NFL Week 6 Picks

Does Peyton Manning know this guy is eavesdropping on his play calls?

Right now, we're still at that murky part of the season where no one really knows how good everyone else is.  We have a handful of teams that look like they can beat anybody (the Patriots, Packers, Lions and Saints), a few that look like they'll never beat anybody (the Colts, Dolphins and Rams), and a whole mess of teams that could either win their division or finish 6-10.

In half of this week's matchups, a team is favored by at least a touchdown.  I now expect at least three overtime games on Sunday.

Last week: 7-6, 8-5 Against the Spread (ATS)

Season: 50-27, 36-36-5 ATS

Bills at Giants - Maybe I'm a homer.  Maybe I'm ignoring the fact that the Giants' secondary has been bruised and battered this season, and the Bills have one of the deepest receiving corps in the league.  Or that Buffalo's opportunistic defense is playing a turnover-prone New York offense.  Maybe I'm hoping for the best because I'll be watching this one from the upper deck of Metlife Stadium. But defensive coordinator Perry Fewell, who Buffalo let go two seasons ago, has a knack for gameplans that stifle an opponent's best player.  I think he'll find a way to slow Fred Jackson, the centerpiece of the Bills' offense.

Pick - Giants

ATS - Giants (-3.5)

Colts at Bengals - My friend Pat joked in September that Jim Caldwell was 0-2 as the Colts coach, but most of Indianapolis probably shares that sentiment right now.  Let's just say Caldwell is not the guy I want next to me if my plane is going down.  Cincinnati's defense is first in the league, and Curtis Painter's hair won't change that.

Pick - Bengals

ATS - Bengals (-7)

Jaguars at Steelers - Doesn't it feel like ages ago that many draft analysts lobbied for Blaine Gabbert over Cam Newton?  Gabbert, near the bottom in nearly every passing category, is enduring a typical rookie quarterback season.

Pick - Steelers

ATS - Steelers (-13)

Touchbacks Galore: Why The Kickoff Return is Dying

Seven months ago, when the NFL announced that it was moving kickoffs up to the 35-yard line, I wrote that touchbacks would become the norm and kickoff returns would start to disappear.  It's just five weeks into the season, and even I am surprised with how much of an effect the rule change has had.

One in every two kickoffs now results in a touchback.  There were 419 touchbacks all of last year, but through only five weeks this season, we've already had 400.  But this isn't the first time kickoffs have started at the 35-yard line, so, to put this into some historical context, I decided to go back and see how the touchback rate has changed over the past two decades.

Pride and Polarity: Al Davis' Life and Legacy in Pro Football

There were plenty of reasons to admire, and abhor, Al Davis.

When a legend passes away, a prolonged public eulogy occurs where we extol the person's virtues and minimize their flaws (see: Jackson, Michael).  But for Al Davis, it's impossible to mention his contributions to football without also noting his failures.  Look back at Davis' 57 years in the NFL, and you'll see a polarizing figure who was generous to his friends and vindictive to his enemies.  With the good, came plenty of bad.

Davis was first hired as a head coach in 1963 by F. Wayne Valley, founder of the Raiders.  The upstart football mind immediately rewarded his boss with Oakland's first winning season.  But eleven years later, Davis stole ownership of the team while Valley was at the Summer Olympics in Munich.

Week 5 NFL Picks

A little last-minute, but here are my picks for this week.

Last week: 12-4, 8-8 Against the Spread (ATS)

Season: 43-21, 28-31-5 ATS

Chiefs at Colts - Indianapolis has shown a lot of fight in the last two weeks, taking the Steelers and Buccaneers down to the wire.  This will be the week they finally get their first win.

Pick - Colts

ATS - Colts (-1.5)

Cardinals at Vikings - The Arizona fans think they got jobbed on the Victor Cruz call, but they should be mad at their defense for disappearing in the last five minutes.  Patrick Peterson impressed me, as he blanketed Hakeem Nicks whenever they matched up.

Pick - Cardinals

ATS - Cardinals (+3)

Eagles at Bills - Buffalo might have the biggest home field advantage of any team right now.  Those fans will be jacked up to put Philadelphia in an early hole, but I think the Eagles are too desperate to lose this one.

Pick - Eagles

ATS - Eagles (-3)

KID - Week 5 Power Rankings: MVPs

Each year, eleven of my best friends and I participate in a keeper fantasy football league, dubbed "Keeper? I Don't Even Like Her!" (KID, for short).  This post, ranking the teams in our league after their Week 4 performances, is for them.

The first four weeks of the season were marked by some great individual efforts that carried teams to a hot start.  This week, I've noted which player has been your MVP. 

1. Room For Regret (Last week's rank: 1) 4-0, 517 points
Last week: Two return touchdowns by the Jets defense helped Kevin get the win over Stratis, despite Andre Johnson's early departure.
MVP: Right now, Tom Brady would win the MVP award in any league, fantasy or otherwise. 

