neck injury as I write this. He took a vicious hit to the head in the Packers’ win over Cleveland. He also suffered a concussion in week 3. You’ve got to figure he’s out for the year.

And the lone overtime game of the weekend was marred by a controversial penalty that put the Jets in position to knock off the Patriots (This is not me saying the penalty was incorrect, just that it looks bad for the NFL to have a game end in such a questionable way…more on this below).

Football giveth and football taketh away…

It seems every year that most of the 32 NFL teams get leveled by injuries at one point of the season or another. If you got to choose for your team, you’d obviously pick for them to suffer key injuries in the preseason or early in the regular season rather than mid-to-late season.

Some examples of teams that started the year with key players missing (or lost them early in the season) and are just now getting them back healthy: Seattle (Bruce Irvin, Chris Clemons, Percy Harvin), Buffalo (the entire secondary it seems, and Stevie Johnson), Denver (Champ Bailey, Von Miller), Baltimore (Jacoby Jones, Ray Rice).

Some examples of teams that have only recently been decimated by injuries: Green Bay (Randall Cobb, James Jones, Finley, Clay Matthews), Chicago (even if Cutler is the only one, their season is ruined), Atlanta (Julio Jones is the new one, Roddy White, Steven Jackson and Sean Weatherspoon are the lingering injuries from earlier in the year), New England (Vince Wilfork, Jerod Mayo, Aqib Talib, Danny Amendola, Shane Vereen), Houston (Matt Schaub, Cushing, possibly Foster and Ben Tate).

Most of those teams I just listed were legitimate playoff and even Super Bowl contenders. Unfortunately, like every year, injuries will play a major part in determining which team will be hoisting the Lombardi Trophy on February 2nd, 2014.

 

I’ve been patiently giving teams the benefit of the doubt for seven weeks, but it’s time to eliminate a handful of this year’s disappointments from playoff contention. If you remember back to weeks 9 and 10 from last season, I incorrectly wrote that Washington and Cincinnati were two teams with no shot at the playoffs. They both rallied in major ways to make me look bad (as if we needed more examples of my terrible NFL predictions). It wouldn’t surprise me if one or more of the following teams does the same thing this year. But let’s take a stab at it anyway:

AFC

Jacksonville

Why? At 0-7 it’s pretty self-explanatory, but let’s go with…because they haven’t scored a friggen touchdown at home yet this season. Seriously, they have three field goals and a safety to their credit through three home games.

Houston

Why? Because at 2-5, they can only lose two more games to have a chance at the playoffs. They still have two games against Indianapolis and one each against Denver and New England. With injuries at quarterback as well as to both running backs and key linebacker Cushing, it’s doubtful that they’ll be able to win any of those four games.

Buffalo

Why? Their next three games are @New Orleans, home vs Kansas City and @Pittsburgh. They also have to go to New England in week 17. With EJ Manuel out for a little while longer, there’s no reason to think they’ll win any of those games. That means 8-8 is their best case scenario.

Cleveland

Why? Because by running Brandon Weeden out there week after week, they are basically admitting they’re not interested in competing this year. That’s not to say they’d be a Super Bowl contender without Weeden, but they’re good enough to maybe squeak out 9 or 10 wins in that division if anyone else with a pulse was playing QB.

Team I’m not eliminating yet that might surprise you: Oakland

Why? Yes, they’re 2-4. Yes, they were projected to be the worst team in football. But they’re not really playing that bad. And their QB situation is in much better shape than a lot of other teams. Oakland’s upcoming schedule after their bye looks like this: home Pittsburgh, home Philly, @Giants, @Houston, home Tennessee. What if they go 4-1 in those games? Anyone can beat the Giants in New Jersey right now, and Houston is falling apart quickly. It’s a long shot, but I’ll wait a couple more weeks before I write them off.

NFC

Tampa Bay

Why? Because their coach is probably getting fired after week 9. Because Mike Glennon is their QB. Because even if they magically become competent after their 0-6 start, they still have dates with Carolina (twice), Seattle, San Francisco and New Orleans.

Atlanta

Why? Julio and Roddy. They just can’t compete with the good NFC teams due to key injuries. There are at least four more losses on their schedule, which puts them at 8-8 in a best case scenario.

NY Giants

Why? After tonight they’ll either be 1-6 or 0-7. There’s just no coming back from that hole.

Minnesota

Why? I’m counting on the Vikings being 1-5 after they lose to the Giants tonight, but even if they win that game, they’ve still got games against Green Bay (twice), @Dallas, @Seattle, @Baltimore and @Cincinnati. Without consulting the numbers, I’d be willing to guess they have the hardest schedule in the NFL from now through the end of the year.

Chicago

Why? This team was already worse than its 4-3 record showed before Cutler apparently suffered a serious groin injury on Sunday. The defense is terrible. If they’re going forward with the Josh McCown/Jordan Palmer combo at QB, they’re beyond done.

St. Louis

Why? They weren’t likely to make the playoffs with a healthy Bradford. Now that his season is over? They might be one of the worst teams in football going forward.

Team I’m not eliminating yet that might surprise you: Arizona

Why? They’re the Cleveland of the NFC. Good talent on defense and special teams but a QB/O-line combo that’s holding them back. But the schedule might break right for them. They’re actually OK at home and they still get to host Atlanta, Houston, Indianapolis, St. Louis and San Francisco (in week 17 when the 49ers could be resting). Let’s say they go 3-2 in those games. Their remaining road games are Jacksonville, Philly, Tennessee and Seattle. All but the Seahawks could be in shambles by the time Arizona gets to them. What if they go 3-1 in those games? By my math, that’s a 9-7 record for the Cardinals. I know, I know, I should have just put them on the eliminated list and written “Carson Palmer.” But having a wild imagination is so much more fun.

This means the AFC has 12 teams fighting for six playoff spots, and the NFC has only 10 teams fighting for the same amount. Aren’t you glad we went through that useless exercise?

 

Going into the 2013 season you could have argued the following coaches were on the hot seat:

Rex Ryan

Ron Rivera

Jim Schwartz

Jason Garrett

Mike Munchak

Greg Schiano

Here’s what that hot seat list looks like after 7 weeks:

Gary Kubiak – Probably more of a warm seat here. He did just lead this team to 12 wins last season and back-to-back playoff appearances. But it looked like the Texans were heading for a rough season regardless of health. Now that Matt Schaub is missing time, Cushing’s out for the year, and their running backs are banged up, the heat is off Kubiak because he’s not playing with a full deck.

Gus Bradley – Another warm seat more so than a hot seat. Typically a first year coach who was hired into an obvious rebuilding situation wouldn’t sniff the hot seat. But if the Jaguars go 0-16 and never score a touchdown in a home game? The organization might want to distance itself from 2013 as much as possible.

Tom Coughlin – A room temperature seat. Two Super Bowl Championships and possibly the most injured roster in the league gives him the leeway to lead this team to an utter disaster in 2013 without ownership relieving him of his duties.

Leslie Frazier – Lukewarm. I have no idea what ownership thinks of Frazier’s coaching skills. I have no idea what I think of those skills because he’s been hamstrung with Christian Ponder for the past couple years. Since I don’t hear any rumors in the media, I’m going to assume he’ll be given another chance in 2014.

Greg Schiano – BURNING HOT SEAT! THIRD DEGREE BURNS ON HIS ASS! I mentioned above that he might get fired after week 9. Why that specific spot on the schedule? Because I think the last straw comes when they lose at home to Carolina on Thursday. But you don’t want an interim coach’s first game at the helm to be at Seattle, which is where the Bucs play in week 9. So after Tampa falls to 0-8 with an embarrassing loss in Seattle, Schiano gets the pink slip. Part of me is excited to be right about this, part of me is sad that his foolishness will be out of our lives at least temporarily.

So if you’re keeping score at home, Schiano is the only coach to make the preseason hot seat list and the current hot seat list. What’s most exciting to me is that Josh Freeman was jettisoned from the Bucs because Schiano wanted to get his own guy, Mike Glennon, in as the starter. When a new full-time head coach takes over next year and ultimately drafts a QB in May, will Glennon suffer the same fate as Freeman?

Let’s quickly empty out the week 7 notebook:

  • During Thursday night’s broadcast of Seattle’s win at Arizona, the NFL Network guys mentioned that the Cardinals’ athletic trainer is retiring after this week, ending a lengthy career as the team’s trainer. Is that a really weird time to retire from your job? Or is it normal for trainers of sports teams to retire midseason? Did he see the direction this season is going for Arizona and decide he wants out before the shit hits the fan? I’d like someone to tell me if this is normal or not.
  • It seems like every Sunday morning a near-disaster almost causes me to miss the start of the early games. Last year my puppy suddenly came down with a severe flea infestation just one hour before week 1’s kickoff. Twice this year my internet went down about 30 minutes before kickoff (setting fantasy lineups and placing bets gets difficult without internet). Well yesterday the disaster was self-inflicted. My dog was laying on my bed. I decided to be funny and throw a blanket over her. As the blanket was in the air, I noticed a full glass of wine sitting on my nightstand. The blanket obviously knocked the glass over…except it was one of those stemless glasses, so rather than just fall onto the ground, the glass started spinning around on the nightstand, splattering red wine all over the bedroom. I’m talking on the walls, in the closet, all over my girlfriend’s clothes, on every piece of furniture in the room, and even on the dog. This resulted in a 30-minute cleanup effort that almost forced me to have to choose between hunting down a breakfast burrito and catching the opening of the Patriots game. I need to start waking up earlier to account for these interruptions.
  • I love watching good football, but a close second for me is seeing completely inept football. You can imagine I loved the opening 10 minutes of the early games on Sunday since we got opening drives across the league that resulted in two Pick-Sixes (Ryan Tannehill and Sam Bradford) and a Fumble-Six (Mike Glennon).
  • Pick-Sixes would rule the day as Geno Smith, Tom Brady and Jay Cutler would all join in on the fun.
  • This week’s example of football making no sense on a week-by-week basis: It took nearly 42 minutes of game time on Sunday for the first points to be scored in the Dallas-Philadelphia game. Going into week 7, Dallas had the 8th-ranked offense and 21st-ranked defense. Philadelphia had the 2nd-ranked offense and 30th-ranked defense. This should have been a shootout, except football makes no sense.
  • I’m going to take the high road on the ending of that Patriots-Jets game. It sounds to me like the rule actually exists and the referee called it as the rule book states. But I saw several reporters mention that the NFL recently circulated video to the refs showing that they were repeatedly missing this call. The refs were on high alert, and the Patriots were just unlucky to be the first team to commit the infraction under the heightened scrutiny. And really, what are we arguing about? If I played a game of 1-on-1 basketball against a four-year-old right now, and I was called for a foul at the end of the game that A). was a bullshit foul, and B). resulted in that four-year-old pulling off the win, I would look ridiculous blaming the entire thing on that one foul. Why is the toddler within one basket of me when I should be absolutely dominating him? That’s a perfect comparison to that game.
  • The Patriots clearly win my Vitriol Award of the Week. Especially the 2nd and 3rd quarters when they had chance after chance to stretch the lead to 18 or 21 points.
  • It was with 1:30 left in the 3rd quarter, when the Jets took a six-point lead, that I uttered these words for the first time in my life: “I wanna quit watching football forever.”
  • Still looking for a silver lining to that game, Pats fans? Well for long stretches of last night’s game against Indy, the Broncos’ offense looked as bad as the Patriots’. Yes, even the record-setting Broncos, with a mostly healthy offense, can look terrible.
  • Jim Irsay’s comments, the tribute to Peyton Manning while he was warming up, having the roof open (which they never do)…you gotta give Indy credit. They weren’t shy at all about going to great lengths to throw Manning off his game.
  • Speaking of the Colts…I was screwing around on my betting website on Saturday night and noticed their odds to win the Super Bowl were still 20/1. I immediately put a few bucks down on them to win it all. Call it a hunch, call it financial irresponsibility…all I know is that as of this morning, their odds are down to 14/1. If Andrew Luck stays healthy, this is an 11-5 team at worst. And very possibly the #2 seed in the AFC.
  • This week’s “semi-amazing cover”: I had Houston as a 7-point underdog. They’re down by 1 with the ball on their own 5-yard line with under two minutes to play. Case Keenum gets strip sacked by a Kansas City defender who grabs the ball and rolls to the 1-yard line. He’s barely touched by a Houston player so he’s down at the 1. My first thought is, “Fuck, from the 1-yard line they’ll probably still punch it in because what else are you gonna do from that spot on the field?” And then I realize scoring a touchdown gives the Texans the ball back and it would still be a one score game. Three kneel downs by Alex Smith later and I’m a slightly richer man. Thank you, gambling gods.
  • Oh, but my record for the week sits at 6-8, another disappointing set of picks. Bite me, gambling gods.

