The picks this week are weird. Three games are off the board (at least where I'm looking) owing to either injuries or "will the team rest its key guys" questions. A lot of other games are also in doubt because of resting the starters concerns. Here's what I would pick this week:
New Orleans -7 vs. Dallas
Baltimore -10.5 vs. Chicago
Oakland +14 at Denver
NY Giants -3 at Washington
And I have the following question: is Cleveland (+1.5) at Kansas City the worst game of the year? Or is that reserved for the Kansas City - Oakland game in a week?
The NFL really is at the point that any game can be interesting...and any game can totally suck. Would you have been surprised if Jacksonville was losing 28-7 after three quarter last night? Or if Indy rested their starters and Jacksonville was up by three touachdowns? The Cleveland-Detroit game was supposed to be the worst of the year, but it turned out to be very entertaining. But Cleveland 6 - Buffalo 3 totally sucked. I'm going Oakland-Kansas City will not be horrible because it's a division game, but Cleveland does seem to be involved in a lot of bad games.
ReplyDeleteFYI...with only two wins, Cleveland and Detroit are in contention for the first pick, but trail St. Louis and Tampa Bay...both at 1-12. 2 wins may only get you the 4th pick.
I think Denver's still keying on the wild card spot and wants to show their a good team by beating up a bad team, so I'm going directly against Royce and taking Denver -14.
ReplyDeleteI'll take Green Bay +1.5 because the Packers are good and (right now) the Steelers are not.
I'll take the NY Giants -3, mostly just to remind Royce to check the lines correctly. NY is favored...you don't get to make up your own lines just to get extra points. If that was the case, I'd take Denver in a pick'em.
And I'll go with New England -7 and San Diego -6.5 just to get to five games.
For the record I already hate my pick of Raiders +14 and can't believe I chose Oakland, something I swore I would never do this year.
ReplyDeleteI like your GB pick and considered that msyelf. I can't believe I fucked up the Giants line (yet again). New England -7 is a strong pick but that team has become untrustworthy, so I stayed away. I do anticipate a big "eff you" game from them, though, after the "Randy Moss quit" chatter from last week. And San Diego -6.5 seems solid because we will want to thrash a potential wild card to make a statement.
Back to the Giants game... is there a reason they're only a -3 favorite? I seem to remember the Redskins nearly losing to the Rams this year? Are the Giants that crappy now?
I would say the line feels right. It's a division game. Washington lost to New Orleans by 3 (in OT), Philly by 3 and Dallas by 1. They beat Oakland and Denver. Those are their last five games. They're playing solid football, just haven't done enough to get into the playoff picture. The line feels right, but NY needs the win more and they get it.
ReplyDeleteFirst off - that picture absolutely slayed me; for you to still pick the Raiders after posting that pic makes me question your judgement.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, I like the following two lines:
Ravens -10.5: The Bears suck - I think this game finishes closer to 20 than 10 (something like 27-10).
Titans (was -4 when I looked at it earlier): I am somewhat hesitant to take this based on Miami's past few games (wins vs. Pats and @ Jags), but my gut (not really good analysis, eh?) says Johnson goes off while the Titans are able to control the Dolphins offense. This game ends with a wider victory margin for the Titans than it probably should (3+ scores).
Finally, to keep up the tradition of picking the Niners game, I'll go with Eagles -Whatever. I think we get blown out, especially considering the whole West Coast Team Playing the Early East Coast Game Theory...
I saw 14 points and I got trigger happy, okay?! I regret it, but there's no going back! They are who we thought they were!
ReplyDeleteInteresting weekend... the Saints (-7) straight up lost to the Cowboys. And the Raiders (+14) straight up beat the Broncos.
ReplyDeleteScott good call on your Ravens-Bears pick; you prediced a final score of 27-10 and it ended 31-7 in favor of the Ravens, well done.
Aaron you got the Packers to cover the spread by 0.5 points... now that is lucky sauce.
And the Chiefs-Browns game turned out not to be the worst game of the year... at 41-34 the Browns won with all offense. Their RB had 286 yds and 3 TDs while their kick return guy got two return TDs. I didn't watch it I just saw the highlights, maybe it was ugly defense or something.
I am 2-1 going into tonight, if the Giants win by more than 3 I'll have won my weekend.
I insist that you give me credit for not allowing you to assume that just because two bad teams are playing each other means the game will be bad.
ReplyDeleteMy Titans pick was awesome for 3 quarters (Johnson on his way to 180+ total yards, Titans held Miami to 220 yards, and the Titans were up by 15); then they decided to give up 15 unanswered points to send it into OT.
ReplyDeleteI also won my Eagles (- whatever) pick.
I'm giving myself a 2.75-0.25 record this weekend for essentially nailing all 3 picks and getting screwed by Keith Bullock getting hurt in the last half of the 3rd quarter.
PS I'd like to note how incredibly fortunate I was in fantasy this week: in the semis of our office pool, I was playing against a coworker who had both Big Ben and the aforementioned Browns RB (Jerome Harrison), but sat them both in favor of Schaub and Arian Foster.
ReplyDeleteLet the record reflect that Big Ben went off for 38.82 points and Harrison totaled 47.80 points. Their replacements?
Schaub actually had a respectable 18.38 points; Foster, however, went off for a whopping 0.00 points.
(38.82 + 47.80) - (18.38 + 0.00) = 68.24 lost points
This made me happier than it probably should have...