NFL Week 17 Picks

Well, gang, here it is. The end of the line. It should be a very interesting day, as a lot of things are still up in the air. I can't remember the last time the playoff races were this tight on the last day of the season. Doing quick picks today, because I have a birthday party to plan. On to the picks!

St. Louis at Atlanta: FALCONS. What at unlikely rise for Atlanta. They could wind up the #2 seed in the NFC if Carolina loses to the Saints. I don't think they will, but just to be in that position is impressive.

New England at Buffalo: PATRIOTS. For the 11th time in a row. Kill me.

Kansas City at Cincinnati: CHIEFS. Taking the Chiefs on the road. Somehow, it seemed like the right thing to do.

Detroit at Green Bay: LIONS. Yep, you read it correctly. I'm calling it. Detroit gets off the schneid and into the win column. And the members of the 0-14 Tampa Bay Buccaneers team cry themselves to sleep tonight.

Tennessee at Indianapolis: COLTS. Not for any reason. It's a meaningless game for both teams, and I like the Colts better. That's all.

New York Giants at Minnesota: VIKINGS. Because the game doesn't mean anything for the Giants, and it means everything for the Vikings.

Carolina at New Orleans: PANTHERS. Over/under on Drew Brees pass attempts in this game: 47. Pick your poison.

Cleveland at Pittsburgh: STEELERS. So, the Browns haven't scored an offensive touchdown in 5 games, and now they're playing Pittsburgh. This should be fun.

Oakland at Tampa Bay: BUCCANEERS.

Chicago at Houston: BEARS. In overtime.

Miami at New Jersey Jets: JETS. And the Patriots win the AFC East. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Dallas at Philadelphia: COWBOYS. Just so we can see Romo and Wade Phillips go to pieces in the playoffs again.

Jacksonville at Baltimore: RAVENS.

Washington at San Francisco: 49ERS.

Seattle at Arizona: CARDINALS. With no confidence whatsoever. After last week, I'm not sure the Cards can beat anyone. But going back to the desert should be good for them, and the Seahawks are pretty bad.

Denver at San Diego: CHARGERS. Payback's a bitch.

And that's the season. I'll probably be back next week with some predictions for the playoffs.

-Niztradamus

NFL Week 16 Picks

Okay, we're going to run through the picks quickly, because I forgot to do this yesterday. I was editing my new short story all day and the NFL picks slipped my mind. I plan to finish the editing this afternoon/evening, and then the story will be online. It's called "Consumed." I'm pretty happy about it.

On to the picks!

Indianapolis at Jacksonville: COLTS. Indy's on a hell of a winning streak, but for some reason I still don't expect them to get very far in the playoffs. But I've been wrong before and probably will be again someday.

Baltimore at Dallas: COWBOYS. Yep, missed on this one. I'm not surprised that Dallas had trouble offensively against the Ravens. I am surprised the Ravens scored 33 points. If they can get some production from their offense, they could be dangerous in January. Baltimore is one of three teams I could see going to the Super Bowl from the AFC. Who are the other two?

Pittsburgh at Tennessee: STEELERS. These are the other two. I'm really looking forward to this battle for the top seed in the conference. I picked the Steelers because I think they're a slightly better team, both offensively and defensively. But it wouldn't surprise me at all if the Titans won this game. In fact, if I were betting against the spread, I would have to pick Tennessee on principle. Last time I checked, the Titans were a two-point underdog. It's a rare day that you get the team with the best record in the NFL playing at home and they're not a heavy favorite, let alone an underdog. That's the kind of bet you make, regardless of circumstances. It will work out more often than it won't.

Cincinnati at Cleveland: BROWNS. I guess. I don't have confidence in either of these teams.

New Orleans at the magnificent 0-14 Detroit Lions: SAINTS. Come on, guys! Two more games! You can do it!

Miami at Kansas City: DOLPHINS. Miami will probably make the playoffs. And they will certainly get destroyed in the opening round.

San Francisco at St. Louis: 49ERS. Because they're better than their record. The Rams are not.

Arizona at New England: PATRIOTS. This looked like a promising season for the Cards, and they did make the playoffs. You've got to give them that much. But they're going to finish around .500 and I doubt they'll get a win in the postseason. This is one of my best bets of the week. Why? Review what the Cardinals have done on the east coast this season.