Week 8 picks coming on Thursday.

Week 5 NFL Recap: The End Of Many Eras

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

eli manning face

Week 5 in the NFL may go down as the week that marked the end of several eras.

Consider the following:

  • If Gary Kubiak benches Matt Schaub sometime in the next couple weeks, people will point to his past two performances as the beginning of the end. There was the game-changing pick-six in Houston’s loss to Seattle in week 4, immediately followed by Texans fans lighting Schaub’s jersey on fire. And then he follows that up with a three-interception (including another pick-six) performance against San Francisco last night. That’s now nine interceptions on the year for Schaub, including an unthinkable four straight games with a pick-six. T.J. Yates may get a shot to start after the Texans’ week 8 bye if Schaub struggles in his next two starts.
  • Yesterday was the official end of a short-lived era in which we all thought the 2013 Oakland Raiders would be the worst team in football. The combination of Jacksonville losing perhaps their one winnable game by 14 points and the Raiders getting their record to 2-3 in a very good showing against San Diego means Oakland most certainly will not be picking 1st in the 2014 draft. They might not even be picking in the top 5 if Terrelle Pryor continues to look like one of the 18 best QBs in the NFL.
  • The Christian-Ponder-as-a-starter era came to an abrupt end even though the Vikings didn’t play this weekend. With the news that Minnesota has signed Josh Freeman to a one-year deal, Ponder will be relegated to backup status as soon as he’s healthy enough. There’s no way they brought in Freeman and are paying him $3 million this year just to have him sit on the bench.
  • This also spells the end of Matt Cassel’s brief starting career in Minnesota, where he  beat Pittsburgh in London in his one start. As soon as Freeman’s ready, he’s the starter.
  • With Seattle’s first loss of the season in Indianapolis yesterday, it marked the end of the “Seahawks as the NFC favorite” era. That title now belongs to the undefeated New Orleans Saints, as it should. With New Orleans and Seattle looking like the class of the NFC and both teams relying heavily on their distinct home field advantages, suddenly their looming week 13 matchup in Seattle is HUGE. When it’s all said and done, plenty of other games for each team could factor into where they end up in the playoff standings, but no game between two powerhouse teams seems more important than that one.
  • Denver’s win in Dallas marked the end of two eras. First there was the end of an era that started way back in 2006…the era in which we try to use logic and reason to figure out why Tony Romo is so unlucky (or unclutch if you want to call it that). After yesterday’s 500-yard, five-touchdown performance where he was nearly perfect gets overshadowed by another game-ending interception, I think it’s safe to say science and numbers will never be able to explain why he is the way he is. I caught two minutes of a random documentary on TV the other day where a guy being interviewed said he was struck by lightning as a kid and then happened to be in the World Trade Center both when it was bombed in the 1990s and when it was attacked again on 9/11. Some unluckiness in life just can’t be explained. And I feel like Romo is just like the guy in the documentary. He can do everything right from a football perspective for 59 minutes, but when there’s an opportunity for tragedy to happen, he’ll be there.
  • The other end in that game was the end of Denver’s perceived invincibility. It might take perfection from the other team, but they can be beat. One way to do it is to score 50 points, which Dallas came oh-so-close to doing. And maybe another team will come up with a more defense-oriented approach to beating the Broncos. Remember the 2011 Packers and their undefeated season? They had scored 30 or more points in nine of their first 13 games on their way to a 13-0 record, but in week 15, the Chiefs beat them 19-14. So maybe Denver has that type of game coming. Regardless of how it’s done, someone will beat them this year.
  • Going way back to Thursday for a minute, I think it’s safe to say we saw the end of the “Cleveland as a surprise playoff team” era…which is weird because they won that game by 13 and share the division lead with a 3-2 record. But c’mon, with Brian Hoyer out for the season and Brandon Weeden forced back into the starting QB roll, it’s just a matter of time before the wheels come off. Maybe if Baltimore and Cincinnati had lost yesterday to give the Browns a one-game cushion, but no…Cleveland’s next five games are: Detroit, at Green Bay, at Kansas City, Baltimore, at Cincinnati. I love this team like it’s my own, but they’re fucked.
  • And finally, it’s probably the end of the era where Giants fans would say stupid things like “You can’t spell elite without E-L-I.” Manning captures the rare three-interception, three-intentional grounding combo with his performance on Sunday. This football blogger’s hoping a few weeks from now Giants fans are coming up with clever ways to say “you can’t spell elite without Curtis Painter.”

Let’s go ahead and empty out the notebook from the weekend in football:

  • Poor baseball. On Thursday night, this was the order of sports-watching priority for me: 1). Browns vs Bills, 2). The Boston Bruins season opener, 3). The LA Kings season opener, 4). Baseball playoff game. Unless it’s a Red Sox game, baseball playoffs are prioritized just above an MLS game but below almost any other sporting event I can find on TV.
  • I’d be willing to bet that by the time the 2015 season comes around, Thursday night football will either be gone entirely or will be structured in a way that only teams coming off their bye week will play in those games. It wasn’t the freak knee injuries to both QBs during the Thursday game that got me thinking that, it was THESE COMMENTS from Ed Reed and Arian Foster that did it. As more and more players complain about what the four-day turnaround potentially might do to their health, I just think the NFL won’t have a choice if they want to keep pretending they care about player safety.
  • If the Browns do somehow make the playoffs, it’ll be the second year in a row where a team has “publicly given up on the season” only to begrudgingly make the playoffs. Remember that last year Mike Shanahan said the Redskins were playing just so they could evaluate players for the 2013 season, and then they rattled off seven straight wins to get to the postseason. This year the trade of Trent Richardson and insertion of Brian Hoyer into the starting lineup seemed to signal the end of the competitive portion of the Browns season.
  • So Green Bay was playing at home, coming off a bye, against a divisional opponent they historically own, and that opponent’s best player was out with an injury…and the Packers managed only two trips into the red zone the entire day? They had to make five field goals as they couldn’t get the ball anywhere near the end zone? What’s up with this team? More specifically, what’s up with Aaron Rodgers, greatest QB in the game? His offense is healthy, has all his weapons he was expecting going into the year, not facing a lockdown defense by any stretch…I can’t figure the Packers or their quarterback out.
  • When Jacksonville took a 7-0 lead on St. Louis yesterday, I got ready to text all the people in my Suicide Pool who took the Rams and act as if I was a huge Jaguars fan. But I couldn’t type as quickly as Blaine Gabbert could throw a 30-yard pass into an area of the field where there was exactly ZERO Jaguars receivers and four Rams defenders. That interception late in the 2nd quarter made me realize there was no way the Rams were losing as long as Gabbert was in. And even though Gabbert eventually came out with an injury, Jacksonville coach Gus Bradley couldn’t get to the press conference podium quick enough after the game to let everyone know that when he’s healthy, he’s the starter. Hey, Gus, most coaches who are trying to tank the season use a little more tact and discretion when it comes to their self-sabotaging methods.
  • A few years ago me and a group of friends decided instead of organizing a game of football among all of us, we’d organize a mini skills competition. We setup a 40-yard dash and used our iPhones to time each person running. We practiced punting the ball. And we even practiced trying to down a punt on the 1-yard line (always fun to see 30-year-old men diving to save the ball from going into a fictitious end zone). I have a new component to the obscure football skills challenge: trying to catch a pass as a 200-pound man jumps on you piggyback style. In the Patriots-Bengals game yesterday, A.J. Green made a catch over the middle while Aqib Talib hopped on for a piggyback. Talib’s feet were off the ground entirely so Green was dragging around Talib’s entire weight. Green didn’t even break stride or seem to notice another full-sized human on him as he completed the catch. I want to see my friends try this.
  • Even though we all know fantasy football is a crapshoot, that doesn’t make it any less painful when our team sucks for reasons beyond our control. I thought I drafted a good team in a league I’m in with a lot of my college friends, but my RBs happened to be Ray Rice and Steven Jackson. I also had Ahmad Bradshaw as a backup RB. When they all got injured and my record fell to 0-3, I decided to shake things up and play for some keepers next year while still making somewhat of an effort this year. I made two trades before week 4 that netted me Michael Vick, Lamar Miller, Le’Veon Bell and David Wilson. It looked like I might get my first win this week right up until both Vick and Wilson left the Giants-Eagles game with injuries. Some years you can pull all the right strings and still end up on the wrong side of an 0-13 regular season record. At least that’s what I’ll be telling myself for the next eight weeks.
  • Here’s everything you need to know about the state of the New England offense: Losing 13-3 with 6:30 left in the 4th quarter and the offense in a goal-to-go situation, Tom Brady’s best option for scoring a touchdown was throwing the ball to offensive lineman (turned tight end for one play) Nate Solder? Yikes.
  • I’m pretty sure the 2013 Carolina Panthers are the bizarro 2012 Indianapolis Colts. Stat nerds hated the Colts last year because the numbers said they should have been much worse than what their record was. They made the playoffs in spite of those people warning us that they weren’t very good. This year’s Panthers team is beloved by stat heads so far, and those people will continue to tout the Panthers as a team we should be betting on because “they’re better than their record says.” But they just keep finding ways to lose. They have that losing touch. Watch them go 5-11 but have the 13th best team according to Football Outsider’s DVOA. It’s gonna happen so make sure you don’t bet on them just because a really smart person says you should.
  • How amazing is it that the Oakland Raiders are currently in better shape when it comes to their starting quarterback (both in the present and for the near future) than all these teams: Jacksonville, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, Arizona, St. Louis (maybe), Minnesota and Tennessee (at least until Locker comes back). That seemed inconceivable just five weeks ago.
  • On Sunday night I read that Tennessee reached out to JaMarcus Russell earlier in the week. Do you think Ryan Fitzpatrick’s performance on Sunday (51% completion rate, 1 TD, 2 INT, 57.7 passer rating) makes Tennessee ownership more likely or less likely to try Russell’s cell phone one more time?
  • Parity, parity, parity. We hear it every year. But maybe it really has arrived finally. After Monday night’s game between Atlanta and the Jets, we’ll have 24 teams whose record is 2-3 or better. At this stage in the season, 2-3 is nowhere near out of it. When it comes to the teams that truly have no hope for the playoffs this year, you can only be certain about two: Tampa Bay and Jacksonville. Believe it or not, the Giants and Steelers are each only two games out of first place in their division. This is shaping up to be very interesting and confusing at the same time.
  • As for my week 5 picks, I’m 7-6 going into the Monday night game. In a fair world I’d consider myself 7-5 against the spread with the Detroit-Green Bay game not counting since I picked the Lions on Thursday when no one was talking about Calvin Johnson missing the game. Regardless, an Atlanta cover tonight will give me a second solid week in a row. Things are starting to feel back on track.

Week 6 picks coming on Thursday. Stay tuned.

NFL Week 5 Picks Against The Spread

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

old-man-crystal-ball

Well that was quick. Just a week after many of us wondered what would take the place of Breaking Bad in our post-football Sunday night TV schedule, we have an answer. No, not Homeland or Eastbound & Down (though I will eventually catch up on both shows). And no, the answer is definitely not “turn the TV off and spend quality time with the family.”

The answer, it turns out, is more football. What a power move by Roger Goodell. He saw an opening in our collective schedules and attention spans, and he filled it.

Sure, it looks like the best he could come up with this week is San Diego at Oakland, which probably won’t be an aesthetically pleasing experience, but now we can legitimately watch 14 hours of non-stop football this Sunday. Man, that feels good to type. (In case this news flew under the radar for you, this game got moved from 4:25pm EST to 11:35pm EST because of a “scheduling conflict” with the Oakland A’s.)

And you know Goodell’s not done, either. Next week I fully expect a statement from the NFL saying they’re moving the Patriots/Saints game to a 10:30pm EST kickoff out of respect for the unfortunate New England fans who have tickets to both the Pats game and game 2 of the ALCS at Fenway on Sunday. And on and on it’ll go because Roger knows we will watch football whenever he decides to show it.