2. Rice and Breesy (2) 2-2, 522 points
Last week: Sumit's 134 points were second only to Hunt.  Unfortunately, that's who he was playing. 
MVP: Words cannot describe how incredible Wes Welker has been this season.  He has 20 points more than any other non-quarterback in the league. 

3. A Few Good Chicks (3) 2-2, 495 points
Last week: Will got a stellar 36 point performance from Matt Forte, but it wasn't enough for him to overtake a 128 point week from...Jason??  I might ask Yahoo to re-run those numbers, this can't be right.
MVP: Matt Forte is showing his versatility, as he has almost as many yards receiving (310) as he does rushing (324).

"The League" Live

Last night, my roommates and I went to The League Live, performed by the characters of the hit FX comedy.  I've been a fan of "The League" since it premiered two seasons ago, and the cast was just as entertaining on stage.

The show was a mix of stand-up and back-and-forth banter between the actors and the crowd.  The highlight was definitely Steve Rannazzisi, who had us dying with his stories of doing damage control for his two-year-old son and contracting a homeless man to exact poetic justice on another motorist.  He even tossed my roommate Doug a DVD for a well-timed Chad Ochocinco joke.  The cast offered to give fantasy football advice, which quickly devolved into ridicule of audience members who droned on about why their Jamaal Charles trade should be vetoed.  The actors' takeaway was that fantasy football teams are like dreams: everyone has them, but no one wants to hear about yours.

Brett Favre Retired; Ego Still Active

"Aaron, it's been two years.  How have you not won a championship yet?"

I had nothing but respect for Brett Favre until he held Green Bay hostage in the summer of 2008.  I realized then that he had arguably the biggest ego in sports, and I'm glad that he's proven it with every action he has taken in the three years since.  That's why I was not surprised to see him tank his reputation even further in an interview with an Atlanta radio station yesterday.

Some enlightening nuggets from Favre:

On Aaron Rodgers' championship: "I'm really kind of surprised it took him so long."  (Rodgers won a Super Bowl in his third year as a starter.  Only 5 men, Roger Staubach, Joe Montana, Kurt Warner, Tom Brady, and Ben Roethlisberger, have done it quicker.  Favre didn't win one until his fifth season under center.) 

"He's very bright and he got a chance to watch and see successful teams do it right." (In Rodgers' first two years watching Favre, the "successful" Packer teams went 4-12 and 8-8.) 

On Rodgers' succession of him: "...he just kind of fell into a good situation."  (Yes, trying to replace a legend who is waging a PR war to steal your job away is the ideal situation for any young quarterback.) 

On the expectations and advantages Rodgers has, compared to when Favre was in Green Bay: "I don't think there's any pressure on him now, the talent around him is even better than when I was there."  (I think Ahman Green, Antonio Freeman, Sterling Sharpe, and the late Reggie White would all have something to say about this.) 

Favre concluded the interview with “by the way, my d*ck is bigger than his.”

Ok, I made that last one up.  But the bottom line is, Favre could not come across as more of a bitter old man, jealous that the fame he once relished now belongs to someone else.  The downward spiral continues.

Image found here.

Brown's Blunder: The Dumbest Play of the Year

Even if Victor Cruz's play had been ruled a fumble, his gaffe did not match what Ronnie Brown did yesterday against the 49ers.  I thought my eyes were deceiving me when I watched this live.  There's still 13 weeks left in the season, but I'm already giving this the award for Dumbest Play of the Year.

Some memorable follies, like Jim Marshall's Wrong Way Run or Leon Lett's fumble, can be laughed about because the team won in spite of them.  But unfortunately for Brown, the Eagles lost by less than the field goal he threw away at the goal line.

Reviewing the Victor Cruz Non-Fumble

Victor Cruz was the Giants' unlikely hero in last week's win over the Eagles, but he was nearly the NFL's goat yesterday.  When Beanie Wells waltzed into the end zone with 5:20 left to give the Cardinals a 10-point lead, I said "game over" to my roommate Colin.  But a mere two minutes later, Eli Manning had the ball, down three points, with the Giants rolling towards an improbable comeback win.  Then, after a 19-yard catch to put the Giants in field goal range, Cruz nearly threw it all away:

We Giants fans had seen this before.  Twice in the past two years, both against the Eagles, a potential game-winning drive ended when Eli Manning fumbled the ball away while falling down untouched.  I couldn't believe it was happening again.  So you can imagine my surprise when the refs ruled that Cruz was down, even though he wasn't touched.

Week 4 NFL Picks

Apologies for the delay in this post, I did not plan on having a tree knock out my internet this week.  Unfortunately, I have no excuse for my picks this year, which so far have been thoroughly mediocre.  Let's see if I can turn things around this week.

Last week: 9-7, 7-9 Against the Spread (ATS)

Season: 31-17, 20-23-4 ATS

Lions at Cowboys - Dallas, per usual, looks pretty at the skill positions and ugly everywhere else.  With Detroit's defense on the way, now is not the time to have communication issues on the o-line.

Pick - Lions

ATS - Lions (+2.5)