San Diego at Tampa Bay: BUCS. I'm holding out hope that the Chargers beat the Bucs and the Bills beat the Broncos, to set up a fun Broncos-Chargers game for the AFC West championship next weekend. But neither of those things is going to happen.

New Jersey Jets at Seattle: JETS. But they've been playing pretty badly lately. And it's a long road trip. You could see the Hawks winning this game, right? It will be weird to see Brett Favre and Mike Holmgren on the sidelines with no Packers gear in sight.

Houston at Oakland: TEXANS. I'll say it again-- Andre Johnson is a beast. And the Raiders make me feel depressed. I don't even like the Raiders, but I feel bad anyway.

Buffalo at Denver: BRONCOS. I wouldn't bet on this game either way. The Broncos are inconsistent, even at home (the Raiders blew them out at Mile High, after all), and the Bills are probably getting Trent Edwards back, which will help. Gibran Hamdan would have helped. Anyone but J.P. Losman would have helped. Still, the Bills have won exactly one game in the past two months, and that was a bizarre 54-point outburst against the Chiefs, in which Kansas City actually gained more offensive yards than we did. I'll play it safe and take the Broncos.

Philadelphia at Washington: EAGLES. The Redskins are in a freefall and McNabb has been excellent since the benching incident.

Atlanta at Minnesota: VIKINGS. Tough call. Once again, going with the home team and Adrian Peterson. (With Kurt Warner's Cardinals struggling, Adrian will probably hear those M-V-P! M-V-P! chants getting louder)

Carolina at New York Giants: GIANTS. I almost picked Carolina. But I think the Giants are just too tough, too resilient, to lose consecutive games and give up their stranglehold on the NFC. These are the guys who toppled the New England dynasty, after all. Coughlin says Brandon Jacobs will play, barring a setback before the game. That is very good news for the G-men.

Green Bay at Chicago: BEARS. Finally, an NFC North game that does not involve the Lions that seems pretty clear-cut. The Bears have played better than the Packers over the course of the season, and the game is in Chicago. But the way my picks have gone in this division all year, Green Bay will probably win.

All right, that's all. Have a merry Christmas, a happy Hannukah, a pleasant Kwanzaa, a bodacious Boxing Day, and an excellent winter solstice.

-Niztradamus

NFL Week 15 Picks

Hey gang,

Considering the Bills have lost 6 of their past 7 games, I'm finding it difficult to muster up much enthusiasm about the NFL right now. But I shall continue picking, because that's what I do. I recommend this article on NFL.com by Nick Bakay, a pretty funny guy and Buffalonian. This article says pretty much everything I have to say about the Bills-Toronto experiment. On to the picks!

New Orleans at Chicago: BEARS. I actually remembered to make my picks in time for the Thursday game this week, and was rewarded with a 1-0 start, although the Bears made me sweat for it.

Washington at Cincinnati: REDSKINS. Washington has been struggling lately, but I think they should still beat the Bengals.

Tampa Bay at Atlanta: FALCONS. Calling an audible here. I had originally picked Tampa, but with two closely matched teams I might as well take the home field advantage, plus Jeff Garcia is injured and may not play in the game.

Detroit at Indianapolis: COLTS. Three more games, guys. Just three more, and you will be 0-16.

San Diego at Kansas City: CHARGERS. As disappointing as the Bills have been, the Chargers (or the Browns) might be the league's biggest disappointment. They looked poised to become one of the NFL's elite teams at the start of this year, and now they're not even going to win the weakest division in football.

Green Bay at Jacksonville: PACKERS. Green Bay and Jacksonville are also contenders for the "most disappointing team" award.

Tennessee at Houston: TITANS. The Falcons and Dolphins have been great stories, but I think the coach of the year award must go to Jeff Fisher of the Titans. People thought the Titans would contend for a playoff spot this season, but no one expected this. I still don't think Tennessee will win the Super Bowl (actually, I don't even think they'll get to the big game) but getting this team to 12-1 is an impressive feat, especially considering they switched starting quarterbacks early in the season and never missed a beat.

Seattle at St. Louis: SEAHAWKS. Earlier, I called the AFC West the weakest division in football. Looking at the NFC West, I might have to reconsider that position.