Did you know that exactly one football team shares its stadium with a baseball team? You’re telling me someone couldn’t have thought ahead to October and the one stadium that might cause a scheduling conflict? They couldn’t have planned for this? That’s ridiculous. And how long does it really take to get the field ready for football? Because they already would have had a minimum of 15 hours after the A’s game ended to get everything in order if they kept the football game at its original time.

But why am I complaining? Someone’s ineptitude is leading to more football. Fine by me.

Speaking of Bay Area football, did you know that Jim Harbaugh openly talked about jizz in a news conference last week? I’ll spare you the potential embarrassment of your wife, girlfriend or mom finding “Jim Harbaugh jizz” in your google search history and provide you the link HERE. I’ve got nothing more on that. I just thought it was a must-mention because how often does a person mention jizz in a non-jizzy context?

One more random Bay Area football tidbit you ask? Fine, here it is. Remember when we thought Matt Flynn’s life couldn’t get any worse after losing out on starting jobs that were catered to him in back-to-back years? Well he’s now officially the Raiders’ third string QB, behind Terrelle Pryor, and…..drum roll please, Matthew McGloin! Who? Matthew McGloin, an undrafted rookie out of Penn State who’s obviously never taken an NFL snap. In one sense Flynn’s life isn’t so bad because he’s getting paid a guaranteed $6.5 million over the next two years. But in another sense, the guy’s NFL career is effectively over, right? I guess being Aaron Rodgers’ understudy for four years doesn’t guarantee you a successful career like being Tom Brady’s understudy does.

Jesus Christ, why is there so much random news out of the two northern California teams this week. Last one for real. San Francisco defensive back Donte Whitner is apparently dropping the “W” in his last name so it reads “Hitner” because he’s so sick and tired of being fined for dangerous hits. Have you ever heard of two things less correlated with one another than him changing his name and the discipline he receives from the league? Personally I would have gone full heal and changed it to “Hitler”. Or maybe something completely dorky like swapping the “T” and the “N” so it would be Whinter, and then he could say he’s the guy who puts the game on ice or something. I don’t know, just spitballing here. Anyway, the guy sounds like a major douche.

If Sunday’s football schedule looks strangely amazing, that’s because it is. You can make the case that four of the worst teams in football are on byes (Minnesota, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay and Washington…combined record = 2-14) while two other semi-uninteresting teams are playing on Thursday (Buffalo at Cleveland) and one more hideous team plays on Monday night (the Jets). Taking out seven of the least interesting teams from Sunday’s slate seems like goodness for us. I’m willing to say there are 8.5 very interesting games on Sunday.

Let’s get on to the money-making for the weekend. If you were waiting for me to have a good week before starting to back my bets, welcome to the start of your gambling season. I went 9-5-1 last week, bringing my season total to….24-35-4. Baby steps.

Buffalo @ Cleveland (-4)

If this wasn’t a Thursday night game, I’d be so confident in the Browns it would border on overconfidence. The Bills aren’t good, and we won’t know until game time whether or not their top handful of defensive backs will play (not to mention C.J. Spiller is a game-time decision). And of course it’s important not to get too high on the Browns just yet because, after all, they’re the Browns. And these Thursday games have a way of being ugly, low-scoring affairs. But I’m still taking Cleveland to cover, winning 23-14. I’m pinning my hopes on those DBs for the Bills not playing, in which case Josh Gordon and Cameron Jordan will have a field day.

Side Note: If this was a Sunday game, I’d be taking Cleveland as my suicide pick. I like this team that much.

Kansas City (-3) at Tennessee

Here’s how much confidence I have in Ryan Fitzpatrick: When I was guessing the lines of each game earlier in the week, I predicted the Chiefs would be 10-point favorites, even though they’re on the road and facing a 3-1 Titans team. I’ll admit 10 is probably aggressive and I’m much more comfortable picking the Chiefs by a field goal. Their pass rush seems legit, and I’ve seen how Fitzpatrick operates under pressure from his time with the Bills. It’s not going to be pretty. If you want to make the case for the Titans, I guess you pin your hopes to the Chiefs not yet proving much on the road? They beat Jacksonville by 26 on the road in week 1, which doesn’t count as a real game, and then they beat the Eagles in Philly by 10 in week 3, but that was with the assistance of 73 Eagles turnovers. So we still don’t know about Kansas City on the road against a competitive team. But I’m not falling for it. Give me the Chiefs to win, 20-13.

Baltimore @ Miami (-3)

Miami’s loss to the Saints on Monday night was a blowout, but it wasn’t in the same vein as the way Jacksonville got destroyed by Seattle a couple weeks ago, or the way Jacksonville got pummeled by Indy last week (or the way Jacksonville will probably lose by triple digits in Denver 10 days from now). It was competitive for the Dolphins for a while, and better execution on one or two plays probably would have kept it close. But the Saints had too many dynamic offensive options (Darren Sproles and Jimmy Graham specifically), and a pretty vicious pass rush on Ryan Tannehill. That’s how you’re beating Miami this year. So do the Ravens have those components? Yes and no. Defensively they still get after the QB pretty consistently and their run defense is top 10. But where the Saints are dynamic and dangerous on offense, the Ravens are…whatever the opposite of those words are. Inflexible and safe? This is a tough call, but I’m thinking Baltimore’s one of those teams just like the Giants, when you think you’ve got ‘em figured out, you don’t. Going against my gut here and picking Baltimore to cover and win, 31-27.

Jacksonville @ St. Louis (-11.5)

Here come the back-to-back weeks where you’ll be picking the Jaguars to cover despite how terrible they are. But while the Jags are openly bad, the Rams are in-the-closet bad. They just lost their last two games by a combined 48 points, including a Thursday nighter where every team keeps it close. A big part of me wants to take Jacksonville to win outright, and if Chad Henne was starting, I would. But I don’t have the balls to think Blaine Gabbert can pull out a win on the road. Of course Jacksonville covers, but the Rams win, 30-24.

Side Note: Two weeks ago I planned ahead for the Suicide Pool and I marked down St. Louis as my pick for this week. But now, no fucking way. Don’t blow it on what could be Jacksonville’s only win of the year.

New England @ Cincinnati (-2)

The beauty of what was happening with the Patriots this season is that I actually stopped caring two weeks ago when Rob Gronkowski and Danny Amendola would return. I know they’d be a huge help on offense, of course, but the defense was playing so well that it really didn’t matter what was happening with the receivers. That all changed when Vince Wilfork went down with the season-ending injury. Now we should be concerned about the D over the long term. Eventually the offense might have to pick up the slack. Is Cincy the team that bursts this fun, unexpected 4-0 bubble?

I can tell you betting on the Pats for the rest of the year is going to go one of two ways. Either they really are that good of a team and we’re all going to profit off these spreads that have them as underdogs or slight favorites when facing decent teams, or they’re not that good and we’re going to struggle all year long trying to figure them out. For this week, I’m going with the more ideal (from a Pats fan standpoint) scenario and picking the Patriots to win, 27-23.

Seattle (-3) @ Indianapolis

The Seahawks’ offense has scored 28 total points in their two road wins this year. It’s no secret that they’re a very different team away from Seattle. But the Colts nearly lost to Oakland at home, then actually lost to Miami at home before winning big in back-to-back road games. Since one of those blowout wins was Jacksonville, I have no idea what to make of this team still. I can tell you that Indy’s run defense blows. So even if Russell Wilson and the pass game struggles, Marshawn Lynch might have a huge day. If this line was a half point higher, I’d definitely be taking the Colts. But it’s not so I’m not. Seattle covers and wins, 26-20.

Detroit @ Green Bay (-7)

I hate picking games early in the year when it involves a team that already had a bye. I feel like we know nothing about the Packers. They’re 1-2. They’ve played a good team, a decent team and a bad team. A fluky loss against that decent team, Cincinnati, is the difference between 2-1 and 1-2. But their pass defense seems to legitimately suck still. And very quietly, Detroit has turned into a possible contender. Their defense is finally playing well, their offense has more options than ever before under Matt Stafford, and the combination of Jim Schwartz and Ndamukong Suh surprisingly hasn’t cost the Lions any games yet. I fully expect Green Bay to win this game because it’s at home, they’ve had two weeks to prepare and they’re something like 15-1 against Detroit over the past eight years. But my very specific prediction for this game is that the Lions will hold a lead late in the 4th quarter, won’t be able to run out the clock, and the Packers will march down the field and win the game, 37-34…meaning Detroit covers.

New Orleans (-1) @ Chicago

I actually thought the Bears would be a slight favorite only because the Saints haven’t been tested on the road yet this year. Their one win away from the Superdome was against Tampa. Chicago, meanwhile, is 2-0 at home. What we’ve got in this game is a Saints offense that excels at passing and sucks at running going against a Bears defense that’s great against the run and bad against the pass. On the flip side, the Bears’ offensive running game is great and the Saints run defense is horrific. Hmm…

I’ve been resistant to jump on the Saints bandwagon, but if there’s one more seat available, I’ll gladly take it. I can’t get over the fact that Chicago squeaked out home wins against the Bengals and Vikings and now an offense that’s firing on all cylinders (can there be a “firing on more than all cylinders”?) is coming to town. I think Bears fans appropriately lower their expectations on this team after Sunday because the Saints win 31-24.

Philadelphia @ NY Giants (-3)

How in the hell is New York favored in this game, right? Well, because outside of beating up on the comatose Redskins in week 1, the Eagles have been nearly as bad as the Giants…or at least it appears that way. But to the Eagles’ credit, they have faced two of the better teams in the AFC (Kansas City and Denver) as well as a frisky AFC team (San Diego). As much as I’d like Eli Manning’s time as an effective QB to be over, I don’t think that’s the case. I’m always going to be slightly scared of the Giants’ ability to randomly put up a 450-yard passing game and 30+ points. But Chip Kelly will play to his team’s greatest strength in this game, running the ball over and over again. Or, I should say, he better play that way. Run all over the Giants and keep Manning’s time on the field to a minimum. Sounds like a foolproof game plan to me. Philadelphia wins a close one, 29-26.

Carolina (-2) @ Arizona

The 1-2 Panthers favored on the road? That’s weird. Listen, I’m won’t pretend to know a ton about these two teams, but if you’re into the advanced stats that Football Outsiders provides, Carolina is sneaky good this year. And they’re coming off a bye. While the Cardinals are 2-2, remember that last week’s win was against the Mike Glennon-era Buccaneers. The only thing the Cardinals have excelled at so far in 2013 is defending the run. So can the Panthers win if they have to throw a lot? I’ll let you decide for yourself how meaningful this stat is: The Panthers are 4-14 over the past three years when Cam Newton has thrown the ball more than 30 times in a game. And when you consider that Patrick Peterson might be able to neutralize Steve Smith, what else does Carolina have? I know how bad Arizona is. I really do. But Carolina on the road against a superb run D? Not happening. Arizona wins 19-15.

Denver (-9) @ Dallas

No, Dallas, you do not get to be the first team that stops Denver from covering this season. I don’t care that your aerial attack is competent and the Broncos’ weakness is in its pass defense. If you don’t execute flawlessly the entire game, you’re cooked.

Seriously, when’s the last time you watched a Cowboys game and thought “flawless execution”? Let’s say it’s a semi-close game into the 3rd quarter and then a Cowboys’ drive stalls out. Denver takes over and suddenly they’re up 10 or 14 points. Now the pressure’s on Tony Romo and the offense to score on every single drive the rest of the game. Sounds like a recipe for disaster. Eventually the Broncos’ scoring pace will slow down—just like New England’s did in November of 2007—but not in this game. Denver rolls to 5-0 behind a 38-24 road win.

Houston @ San Francisco (-7)

This line is too high. I actually think these two teams are very similar. Both have strong offensive lines, above average defenses and one issue on offense that’s keeping them from being a true Super Bowl contender. For the 49ers it’s the lack of healthy wide receivers, which leads to defenses focusing on Anquan Boldin and not having to worry about much else. For the Texans, it’s Matt Schaub. Not a specific part of his game. Just him in general. So while I think San Francisco wins this game, it won’t be by a touchdown. Give me Houston to cover but the 49ers to win, 24-20.

Side Note: Remember when I cried like a little baby earlier this week about having to make picks on Thursday before we have all the info on key injuries? Patrick Willis’ status is of prime importance going into this game. If he plays at 90% of his normal level, the 9ers will be fine. If he’s out, I could absolutely see the Texans pulling off the upset. He’s that important to San Francisco’s defense.

