Weekly Picks

Sorry for the lateness with the picks this week. Extenuating circumstances prevented Adam from making his selections at work. Last week, I went 4-2 but it was a disappointing 4-2 because Green Bay had the ball with 3 minutes to go down 5 points. I thought the worst they could do was not score, and the Bears would run out the clock. But the horrible Brett Favre threw a pick and Nathan Vasher took it the other way to make it 19-7 and cost us the game. The other loss was Miami, they won 24-23 (I predicted 24-20), but it wasn't enough to cover the spread.
On their own Adam and Harley went 9-1 and continued their climb up the standings, residing in second, two points out of first. We're going to keep the momentum going this week, the third in a row where they disagreed on exactly 6 games.

BILLS +3.5 patriots: This is a tough game because New England doesn't really need it and Buffalo is much better at home than on the road. Buffalo is coming off a really tough loss. J.P. Losman passed for three touchdowns in the first quarter last week and we know New England's defense is susceptible to the pass when they play a real team (read: not the Jets). Also I get scared by the 3 and a half point spreads becuase so many games are decided by field goals. Even so I have to pick New England.

BENGALS -12.5 browns: Cleveland put a scare into me last week jumping out to an early lead on Jacksonville before blowing it. Charlie Frye played ok in his first career start. He doesn't have Braylon Edwards this week and Reuben Droughns health is in doubt too. Cincinnati should destroy them but they could be stepping into a trap game. I'll take the bait because I think Cincinnati only needs to score 23 points to cover this spread.

STEELERS -5.5 bears: All week I was thinking to myself that the Steelers looked like a good pick, I thought it would be a close line, maybe Pitt by 1 or 2. But 5 and a half points, that seems high to me. But I still think my reasoning was sound. The Bears aren't desperate, Pittsburgh is. The Bears have been getting lucky, they cannot score. Pittsburgh is good at home and they might be able to cover this spread with only scoring 13 points. I'm praying Roethlisberger's thumb is as hurt as it was last week when he had one of his best passing games as a pro. I'm going with Pittsburgh but if Tommy Maddox (winced while typing that) comes in, he'll get picked off at least three times.

PANTHERS -5.5 buccaneers: Carolina has Tampa Bay's number. Tampa Bay scored 10 points in each of the last two games. This could be another blowout. I don't have much to say so I'll ask a question: What's a buccaneer? (A pretty expensive price for corn.)

CHARGERS -13.5 dolphins: I love San Diego, I'm going to keep riding their train until it crashes. For bettors the fact that they blew some games early was a blessing. They are one the top 5 teams in the league and when the rest of the teams (Indy, Seattle) shut it down for the season, making them risky bets San Diego is going to have to play every game with passion until the end of the season. This is their one soft spot before a stretch of Indy, KC and Denver to end the season. No way they let this one get away. But will they win by two touchdowns? Yes! I think Sage Rosenfels will suffer Ryan Fitzpatrick Syndrome this week. Third string QB comes in at the end of the game leads a miraculous comeback and throws for a million yards. Then announcers say "imagine how good he'll be with a week of getting all the reps in practice." Then the guy sucks in the next game and the announcers say "he must be nervous in his first NFL start, when he came in last week he was loose because he didn't have to think about playing all week." But that shit ain't the truth. The truth is anyone could throw against the soft defenses Fitzpatrick and Rosenfels saw the past two weeks. When defenses are aggressive against them and have the whole week to prepare for them, then we'll remember why both guys were third stringers.

COWBOYS -3.5 chiefs: Both teams need this game and the loser probably will not make the playoffs, though Kansas City will have a better chance. KC hasn't been a good road team and the Cowboys are coming off two tough losses in a row and the Chiefs are on a 3 game winning streak. Either these are two teams going in opposite directions or Dallas will win. I'll go with the latter.

Now I know this means I took all 6 favorites one week after the biggest week for favorites in NFL history (unconfirmed). I realize this trend but I just couldn't find a dog on this list I really believed in. Hopefully if there are a couple surprises here we can still go 4-2.