San Diego (-4) @ Oakland

Hey, it’s the trial run of the late late game. What will the ratings for this game be on the East Coast? 0.00? -3.5? I don’t know how ratings work but I know the lower it is, the worse it is. And I can’t imagine a single person in the eastern time zone staying up for this one.

It feels like the line’s one point too high, right? I know the Chargers are playing pretty well and are only two plays away from being 4-0 instead of 2-2. But I see a divisional road game against a sneaky OK quarterback in Terrelle Pryor, not to mention the weird time this game starts. I think this will look a lot like your typical Thursday night game. San Diego wins, but doesn’t cover, 20-17.

NY Jets @ Atlanta (-10)

The Falcons have not been a good team so far this year. Normally I’d jump all over a team getting 10 points against them, but I think I’ve got the Jets pegged this year. They’ll look good against any team that has a below average offense (their two wins are against Tampa Bay and Buffalo). The Jets’ defense is solid, but they can’t keep up with an offense that can score in the high 20s or above. The Falcons’ offense isn’t exactly soaring these days, but it’s good enough at home to win by at least a touchdown. When you factor in a rookie QB for the Jets playing on the road in a loud dome, with his two best WRs out (Santonio Holmes and Stephen Hill), I just don’t see good things happening for New York. I might be kicking myself for thinking Atlanta’s competent enough to win by double digits, but I’m counting on the Jets to do lots of Jetsy things in this one. Atlanta wins 33-20.

Side Note: And here is my suicide pick for the week. Atlanta. As much as I wanted to hold onto them for their week 7 home game against Tampa Bay, I just don’t see a better option this week. The name of the game is survival and this pick seems to be the best bet this week.

For those of you keeping score at home, in week 5 I’m taking:

  • 6 Favorites & 8 Underdogs
  • Of those 8 Underdogs, 2 of them are Home Dogs and 6 of them are Road Dogs

Enjoy week 5.

NFL Week 2 Recap: Overreaction vs Proper Reaction

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

When is it OK to start reacting to the results we’re seeing on the field? Because it seems like every tweet, every website column and every idiotic blog post keep telling us that reacting at all to these first couple weeks is overreacting. So when is it no longer overreacting and instead properly reacting? After week 3? After week 10? Am I going to write after week 14 that “the Browns have been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs” only to have someone fire back at me that I’m overreacting to a small sample size?

There’s a delicate balance of using the information we’ve gotten from two weeks of the 2013 season to properly react while keeping things in perspective (is team X healthy? have they faced playoff-caliber teams in both games? was there one or two lucky or unlucky breaks that swung a game?). You get it.

One preseason truth that seems close to being debunked (but we need more time to truly find out) is that the NFC is significantly better than the AFC. I don’t think anyone would disagree that the top tier of the NFC (Seattle, San Francisco, Green Bay) has more teams than its AFC counterpart (Denver), but that middle tier of average-to-above-average teams might be closer than we think. The way I see it with the AFC, we could be talking about 14 of the 16 teams falling into that area. Denver is elite, Jacksonville is an 0-16 candidate and everyone else is somewhere in between. Teams that we thought wouldn’t have a pulse all year (Oakland, Tennessee, San Diego, NY Jets, Buffalo) are showing signs of life.

This isn’t all subjective analysis by me. The AFC is actually 5-1 against the NFC so far this year. But again, we’re not yet ready to claim the two conferences are evenly matched.

For those of you wondering if I’m going to avoid talking about another losing week with my picks against the spread, the answer is no. I’m actually ecstatic to be 6-8-1 (with the Monday night game pending). These first two weeks have been insanely unpredictable and I was able to improve from the two-win disaster last week to possibly seven wins this week. And I’ve looked around at some Pick ‘Em leagues and other experts’ columns from last Friday…no one is knocking it out of the park with the picks right now. The bottom line is I’m encouraged. Cannot wait for week 3.

But first let’s get through the rest of the week 2 recap.

(Side Note: The plan is to post the weekly recap on Mondays because that’s when people still give a crap about the weekend results. I suppose if crazy shit happens on Monday Night Football, I’ll add to the recap or do a shorter separate one on Tuesday. Otherwise I’ll be ignoring the Monday night game for the most part. This recap is coming to you late on Monday because I flew back from San Francisco this morning after a long weekend of putting harmful substances into my body. Hopefully you’ll be getting these by noon on Monday going forward.)

  1. I spent the weekend up in San Francisco mostly hanging out with my core group of football-watching, fellow degenerate friends. On Saturday afternoon one of the friends told us he had a dream the previous night that he shit his pants and got it all over him. He went into enough detail to tell us that in the dream he tried to use a towel to clean himself, but the towel was already a shit-stained brown. A totally random, disgusting story of course, but one of the other group members took this to mean he should bet BIG on the Cleveland Browns to cover against Baltimore on Sunday. It probably goes without saying (even if Cleveland had been able to pull off the road cover) that basing your sports bets on someone’s dream, especially when you’re making those kinds of interpretive leaps, is not the best way to win money.
  2. This same pants-shitting dreamer also told us while we were in Vegas one time that he had a dream he was playing roulette and the outcome of three consecutive rolls was Red Red Even. You can probably guess that a group of us immediately ran over to a roulette table and threw an insane amount of money on that combination. It did not work. You know what? I’m starting to think this guy is just fucking with us because he knows degenerate, superstitious gamblers will look for any sign to place a bet.
  3. As someone who predicted in August that Josh Freeman would be the first QB benched due to ineffectiveness, I loved seeing a story on cbssports.com on Sunday morning that Freeman might seek a trade because of the growing rift between him and head coach Greg Schiano.
  4. And that was before the Bucs choked away another game they had in the bag to fall to 0-2. Freeman, by the way, completed less than 50% of his passes for only 125 yards with two turnovers on Sunday.
  5. The real question now is who goes first Freeman or Schiano? Could both of their careers in Tampa be over before they emerge from their week 5 bye? Remember that Schiano pissed a lot of people off with his over aggressive playcalling when the Giants were in the victory formation last year. Now he’s alienated his starting QB repeatedly, and the team in general continues to be undisciplined and all too willing to make mental mistakes. I can’t remember seeing a coach recover from this. Can you?
  6. Of all the different picks in my Suicide Pool this week, the only person who didn’t have to sweat it out was the guy who took Oakland. How is that possible? The other picks (New England, Houston, Chicago, New Orleans, Philadelphia and Baltimore) either snuck by in a one-score game or lost outright. I had Chicago.
  7. If you’ve been reading my blogs for a while, you know I’m a huge fan of unintentional comedic timing. So my football-watching group got a good laugh on Sunday when I proudly proclaimed, “My Chicago bet is my biggest one of the day because I just can’t envision a scenario where the Vikings keep it close”….exactly 11 seconds before Minnesota returned the opening kickoff for a touchdown.
  8. They say a picture’s worth a thousand words so I’ll spare you from my list of “top 60 reasons I might never go to a live football game again” and just show you how I watched Sunday’s games instead: IMG_3261
  9. I was listening to a podcast this weekend where the hosts were recapping the Patriots-Jets game, and they were criticizing the New England fans for booing a Jets player who was injured in the 4th quarter. But here’s the new reality: Since faking an injury to slow down an offense has become the most overly talked about topic, we’re now at a point where every injury on the visiting team that is not the result of a vicious hit is going to get booed, loudly. It’s just the reality of the situation. No need for any fan base to get called out over the others. It’s going to happen in every stadium. It’s football’s version of baseball fans assuming every player is on PEDs. Oh, you got hurt while our offense was marching down the field? You’re a pathetic faker. Get your pansy ass up.
  10. When Eddie Lacy got drilled by Brandon Meriweather on Sunday morning, I was feeling real bad for myself because Lacy was one of my fantasy starters this week. Then Steven Jackson went down. Then Ray Rice went down. I have all three of those guys between a couple different fantasy teams. But it’s hard to have too much self pity when it seems like this happened to everyone. Look at this list of players that left their games due to injury on Sunday, definitely swinging real football matchups along with fantasy matchups: Rice, S Jax, Lacy, Reggie Bush, Larry Fitzgerald, Maurice Jones-Drew, Andre Johnson, Vernon Davis, Malcom Floyd, Brandon Weeden.
  11. So the Redskins are 0-2, meaning they only have to go 11-3 the rest of the way for my preseason prediction to be right. Here’s where I think I went wrong with my super optimism for them. The doctors cleared RGIII’s knee, the team said he was good to go and I kept thinking about Adrian Peterson’s brilliant return from knee surgery. What I never thought about was the knee injury that haunted my entire 2008 football-watching season: Tom Brady’s. After suffering torn knee ligaments in week 1 of 2008, Brady came back and led the 2009 Patriots to a 10-6 record and a playoff berth. But anyone who watched the team closely knew Brady wasn’t 100% for most of that year. There was rust and probably a little bit of fear. Carson Palmer’s another guy who never seemed quite the same after his major knee injury in 2006. It makes perfect sense that RGIII is going to have trouble replicating the way he played in 2012. Maybe not all season, but at least for a while. I wish I hadn’t been so blind to this.
  12. In the “told ya so” department, I’d like to point out that I knew Baltimore would struggle offensively this year, especially after losing Jacoby Jones for a few weeks. They scored exactly 0 points in the 1st half of a home game against the Browns on Sunday.
  13. In the “I’m now terrified” department, as soon as I wrote that note about the Ravens’ offense, I realized the Patriots might be exactly the same at least for the next handful of games. Are the Pats and Ravens basically in the same situation? Closer to average than elite but a soft schedule tricks us into giving them a chance for now? Gross.
  14. Last week my wide receiver erection was all over A.J. Green’s constantly amazing play. This week it’s pointing in the direction of Dez Bryant. He didn’t have the best day out of all WRs, but I think he might be the most uncoverable receiver in the NFL. It just seems like a mismatch every play, no matter who’s covering him. At least five times on Sunday it looked like Tony Romo decided before the play that he was throwing to Bryant no matter what the defense showed. And this is where I’d like to thank my former college roommate for trading Bryant to me in our fantasy league after week 1 of the 2012 season for Pierre Garcon (this guy being a huge Redskins homer probably had something to do with it). That trade allowed me to win the league in 2012 and I was able to keep Bryant on my roster for this year.
  15. This description on espn.com of Philadelphia’s final play in their 33-30 loss to San Diego caught my eye: (Shotgun) M.Vick pass short right to J.Avant to PHI 37 for 8 yards. Lateral to R.Cooper to PHI 35 for -2 yards. Lateral to M.Vick to PHI 35 for no gain. M.Vick pass to J.Peters to PHI 35 for no gain. Lateral to J.Avant to PHI 35 for no gain. FUMBLES, RECOVERED by SD-J.Addae at PHI 40. J.Addae to PHI 40 for no gain (B.Celek). PENALTY on PHI-M.Vick, Illegal Forward Pass, 5 yards, enforced at PHI 39.
  16. What a sequence that was. There was one other amazing sequence that I saw with my own eyes on Sunday. It was at the end of regulation in the Titans-Texans game. This tweet from Grantland.com’s Bill Barnwell summed it up best: “Munchak burns clock, ices a made kick, offsides on a blocked kick, ices a missed kick, kick off the goalpost.”
  17. Even though having an infant present during a long day of football watching means he’s going to learn some new words that Mom & Dad probably didn’t want him learning for another 15 years, I say it’s a good idea to get one if you can. When the dust settles on a 2-6-1 record for your morning picks, the only thing that can possibly cheer you up is a baby doing ridiculous shit…falling off furniture, getting more food on his face than in his mouth, visibly squeezing out a dump while he sits directly beside you. I recommend you find a baby to join your group each Sunday. Thanks to my 14-month-old nephew for making me temporarily forget about my Chicago-Philadelphia parlay.
  18. I’ll admit last year my hatred for Richard Sherman might have stemmed from the Seahawks’ win over the Patriots and his postgame trash-talking of Tom Brady. But he sent me into another rage last night and it had nothing to do with my hometown team. After Seattle’s 29-3 win over San Francisco on Sunday night, NBC reporter Michele Tafoya interviewed Sherman on the field. She asked him how he was able to hold Anquan Boldin to just one catch after he had 13 the previous week. Rather than answer the question that she was obviously trying to get him to answer (“how did you do such a good job”), he corrected her by saying, “that one catch wasn’t even on me.” What. A. Prick. Couldn’t possibly let the TV audience think he let up one catch to the guy. God forbid. Great team player, right?
  19. For the record, I’d rather see the Jets win three consecutive Super Bowls than have to live through the Seahawks winning one.
  20. With the end of Breaking Bad running at the same time as Sunday Night Football, I think for the next two Sunday nights we should get used to this: Screen shot 2013-09-15 at 9.25.00 PM
  21. Are you pissed off at your underachieving team so far in this young NFL season? Cheer up, buddy. It could be worse. You could be a fan of the Jaguars, whose first touchdown of the season came after 117 minutes of game time. Oh, and here’s what their fans were getting up to on Monday:

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/9680957/fans-urge-jacksonville-jaguars-sign-tebow-rally

Let’s run through the weekly awards real quick:

The “Vitriol of the Week” Award presented by Gamblers Against High Blood Pressure (GAHBP)

Chicago Bears

Christian Ponder might be the worst quarterback in the NFL. You have one challenge on defense: shutdown Adrian Peterson. You have an explosive offense. You should have won this game by 20. You won on a semi-miraculous last minute drive, but of course you didn’t cover the spread, losing me plenty of money and valuable Pick ‘Em league points. You’re the worst.

The “Most Likely To Be Added To Fantasy Rosters Even Though He’ll Never Match This Week’s Performance Ever Again” Award

A tie between Eddie Royal and James Starks

If you’re in an auction league like I am, you’re going to have to pay out the ass for these guys even though they probably won’t equal this week’s output over their next five games combined. Good luck with that.

And finally, if you don’t feel like reading my plea to New England fans to relax, go ahead and close this page now.

Patriots fans, relax. Your team is 2-0 while playing both games without its best receiver (Gronk) and one of the games without its second best receiver (Amendola) and its most likely candidate to take over the 2012 production from Danny Woodhead and Aaron Hernandez (Vereen). All three of them will be back when the important games start.

Let’s just put the NFL season into context right now: The 2012 Baltimore Ravens lost in week 2 to Philadelphia (who finished the season 4-12). They struggled to put away the Browns in week 4, they beat the Chiefs (2-14 record) 9-6 in week 5, and beat San Diego (another pathetic team in 2012) in overtime in week 12, only after the miracle of a 4th & 29 conversion. And during those games, they had almost all of their offensive weapons intact. No one gave them a chance as they limped into the playoffs as the #4 seed in the AFC. They got hot, got a little lucky and won the Super Bowl.

Panicking, complaining, attempting suicide…none of those things make sense yet because ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN IN THIS STRANGE SPORT.

Oh, and your baseball team is putting up one of the most unexpected and memorable regular seasons in the history of the sport. And your hockey team is one of the Stanley Cup favorites as the season gets going in a few weeks.

Relax.

And that’s it from me. Week 3 picks coming on Thursday.

NFL Week 1 Recap: Firing On No Cylinders

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

kaepernick 1

So how did week 1 feel, everyone? You think maybe the NFL will at least give us lube next week before they do unbloggable things to our bottoms?

At the completion of Sunday’s games, exactly two NFL players had rushed for more than 100 yards. One of them was the last quarterback to be named his team’s starter during the offseason (Terrelle Pryor) and the other promptly found out he had a broken wrist and would probably be missing a month of football after surgery (Shane Vereen).

Meanwhile, three quarterbacks were throwing three interceptions a piece while a handful of running backs decided getting into their coaches’ doghouses at the earliest possible moment of the season was a fantastic idea.

Consensus picks against the spread like Tampa Bay -3, Indianapolis -10 and Green Bay +4.5 gave us varying degrees of disappointment, the bottom line being gigantic gambling losses.

Way to come out guns blazing, everyone. I definitely understand why so many starters rest up during the preseason games. You’d hate to waste this “firing on all cylinders” start on meaningless exhibition games (I’m looking at you, Mr. Griffin the Third).

But while it wasn’t all bad for some of the real football teams and the fantasy ones, it was just about the worst week of my football-watching life (not including any of the numerous depressing Patriots losses in recent history). Yes, the Pats got the W, and I (barely) survived week 1 of the suicide pool (Indy) while also winning two of my fantasy matchups. But 100% of my pride and reputation comes from my psychic level ability to predict nearly every game correct against the spread each week. Last year I felt like I owed my readers an apology any time I put up a 7-7 week.

I just went 2-13-1 in week 1. TWO-THIRTEEN-ONE! I’m not even sure giving you one of my world famous blowjobs will properly make amends for leading you to the slaughter in such a dramatic way.

The recurring word used by my fellow football obsessors as I checked in with them on Sunday and Monday was BLOODBATH. It sounds like everyone had a rough day.

The word bloodbath as it’s known today apparently came about because some 16th century Hungarian Countess used to bathe in her murder victims’ blood. And she was a ruthless killer who abducted people (lots of children) for no good reason.

I know I tend to exaggerate more than the average person, but I’d say calling this first week of football a bloodbath is in no way hyperbole. Maybe technically you’d have to replace “16th century Countess” with “people who run the Bovada website”, and “bathe in the blood of murder victims” with “bathe in the money Ross lost on his football bets.” To think someone’s money bath is extra full right now because of my historic miss. Gross.

I just don’t get it. In theory picking against the spread should be like flipping a coin. If you take the money factor out, it’s basically a 50/50 proposition. I’d expect my Mom—who still can’t grasp why the offense gets their “tries renewed” if they “gain 10 feet” during the first four “tries”—to get nearly 50% of her picks right if I forced her to make them every week. And yet, here I am, the proud owner of a 2-13-1 record after week 1.

But hey, this is the NFL. There will be plenty of other weekends later this year to cry as I break out my credit card for yet another reupping of money in my sports book account. Let’s talk about what went down over the weekend, by which of course I mean the five-day period comprising Thursday through Monday:

If I ask you which teams had the worst week, you might be inclined to say Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay, Jacksonville, maybe Baltimore. But I humbly present Green Bay and Washington for the sneaky “who had the worst opening week” award.

Green Bay spent the entire offseason studying the read option, and then they spent some time during the week leading up to their game against San Francisco promising to hit the quarterback on every play regardless of who had the ball. And then their defensive leader looked real foolish taking a cheapshot at Colin Kaepernick and nearly getting ejected for throwing punches (or was it open-palmed chick slaps?), and the Packers get burned by Kaepernick the 400 yard passer, not the read option wizard they prepared for. And now the Packers have lost three straight to the 49ers over the past 12 months, and Kaepernick is firmly inside their heads.

Meanwhile for Washington it wasn’t bad enough to lose the week 1 home game against a division rival while their franchise quarterback looked extremely rusty from the lack of a prseason, but they were unlucky enough to be the punching bag of Chip Kelly’s coming out party. It’s only one loss, but that had to be a brutal one.

And in the uber competitive NFC, even the best teams can’t afford to lose winnable games. There’s not nearly as much room for error (read: beefing up your record against the terrible teams) as there is in the AFC.

The Packers can be excused for now because San Francisco is a Super Bowl contender. But while the Eagles may be improved, they’re certainly not of that same caliber. Two theories came to mind as I watched the Redskins play the worst 1st half of football I’ve ever seen: 1). Every player on the ‘Skins just happened to play the worst game of their careers on the same day, or 2). The Washington players took the fans and media seriously when we started calling RGIII “Jesus” or “Black Jesus.” Maybe we should have clarified that he can’t, in fact, perform miracles. Effort would have been much appreciated.

Here’s the play-by-play of Washington’s first three drives of the game:

Drive #1:

  • Alfred Morris FUMBLE, recovered by Philadelphia

Drive #2:

  • Alfred Morris runs for -3 yards
  • PENALTY – Illegal Shift on offense, 5 yard penalty
  • Griffin completed pass to Alfred Morris for 9 yards
  • Griffin deep pass intended for Santana Moss INTERCEPTED

Drive #3:

  • Griffin incomplete short pass
  • Griffin FUMBLES, recovered by Alfred Morris, Morris tackled in End Zone, SAFETY

A friend who’s a big Redskins fan told me before the game that he read a stat saying no QB has ever started a week 1 game without throwing at least one pass in the preseason. RGIII was apparently the first to do this. And yet I willingly bet on the Redskins to win by more than four points. That doesn’t seem logical at all.

And in the other Monday Night game, well, Philip Rivers threw four touchdown passes in the season opener of a year where he’s probably unowned in the majority of fantasy leagues. And after the Chargers raced out to a 28-7 lead, the Texans erased it over the final 25 minutes and then hit a game-winning field goal. So basically an exact replica of the 2012 Chargers blueprint. Good stuff.

How about I hand out three random awards based on what I saw this weekend? Cool?

The “Vitriol of the Week” Award sponsored by Gamblers Against High Blood Pressure (GAHBP)

The Patriots

This award goes to the team each week that ends up enduring the most cruel and bitter of my many criticisms. Which team am I screaming at the most, basically. And the Patriots win this not because I’m an unrealistic fan that expects a 14-point blowout every game, but because so many players played so horribly.

Here are some preseason Patriots projections accompanied by their post-week 1 realities:

  • Preseason: “The running game could be fantastic, a two-headed monster!”
  • Postgame: “Our most reliable running back is a 275lb castoff who is also our best kick return man. He runs a slower 40 than Vince Wilfork.”
  • Preseason: “Amendola is great, the rookie receivers look incredible, and Gronk might even be ready for week 1.”
  • Postgame: “Amendola missed time with a groin injury, Thompkins and Sudfeld may never get a ball thrown to them again, and Gronk isn’t ready yet.”
  • Preseason: “But this could be one of their best defenses in a while! Talib for a full year should make the pass D so much better.”
  • Postgame: “Welp, the D blows again. Can’t cover anyone.”

Needless to say, the Patriots might be in “hold on for dear life” mode until Gronk and Vereen come back.

Runner-Up: The Steelers

I don’t emotionally root for them like I do the Patriots, but I had an aggressive percentage of my net worth on Pittsburgh covering against Tennessee. Maurkice Pouncey’s injury might be season-ending for the entire team. No running game, thin at receiver, flawed offensive line once again, and I’m wondering if it’s a possibility that Roethlisberger’s skills severely declined over the past two years, only we were so caught up in his various injuries being the reason for his struggles that we couldn’t possibly see that he’s suddenly playing like a 42-year-old quarterback. I’m not saying it’s true, but if it is, they’re obviously majorly fucked.

*One more note about the Patriots that only Patriots fans will care about: I kept reminding myself throughout the offseason that I’m not going to get caught up in the “style points” of the Patriots games anymore. It wasn’t until 2007 that the Patriots started demolishing the weaker opponents consistently, and yet, they haven’t won shit since that time. In the 2001-05 Championship Years, they weren’t winning games 59-0 or 45-7, scores that we’ve seen recently. They were eeking out wins against the Bills of the world, and we didn’t care how they did it. Sunday’s game-winning drive by Brady brought me back to those Super Bowl days, when it was never pretty but always effective. I’m officially back on board with the philosophy that a win is a win.

The “Self-Inflicted Safety” Award

I thought this award was permanently retired in 2008 when former Detroit Lions quarterback Dan Orlovsky took a snap from his five yard line, rolled out of the pocket, continued to roll right and drop back….directly out of the back of the end zone. No pressure whatsoever on the guy.

But at least Orlovsky could claim he was in the heat of the moment after taking a snap backed up near his own end zone. Darius Reynaud of Tennessee has no legitimate excuse as to why he’s the new owner of the self-inflicted safety award. If you didn’t see it, I suggest watching the clip HERE.

But maybe more importantly this guy seems to do a great job describing exactly what went on during that play. Who needs to see an actual highlight when you’ve got this dude breaking it down in 50 seconds:

The “Sentence I Wish You Would Have Said Next” Award

To Greg Gumbel, who was talking about Bills quarterback E.J. Manuel during the Patriots-Bills game when he said, “I was a little surprise when Manuel said he didn’t want to run, didn’t like to run.”

For a minute I honestly thought he was going to continue, “Because he’s black. That’s why I was surprised. I just assumed he’d run.”

Hey, here’s a situation that I’m sure most football fans have had to deal with before. Help me out because I’m not sure if I handled this correctly. I was at home watching the Patriots on the big TV and the Red Zone Channel on the small TV, beer in hand, as relaxed as it gets. I hear some commotion in the kitchen, look over to see carrot chunks shooting out of my garbage disposal like it’s part of a fireworks show, and then I see my girlfriend furiously plunging away at the kitchen sink drain.

I looked over, waited until she made eye contact and said, “Yeesh. Good luck with that.”

I did enough considering the circumstances, right?

Hey, I was dealing with a pretty full plate myself. At 12:09pm Pacific Time, I said to the girlfriend, “I just want this day to be over.” We were barely into the 3rd quarter of the early games at that point. All hope was already lost.

Anyone want to overreact to some of the top fantasy RBs with me? OK here we go:

  • After his 78 yard run in the 1st quarter, Adrian Peterson only had 15 more yards on 17 additional attempts for a 0.882 yards per carry average. Trade that loser while he still has some value.
  • Speaking of trading away your fantasy garbage, Doug Martin averaged only 2.7 yards per carry against the Jets, and even worse, he averaged -0.5 yards per reception on two catches. Negative yards! How can you own a guy who constantly puts up negative yards like that??
  • C.J. Spiller, the man recently annointed to pull off the next 2,000 yard rushing season, had 26 less rushing yards (and 53 yards less total yards) than his backup, Fred Jackson. It’s a time share. SELL! SELL! SELL!
  • Alfred Morris’ fumble issues combined with Roy Helu’s excellent pass blocking skills makes the RB situation in Washington suddenly murky. And that’s before we remember that Mike Shanahan loves short-circuiting a good fantasy running back season. Feel free to drop Morris if you need the roster spot.
  • Stevan Ridley just can’t hold onto the ball and Bill Belichick will never trust him. Trade him if you can, but more importantly find a way to get new feature back Shane Vereen on your rost….oh, shit. Scratch that, LeGarrette Blount is in line for a huge fantasy breakout on Thursday against the Jets.
  • David Wilson’s season is over. If you’re not in a keeper league, consider dropping him (This actually isn’t an overreaction. I’m not just scared for Wilson’s playing career. I’m scared for his life. The Giants might have to sign and start Willis McGahee because Wilson can’t follow the most basic instruction that his position demands, hold onto the fucking ball! Tom Coughlin may have him murdered this week.)
  • Besides Chris Johnson only running for 70 yards on 25 carries, he also didn’t have a single run longer than 11 yards. His game-changing long runs are a thing of the past. If the guy who owns Blount in your fantasy league is willing to trade him for Johnson, go ahead and accept. You won’t be sorry.
  • Another member of the “can’t crack 2.5 yards per carry” club, Marshawn Lynch, is clearly over the hill and will probably be replaced by Christine Michael/Robert Turbin by week 5. Adjust your expectations accordingly.

That was fun, yeah?

You know what wouldn’t have been fun? Getting bounced from my Suicide Pool in week 1. At one point during the early Sunday games, the Patriots, Steelers, Colts and Bucs were all losing, meaning the one person in my pool who picked Denver was in line to win the season-long contest in week 1. I wonder if that would have been the first time in the history of Suicide Pools…

I don’t remember which announcers were doing the Indianapolis-Oakland game, but when Andrew Luck scored to put the Colts up by three with 18 minutes left in the game, one of the guys said, “If you had the Colts in your knock out pool, you can breathe a sign of relief.” Really? I’m going to relax because a team that was supposed to win by two touchdowns is up by three with 30% of the game left? Why would that be the time to breathe a sigh of relief?

Here’s why this week 1 Jets win was my favorite Jets win of all time: It knocked several people out of the Suicide Pool I’m in. And one of those people was mocking me via text message about my Colts pick when they were losing to Oakland. People were overly high on Tampa Bay to begin with. They needed their expectations adjusted. But most importantly, I loved this Jets win because it was completely illegitimate. They surprised us by winning, but the win itself did nothing to change our perception of them being a terrible team. They needed the benefit of a questionable penalty with only a few seconds left to escape with the win. It was perfect.

But there was a downside to the way the Jets played…we may never get to see one last Mark Sanchez performance in New York. We need that send off. Something that reads like this the next morning in the game story: “When Mark Sanchez was thrust into emergency duty against Atlanta last night and immediately led the Jets to a go-ahead touchdown, it seemed like he had a chance to author a perfect send off. It couldn’t have been better scripted as Sanchez had a shot at lifting his team’s record to 3-2 in front of a national audience on Monday Night Football. Unfortunately it all unraveled so quickly on Sanchez (I’m talking about in this game, though the quick unraveling could also be describing his overall career too), as he threw interceptions on his next three pass attempts. And that, of course, was truly the perfect ending to his career as a starter.”

Some quick takes on everything else I saw during week 1:

  • I’m willing to believe that Chip Kelly’s offense could be a competitive advantage for a while until other teams catch up or figure it out. I’m not willing to believe that Michael Vick is the long term answer at QB for that type of offense. When the Eagles moved the ball downfield at will during their first two drives on Monday and only walked away with a combined three points, I was ready to bury Vick. The first drive ended on his lateral pass to LeSeasn McCoy that got returned for a defensive touchdown, and the second drive ended when he threw three straight incompletions, at least two of which were awful misses on Vick’s part. I still think that’s the real Michael Vick. Loads of athleticism but hardly any football sense. This won’t end well for the Eagles.
  • My preseason prediction of Josh Freeman being the first QB benched due to ineffectiveness is alive and well. He completed less than 50% of his passes on Sunday, gaining only 210 yards on 31 attempts. I maintain that Tampa Bay and Cincinnati are the same team, only the Bengals get the benefit of playing in a terrible AFC, allowing them to get to 9-7 and a playoff berth every year. Very excited for the Mike Glennon era in Tampa though.
  • Checking in on the powers of the NFC: I worry for Green Bay that they’re turning into the team who expected to be the class of the NFC over the coming decade, except they didn’t go out and do anything about it (probably because they figured having Aaron Rodgers was enough). Meanwhile the 49ers have been proactively making moves to ensure their spot at the top of the conference. Seattle is just flying under the radar now. Let the 9ers and Packers steal the spotlight with their week 1 matchup (not to mention their high school level name-calling after the game), the ‘Hawks will just bide their time with an unassuming win in Carolina. Because of what Kaepernick showed us on Sunday, I think the 49ers are firmly entrenched as the team to beat in the NFC.
  • I’m confused by Mike Wallace. Isn’t the time to bitch about your lack of receptions before you sign a lucrative new contract? And you’re really upset about what went down in your Miami debut even though your old team was getting embarrassed in Pittsburgh? Can’t possibly see the bright side of things with the team getting that first W?
  • Maybe I’m late to the party on this one, but I think the debate over which wide receiver is better, Julio Jones or A.J. Green, is finished. Green is far superior, and I’m not knocking Jones by saying that. I think Green might be the best WR in the game and it wouldn’t shock me at all if the numbers bear that out this year.
  • And just like Peterson dragged that Minnesota team to the playoffs last year, I could see the Bengals continuing to make the postseason solely because of A.J. Green. I’m open to the idea that Green is the most important player in football.
  • When Eli Manning finished his comeback effort on Sunday night by stealing a page out of Tony Romo’s playbook (pick the most dramatic way to fail at the most dramatic point in the game), we didn’t just see the Manning Face. We got to see the Manning Full Body Reaction. He had the face going, the shoulders slumping, the right fist punching at the air, head shaking. It all happened like one fluid motion he’s been practicing for a while. It’s no longer just about the face. It’s the whole package.
  • I know not all my readers pay attention to advanced stats, but there is one metric that tells you everything you need to know about Jacksonville’s opening game: When the number of stitches the quarterback needs on his throwing hand after the game is just about equal to the number of passes he completed in the game, your team will almost never win that game or the next game. Blaine Gabbert completed 16 passes, and then he needed 15 stitches.
  • Can someone explain to me in a non-blowout situation why Brandon Weeden had 53 passing attempts while Trent Richardson had only 13 rushing attempts?
  • Not only did the AFC North go 0-4 this weekend, but the four starting QBs combined for 8 interceptions. I hope 7-9 takes this division because then my Cleveland to win the North prediction is still in play.

Well that’s everything that stood out to me in week 1. If I didn’t talk about your team over the course of these 3,700 words, it’s because they were boring and not worth my time. See that they do better next week, ok?

Week 2 picks against the spread coming up on Thursday. I can almost guarantee that I’ll do better than week 1.

Week 1 Picks Against The Spread

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

Everyone, relax. That tingling feeling you’re experiencing throughout your entire body is perfectly normal. It just means that football is officially back and you’re a little overstimulated. Happens to me every year.

FOOTBALL IS BACK!

That feels good to write. Even better is the feeling of writing my weekly picks column again. Seven months is a long time to wait.

Before you decide to simply skim this article and not give it your full attention (Mike, I’m looking at you, serial skimmer), I’ll reiterate one final time that if you followed my lead last year, you became a very rich person by season’s end (you know, assuming you were throwing a cool $10K on each of my weekly picks).

If you’re new to this, here’s how it works: I’ll list each matchup including where the game’s being played and how many points the favorite is giving. Then I’ll write a blurb that may include objective statistical analysis, or it may include subjective emotional analysis. And then I’ll make my pick. This year I’m going with the gimmick of picking the exact score of the game, but the important part from a betting standpoint is just which team I’m picking to cover the spread.

If you’re confused by any of that, I’ll be happy to forward along my girlfriend’s blog, which details all the going-ons of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills/Orange County/Atlanta/New Jersey/Haiti. I’m sure you’ll enjoy her fantastic observations.

Some weeks I may not post the picks until Friday, but for week 1 I think we know everything we need to know, and nothing drastic’s going to change over the next 24 hours.

Enough with the foreplay. Let’s get to the main event (27 seconds of missionary position with lots of sweating, coughing and (sometimes) farting is usually the main event for me):

Baltimore @ Denver (-7.5)

We have the Super Bowl hangover vs the suddenly neutered Super Bowl favorites. If the Broncos were playing with Von Miller and Champ Bailey, this game’s not close. Baltimore can’t keep up with a fully functioning Denver team (not sure anyone in the AFC can), but they get some breaks with the aforementioned weakened defense. My biggest question for the Ravens this year is how are they going to sustain long drives. I know they’ll score on some long Torrey Smith touchdowns, but they don’t have an offense that can keep Peyton Manning off the field and methodically put up points. Denver’s still good enough to hold off the Ravens, but just barely. Something like 27-24 with the Ravens failing on a late game drive.

(Side Note: Guest blogger Neil pointed out to me the other day that “Super Bowl hangover” is usually a term reserved for the team that lost the Super Bowl. I disagree. I think the winning team has a hangover in the sense that they partied the entire month of February, got a late start on offseason work/scouting/planning, and they lost several key players to retirement or free agency. They walk into the season slightly groggy, crushing fistfuls of Advil and telling everyone to talk quieter and turn the lights down.)

New England (-10) @ Buffalo

The Patriots have won 10 straight season-opening games. They are 23-2 against Buffalo over the past 12 years. Tom Brady is healthy. His Buffalo counterpart is E.J. Manuel, a player with exactly 0 NFL starts. The Patriots are going to get their 35 points so the only question here is whether Buffalo gets 4 touchdowns or more. The Pats have a knack for letting up late garbage touchdowns when the game’s on ice, so that worries me a little, but…I think New England rolls 38-17.

Tennessee @ Pittsburgh (-7)

Overall Pittsburgh was a big disappointment in 2012, but make no mistake, their defense was still solid. Not great, but good enough. It was their offense that abandoned them last year. But did they address that over the past eight months? It feels like they’re just hoping a full Ben Roethlisberger season will solve all those problems. Unfortunately for them he won’t be healthy for 16 games. Fortunately for us he’s healthy for week 1. And no reason that Steelers D can’t marginalize Tennessee’s only offensive weapon, Chris Johnson. I’ll take Pittsburgh to cover with a 24-10 win.

Atlanta @ New Orleans (-3)

If you’re convinced Sean Payton’s presence alone turns the Saints back into a 12 or 13-win contender, I understand giving three here. I’m not one who buys into that theory so I’m obviously taking Atlanta with the three. I think there’s still a big enough talent gap between these division rivals that Atlanta wins outright, 28-24. You can make the argument that the Saints will be in F U mode, the crowd will be going crazy, all that jazz. But my counterargument is “Saints defense.” You can’t argue your way out of that defense being terrible again. Enjoy the nightmares of Julie Jones running wild untouched for multiple touchdowns if you’re betting on the Saints.

Tampa Bay (-3) @ NY Jets

This is a great example of not over-thinking things. We know the Jets are bad, but not horrible. They’ll be good enough defensively to slow down teams that lack multiple weapons. And maybe they’ll run the ball decently. But Tampa has multiple weapons on offense, a defense that was outstanding against the run last year, and their one major weakness—pass defense—is the one thing no one has to worry about when facing Mark San….Geno Smi…Brady Quinn? Tampa wins comfortably 23-9.

Kansas City (-4) @ Jacksonville

Everyone who argues for the Chiefs to automatically get better because Andy Reid is a major upgrade from Romeo Crennel, I get the sentiment. But here’s my counterpoint: Alex Smith and his 70% completion rate/104 passer rating goes from coaching genius Jim Harbaugh to Andy Reid, a guy who thought Kevin Kolb was the answer just three years ago. I think Kansas City is improved and beats teams like Jacksonville at home, but on the road I’m taking Jacksonville to win 24-23.

Cincinnati @ Chicago (-3)

I’m naming this the “Aaron Memorial Pick” in honor of my brother. When Aaron played in Pick ‘Em leagues with me over the years, he’d inevitably go through a rough stretch where almost every pick he made over a three-week period would be wrong. So in the 4th week, he’d pull a reversal and pick the opposite of what his instincts told him for every game. Sometimes it worked.

My instincts in this game tell me Chicago at home can handle Cincinnati. So I’m pulling the Aaron reversal and picking the Bengals to win outright 24-20. Chicago in September isn’t intimidating. The Bears defense won’t be as good as last year. Maybe Cincy’s defense is as good as people are saying. It’s not a slamdunk for Chicago, that’s for sure.

(Side note: A possibly pertinent piece of info for you: My brother Aaron is not dead.)

Miami @ Cleveland (-1)

Considering I guaranteed Cleveland would win their division in my preview column, this is pretty much a must-win for that to have any chance. The Browns have weapons, with Trent Richardson looming as a possible Doug Martin or Alfred Morris game-changer type. Ryan Tannehill needs to throw more than 12 touchdowns in a full football season before I buy into this team at all. Joe Haden can handle Mike Wallace, right? If so, what do the Dolphins have left in the offensive weapons department? Brian Hartline? Thought so. Cleveland 27-3.

Seattle (-3.5) @ Carolina

This line was 3 earlier in the week and I was excited to take Seattle and expect no worse than a push. This extra half point honestly scares me. Or it would have scared me last year, I should say. The Seahawks proved they can win on the road in 2012, while the Panthers were proving they really hate September football. I’m picturing a Cam Newton with no WRs open all day. Does the running attack get it done? Doubt it. Seahawks take it 27-19.

Minnesota @ Detroit (-5.5)

This line feels two points too high. My gut’s telling me Detroit isn’t as good as people are projecting and Minnesota’s not as bad as the consensus says. Detroit doesn’t seem like that team that’s going to come out of the gate firing on all cylinders. Part of me also thinks we might be underestimating how much Adrian Peterson can control a game if he’s as good as last year. I’m going with a Detroit win, 27-24, but a Minnesota cover.

Oakland @ Indianapolis (-10)

Toss aside your feelings on Indy for a second—you may think they’re due for a huge regression, or maybe you think they can sustain last year’s magic, it doesn’t matter—and think about the distinct possibility that Oakland loses the majority of their games this year by more than 10 points. You’re really going to project this game as one of the few where the Raiders keep it close? Indianapolis wins 31-7.

Bonus Note: This is my suicide pool pick for week 1. Assuming I stay alive in this pool for at least a handful of weeks, you’re going to see me picking the opponent of Oakland, Jacksonville and Arizona a lot.

Arizona @ St. Louis (-4.5)

I learned my lesson last year with this type of line. The oddsmakers clearly don’t have a clue how this one’s going to play out. And do you really feel confident claiming you know which team will have the better season? In such an unknown game where the two teams could sneaky be a more even matchup than the public thinks, always take the points. In this case I’m saying the Rams win, but not by enough, 17-13.

Green Bay @ San Francisco (-4.5)

How about that? Another game where Vegas doesn’t seem to know what to make of the matchup. Is San Francisco so good that they should be favored by a touchdown? Or is Green Bay closer to the 49ers’ level, and really the 9ers should be giving 3 points only because they’re at home? And since these two teams might belong in the same tier when ranking the best teams in the league, it’s safe to say taking the underdog with the points makes sense. If Colin Kaepernick has a huge day again, we should all be scared because no team has spent more time this offseason preparing for the 49ers’ offense. I’m saying the Packers upset the 49ers 30-28.

NY Giants @ Dallas (-3)

The Giants typically start fast most seasons because that’s when they’re healthiest. And somehow, like clockwork, the wheels tend to fall off after a 6-2 start. They’ve also beat the Cowboys in Dallas each of the past four years. A healthy Giants team is still better than Dallas. Giants pull off the road win 27-21.

Philadelphia @ Washington (-3.5)

Listen, if the Redskins were facing a big intimidating shutdown defense, I could see the argument about RGIII not being himself in week 1. But I don’t think the Eagles inspire that type of fear. I actually like the ‘Skins offensive weapons more than Philly’s, and their defenses are at least equal, if not slightly tilted towards Washington. The only hesitation to pick the Redskins is the complete unknown of Chip Kelly’s offense. Doesn’t matter. The RGIII return at home in the opening game of the year will push this team in a huge way at least for one week. The Redskins win 34-24.

Houston (-4) @ San Diego

Houston is very similar to the team they were last year. And when it comes to losing, they have a type. They’re going to lose games to teams with offensive firepower. The Texans aren’t built to win shootouts or play catch up if they fall behind by two scores. They’ll lose games to Seattle, San Francisco, New England and Denver this year. That’s a near certainty. San Diego has about 1/100th of the firepower that those other teams have. Houston covers with a 23-16 win.

For those of you keeping score at home, in week 1 I’m taking:

  • 8 Favorites & 8 Underdogs
  • Of those 8 Underdogs, I’m taking 1 Home Dog and 7 Road Dogs

Shit, seven underdogs to cover on the road seems outrageous. I’m chalking it up to Vegas not having a clue during the first few weeks of the season.

And by the way, I’m being greedy in week 1. I don’t want to finish 9-7 against the spread. I want 13-3. That’s my goal for the week.

Enjoy week 1, everyone.

NFL Predictions: All 12 Playoff Teams Plus The Super Bowl Champ

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

super bowl logo

The last item on the NFL Preview list is for guest blogger Neil and I to predict all 12 playoff teams, their seedings and the eventual Super Bowl Champs. If you’ve been paying close attention, you’ll notice that I picked some teams to make the playoffs who I initially had finishing under .500 in the win-loss record blogs. NFL predictions is a constantly fluid situation. I’ve changed my mind on this stuff at least 20 times in the past few hours. That’s how it goes until the regular season kicks off.

But these are the teams we’re finally willing to commit to in terms of who’s going places this year. Enjoy.

NFC PLAYOFF SEEDINGS

Neil:

  1. Green Bay
  2. San Francisco
  3. Washington
  4. Tampa Bay
  5. Seattle
  6. New Orleans

Ross:

  1. Seattle
  2. Green Bay
  3. Atlanta
  4. Washington
  5. San Francisco
  6. Tampa Bay

Explanation

Neil: Although I think San Francisco and Seattle might be the strongest regular season teams, they’re going to have trouble getting a top seed in the playoffs because they have to play each other and the NFC South. So basically they play the two toughest divisions in football, which may cost them the extra win or two they need for the top seed. That leaves my other two projected division winners in the NFC, Green Bay and Washington. I’m going to go with Green Bay as the #1 NFC seed, followed by San Francisco at the #2 and Washington at #3. The #4 seed is tough because the NFC South may be the best division in football and I can realistically see any of the four members winning the division. I’m picking Tampa to get the #4 seed. Even though they have the biggest question at QB in the division, they probably have the most complete team. Seattle gets the #5 seed and I’m going to give the #6 to New Orleans due to their schedule being slightly easier than Carolina’s (extra games are St. Louis & Dallas compared to Seattle & New York).

Ross: I’ve talked myself into Seattle being a slightly better team than San Francisco. And I trust the Seahawks to live up to my lofty expectations more than Green Bay, who was shaky all of last year. So the road to the Super Bowl goes through Seattle, and every analyst will say it’s a foregone conclusion that the Seahawks go all the way because their home field advantage is so devastating. Atlanta shows they’ll stick around the playoff conversation for the foreseeable future and barely beats out Washington for the #3 seed. San Francisco goes 12-4 and gets the #5 seed, which is rewarded with a 1st round game at Washington. And Tampa, despite Josh Freeman, punches its ticket to the playoffs in the final week of the season.

AFC PLAYOFF SEEDINGS

Neil:

  1. Denver
  2. New England
  3. Houston
  4. Pittsburgh
  5. Cincinnati
  6. Baltimore

Ross:

  1. Denver
  2. New England
  3. Indianapolis
  4. Cleveland
  5. Pittsburgh
  6. Kansas City

Explanation

Neil: Even though Denver’s defense is not going to be nearly as good as last year, they have an extremely easy schedule. So unless Peyton is done (I’d say only a 10% chance) they should easily go 13-3 and be the #1 seed in the AFC. I’m going with New England as the #2 seed, and even though I don’t think Houston is a great team they play in an easy division so let’s pencil them in for the #3 seed. The #4 seed in the AFC is one of the toughest to pick because you have to choose the AFC North winner. I think any of the four teams in the division could win it. I’m going to flip my four-sided coin and…Pittsburgh gets the #4 seed in the AFC. Picking the AFC wild card teams is tough because you are looking for two teams who only kind of suck. (Answering this question really reinforced how much better the NFC is than the AFC.) The AFC North, although not having any great teams, is probably the best division top to bottom in the conference, so let’s give Cincinnati the #5 seed and Baltimore the #6 seed.

Ross: I’m doing some wholesale changes on the bottom part of the AFC bracket. Gone are Baltimore, Houston and Cincinnati. The AFC is just bad enough that the mediocre teams blend together with the terrible teams to form some kind of unwatchable football smoothie. I might as well take some longshots to make the playoffs in this conference. It should also be noted that every year there are about 4-5 new playoff teams who didn’t make it the previous season. Since I can’t bring myself to predict more than 1 new playoff team in the NFC, I’m going with 3 of them in the AFC. Denver as the #1 seed makes sense because of their schedule and the offense might cover up defensive weaknesses at least for a while. New England with the other bye because frankly, who else is gonna take it? And I’m buying into Indy being better than Houston, just slightly, and I’ll give them the #3 seed because the AFC North is battling it out where an 8-8 or 9-7 team will get the 4th seed. I’m giving Pittsburgh and Kansas City the edge over other wildcard contenders like Cincy, Houston and Baltimore for no real reason except gut feel.

SUPER BOWL PREDICTIONS

Neil: In the Super Bowl, Mike Shanahan is going to get revenge over his old team when the Redskins beat the Broncos. OK, probably not really. That is my “longshot” Super Bowl pick if somehow Washington can move up to the #1 seed in the NFC. More realistically, I see New England beating Green Bay by a touchdown in the Super Bowl. Don’t get me wrong, I really like Seattle this year. I think if they get the #1 seed, they probably go to the Suer Bowl, but I’m worried about their tougher schedule forcing them to play at Lambeau in the playoffs.

Ross: My longshot prediction is for the Denver Broncos to beat the Seattle Seahawks in the Super Bowl. If you’re smart enough to scroll up just a bit, you’ll notice that these two teams are the #1 seeds in their respective conferences according to my playoff projections. So why is this a longshot pick? Because the top teams never face each other in the Super Bowl these days! No, what we need to figure out if we’re truly going to predict the correct Super Bowl matchup is which mediocre team that basically backs into the playoffs is going to get randomly hot in January and make the run through the wildcard round all the way to the makeshift stage on February 2nd, 2014, where they’ll be hoisting the Lombardi Trophy. Who’s going to be last year’s Ravens, 2011’s Giants or 2010’s Packers? Figure that out and you got yourself the Super Bowl winner. I say Atlanta is that team this year. A tough division might cause them to limp into the playoffs looking more like a pretender than a contender, but the key is just getting there. They’ll improbably move through the NFC bracket while the AFC bracket essentially goes as expected. Atlanta beats Denver in the Super Bowl. Count on it.

NFL Predictions Continued: Superlatives & Individual Awards You Don’t Want To Win!

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

Last week we gave you predictions for what every team’s win-loss record would look like by season’s end (NFC Predictions HERE, AFC Predictions HERE). Now we’re moving on to individual awards.

Some categories are your basic MVP, players of the year, stats leaders stuff, and others are the fun awards…first coach fired, first QB benched, first team that has to deal with a player arrest, etc.

Enjoy.

trophies

 

League Leader In Passing Yards

Ross: It’s weird that I didn’t even consider Drew Brees for this award. The smart money’s probably on him since he now regularly exceeds 5,000 yards passing and his defense might be atrocious once again. But I’m going with a dark horse in Peyton Manning. He was 6th in the league in passing yards in 2012, some 500 yards behind Brees’ final number. But Manning’s schedule is so damn easy this year, I can’t help but think he puts up 300+ yards in most games and then sits the final eight minutes while their blowing out the competition.

Neil: I think Matthew Stafford wins this award, but if I was picking a longshot, it would be Jay Cutler.

League Leader in Rushing Yards

Ross: To find the top rusher in the NFL, you have to eliminate anyone who won’t get 300 or more carries during the season. I checked as far back as 2002 and the person who wins the rushing title always has at least 300 carries. So certain guys are automatically out: Ray Rice and Frank Gore are out because their teams are trying to decrease their workload and neither guy had close to 300 carries last year. C.J. Spiller’s probably out because he had 207 carries last year and I doubt he’s going to increase his rushing attempts by nearly 100 this year. Even Jamaal Charles, who had 285 carries in 2012, might be out because Andy Reid is likely to increase his workload through receptions not rushes. I’m eliminating Alfred Morris and Marshawn Lynch because they have QBs who might snatch some of the rushing yards for themselves. Arian Foster is out because I’m worried about his nagging injuries and Ben Tate seems totally capable of taking on some of Foster’s workload to keep Houston’s lead rusher fresh for December and January. That leaves Adrian Peterson and Doug Martin. I’m buying into Martin because he has an improved offensive line and his team has more offensive weapons to take the defensive focus off him than AP has. He also has a much easier schedule from a running standpoint than Peterson. Doug Martin is my 2013 rushing champ.

Neil: This is going to be Doug Martin. I know Adrian Peterson is the obvious choice here, but with Christian Ponder as his QB, every opposing defense is going to put 10 men in the box this year, right? My longshot would be Maurice Jones-Drew.

League Leader in Receiving Yards 

Ross: Just like it would have been easy to pick Brees in the passing yards category, and it would have been even easier to pick Peterson in rushing yards, Calvin Johnson is the obvious name with receiving yards. He’s won the title the past two years and nobody thinks Detroit is suddenly turning into a ground & pound team. But we’re here to have fun, not to get on board with the obvious, unsexy predictions. I’m doubling down on the Denver easy schedule and lots of throwing theory. I’m going with Demaryius Thomas to lead the league in receiving yards. He was only 530 yards short of Calvin’s record last year. Should be pretty easy to close that gap.

Neil: I’m going with Calvin Johnson to lead the league in receiving yards. I know its not a sexy pick, but I just don’t trust The Ginger Prince (that would be Andy Dalton) to get A.J. Green there. And my longshot in this category would be Vincent Jackson.

2013 MVP Award

Ross: This is an award for quarterbacks or running backs. The MVP has been awarded for the last 56 years, and only three times has it not been a QB or RB. We got our “once every few years a RB has to win it” quota out of the way last year, so I’m focusing on quarterbacks. I can envision a narrative where the Saints go 12-4 and Brees wins the MVP for leading the turnaround, but his league-leading interception total from 2012 has me worried he’s slowly morphing into Brett Favre. Aaron Rodgers can win this just by replicating last year’s 108 passer rating and crossing his fingers that a running back doesn’t go off for 2,000 yards again. But I’m actually debating between the elder statemen of quarterbacks, Manning and Tom Brady. What if Brady throw for 5,000 yards, maintains his 4:1 TD-to-INT ratio and leads the Patriots to 13 wins? After all, we’ve spent the entire offseason crying for the guy because he gave up money on his contract just to watch all his receivers either leave voluntarily, leave in handcuffs or leave in an ambulance. If he puts up those numbers with this cast of characters… But since the Mannings have a seemingly endless deal with the devil, I’m going with Peyton Manning to win the 2013 MVP Award, and sadly I think that offense might look like the 2007 Patriots when it’s all said and done.

Neil: The MVP is going to be Peyton Manning. As much as I hate it, their defense isn’t going to be good and their WRs are. Their schedule is easy so he’s going to be throwing the ball all over the place throughout the entire season. My longshot would be Doug Martin.

Offensive Player of The Year

Ross: Often different than the MVP, but almost never a wide receiver. Jerry Rice is the only non-QB/RB to win this award. I’m going with Tom Brady. Manning gets the MVP and Brady gets the “but you had a good season too, Tom” award.

Neil: It’s Peyton Manning again for the same reasoning as the MVP Award. Longshot here would be Jamaal Charles.

Defensive Player of The Year

Ross: Earl Thomas, free safety for Seattle is my choice. That might be one of the best defenses in recent memory and he’s the anchor. You do not pass on this team and he’s a huge reason why. Seattle’s coming out party began last year with Russell Wilson and the offense bursting on the scene. Now I think they keep the momentum going and have the league talking about their D all year long.

Neil: J.J. Watt because he’s just a beast. Longshot is Julius Peppers.

Comeback Player of The Year

Ross: This one’s simple. It’s RGIII. Adrian Peterson finished 2nd in the comeback voting last year and he essentially got hurt at the end of the 2011 season just like RGIII got hurt at the end of the 2012 season. So there’s no rule that says the comeback player has to have missed game time with the injury. If RGIII starts even 10 games this year, he wins this award.

Neil: I say comeback player is Maurice Jones-Drew and my longshot is Brian Orakpo.

Head Coach of The Year

Ross: The New England fan in me wants to make the case for Bill Belichick. With the offseason he’s endured, if he gets this team to 11 or 12 wins, it could be his finest hour. But he’s held to such a high standard these days. Basically if the Patriots win 14 or more games, he’ll be considered. Anything less will be just another typical season. It’s time to back my prediction of Cleveland winning the AFC North. If they do that, Rob Chudzinski automatically wins Coach of the Year so that’s who I’m picking.

Neil: Greg Schiano from Tampa Bay. Long shot is Andy Reid.

First Coach Fired

Ross: At first there seemed to be only three choices for this “award”: Rex Ryan, Jason Garrett and Jim Schwartz. And I do feel any of those three could get fired during the season. But then a 4th option emerged that I like better than the rest. Mike Munchak of the Titans. It was just last December when Titans owner Bud Adams was hinting at a future coaching change through the media after a terrible 55-7 loss to the Packers. And have you seen Bud Adams? The man’s 90 years old. He obviously doesn’t have a lot of time left. If anyone’s going to have an itchy trigger finger it’s the man who may not live long enough to see the Titans win a Super Bowl if he doesn’t do something IMMEDIATELY. The Titans also have a relatively easy schedule, so if they get off to a 1-6 start, the ax is going to fall quickly on Munchak.

Neil: The first coach fired this year is going to be Rex Ryan. I really wanted to go with Jason Garrett here, but Jerry Jones seems to be in love with him, whereas the new Jets front office was not part of the Rex Ryan hire. My longshot is Panthers coach Ron Rivera.

First QB Benched (Due to Ineffectiveness)

Ross: The conservative part of me wants to say Blaine Gabbert or Geno Smith. I have no doubt Rex Ryan will jerk Geno around all season and may even pull him after week 1 if he plays particularly bad. And once the Jags find out by week 4 that Gabbert is not the long term answer, he gets pulled for Chad Henne. But I’m going with an extreme longshot here. I’m saying Josh Freeman is the first quarterback benched due to ineffectiveness. Mike Glennon gets the call and improbably leads the Bucs to the playoffs.

Neil: Whoever the Raiders start in week 1 is a good candidate, but I have no idea what the Raiders are doing or thinking. They have four QBs and two punters on their 53-man roster. Even though it is a somewhat easy pick, I think Blaine Gabbert gets benched in favor of Chad Henne by week 5. My long shot is Michael Vick.

First Devastating Injury from a Fantasy Standpoint

Ross: (What we mean is that while a significant injury to a team’s left tackle could be a season-crushing loss, we’re more interested in the highly-rated fantasy player who might suffer a major injury).

I’m going with running back David Wilson. No real reason. I do wish badness on the Giants so why not hope for a devastating injury.

Neil: Sorry to all you fantasy owners out there who kept or spent a lot of money on C.J. Spiller, but he is going to be our first big injury of the year. He was healthy all last year, but historically has injury concerns, so law of averages.

First Player Who Gets In Trouble With the Law Once The Season Starts (Name The Team)

Ross: Ridiculous category, right? It’s a total flip of a 32-sided coin. And it’s a good thing I specifically said “once the season starts” because between the time I emailed these categories off to Neil to get his answers (about 4 days ago) and now, a Colts player was arrested on three charges after resisting arrest. I’m going to say the Ravens have the first player arrested. Fingers crossed that it’s Terrell Suggs and that he’s going away for years, but most likely it’ll be a practice squad player for a DUI.

Neil: The first team that has a player get in trouble with the law once the season begins is going to be Detroit. We’ve seen this team’s discipline on the field, I can’t imagine it is another team.

The Last Winless Team

Ross: We’ll get to the last undefeated team in a minute. But sometimes it’s even more fun to laugh at the team that just can’t seem to capture that first win of the year. Last year Cleveland was that team, starting off 0-5 before taking care of the Bengals 34-24 in week 6. This year my choice is between Arizona and Miami. It’s purely based on schedule. Even though I think Jacksonville and Oakland are the two worst teams by far in the NFL, they actually play each other in week 2 so someone’s gotta win. I’m going with Arizona and I don’t think they win a game until week 11. There I said it. I think the Cardinals only have one winnable game before week 11…a week 5 home game against Carolina. Outside of that, I dare you to find an easy win for Arizona over the first two months of the season.

Neil: The last team to win a game is going to be Buffalo. It would be easy to pick Oakland or Jacksonville for this, but those two teams “battle” each other in week 2, so if you hitch yourself to the wrong wagon you are wrong with this pick early. My longshot is Minnesota.

The Last Undefeated Team

Ross: If Denver gets by Baltimore in the opener, they’re pretty much a lock to stay undefeated the longest. Seattle is the only other team I’m considering. If you think Seattle starts the season 2-0, you’re basically saying they’re going to be 9-0 before facing their first true test with a road game against Atlanta in week 10. I’m getting on board with Seattle for this pick.

[Editor’s Note: Wow, I just looked at Neil’s pick for this category and I can’t believe how precisely the same our picks and reasoning are. Scary.]

Neil: Picking the last undefeated team is a little bit tricky. Several of the best teams have games in the first week or two that could easily trip them up, especially Green Bay and San Francisco, who have tough road games. This pick is down to Denver and Seattle for me. I’m actually more worried about Seattle on the road at Carolina in week 1 than hosting the Niners in week 2. For Denver, if you think Peyton can get by his younger brother with more Super Bowl rings in week 2, they have easy sailing until they travel to New England on November 24th. I’ve picked Denver for too many things already, so let’s go with Seattle as the last undefeated team. My longshot is New England. They start with two easy games, but weeks 3-6 are brutal.

AFC Predictions Expanded

Posted on by Ross Gariepy

Just a heads up for you football lovers, the blogs are going to come fast and furious today. Later on Neil & I will be back at it with our predictions on which teams make the playoffs, and ultimately, who wins the Super Bowl. And we’ll also throw around some thoughts on individual awards…the lame stuff like “who will lead the league in passing” and the fun stuff like “who will be the first coach fired.”

For now, here’s an expanded version of my AFC win/loss predictions blog, which I wrote on the website I Hate JJ Redick (a Baltimore-based sports blog that I’m writing for).

If you want to read more than the quick blurb I included with each prediction last week, and you want to read some funny recaps to each team’s 2012 season in 140 characters or less, go to: http://www.ihatejjr.com/content/nfl-predictions-part-2-afc-winloss-records