San Francisco at Miami: DOLPHINS. As you will understand after reading the Nick Bakay article, I hate Miami and always will. That's why it gives me satisfaction that, even though there's a good chance the Fins make the playoffs, they will surely get blown out once they get there. They've been on a hot streak lately, but I don't know if there's ever been a less impressive hot streak in football. They struggled to beat the Raiders and Seahawks at home. The Raiders. And the Seahawks. And they might have lost to the Bills if it had been a real home game for Buffalo.

Minnesota at Arizona: CARDINALS. One of the toughest calls of the week. But Arizona is tough to beat at home, Frerotte might not play, and I think the Cards are a slightly better team than the Vikings all around. Still, anything can happen when Adrian Peterson is involved.

Buffalo at New Jersey Jets: JETS. God, please just let it be over soon.

Denver at Carolina: PANTHERS. Denver's 8-5 record looks pretty good. Their 8-6 record won't look so good, especially after Carolina beats the living hell out of them.

Pittsburgh at Baltimore: STEELERS. I believe Pittsburgh clinches the division with a victory today, since they beat the Ravens earlier in the season. It will be a tough road game, but I think Pittsburgh can pull it off. When I said earlier that I don't think Tennessee will make it the Super Bowl, you might have wondered who I think will get there from the AFC. The answer: these guys.

New England at Oakland: PATRIOTS. But an upset is not out of the question. New England does not seem to enjoy the west coast. Can't blame them there.

New York Giants at Dallas: GIANTS. Should be an entertaining one.

Cleveland at Philadelphia: EAGLES. Philly suddenly looks like a good team again, but I think it's going to be too little, too late. Even if they go 10-6 (or even 11-5) they could miss the playoffs by a spot or two.

That's all for this week. Enjoy.

-Niztradamus

Week 14 NFL Picks

Hey gang,

We've got some interesting games this week. The Steelers host the Cowboys, in what I originally predicted would be a preview of Super Bowl XLIII. They're both having good seasons, and it's still possible that one or both could make it to the big game, but Tennessee and the Giants have run away with the regular season and are the clear frontrunners from the two conferences. On Monday night, there's a big game in the NFC South, as the Panthers host the Bucs. And the Bills and Dolphins play the first regular season NFL game in Toronto. But let's not talk about that much.

On to the picks!

Oakland at San Diego: This was a no-brainer, but once again I failed to make my selections in time for the Thursday game. Beacuse I often lose track of what day of the week it is. I'm an idiot. I'm 11 games off the lead in the pick 'em league, and I would have at least 4 or 5 more wins (and maybe more) if I had remembered to pick on time. So it's not like I would be winning the league or anything, but it would be a more manageable and respectable deficit.

Jacksonville at Chicago: BEARS. Jack Del Rio, that seat's getting a little hot, right?

Minnesota at Detroit: VIKINGS. Obviously I'm not going to pick the Lions, but I'm starting to root for them. I feel bad for their fans. I know what it's like to root for a team that sucks constantly, and I wouldn't want anyone to see their team go 0-16. Unless the team in question was the Patriots, Jets, or Dolphins.

Houston at Green Bay: PACKERS. It's been a disappointing year for the Pack, but you have to think they win this one against an inconsistent team from Texas at Lambeau in December. This is the kind of game Green Bay ALWAYS wins.

Cleveland at Tennessee: TITANS. Rule: In the NFL you always, always pick against Ken Dorsey.

Cincinnati at Indianapolis: COLTS. Since I don't have much to say about this game, I'll just mention that I almost always have to double check to make sure that I'm spelling "Cincinnati" correctly. Even though I have a great memory for the way words are spelled, that one just throws me off. I'm constantly questioning whether it's a double "N" or a double "T." Okay, moving on.

Atlanta at New Orleans: FALCONS. Probably not a good idea to take a road team in this division, but I've been really impressed by Atlanta. There's a good chance it won't happen, but I would really like to see the Falcons make the playoffs. They're just a feel-good story. And I would love to see Matt Ryan immediately have more success than Michael Vick did in ATL.

Philadelphia at New York Giants: GIANTS. I wouldn't be shocked if the Eagles won this game. McNabb was superb on Thanksgiving, and now he's had a long week to prepare for the Giants. Plus wacky things happen in the NFC East, and the Giants have a major distraction, considering the Plaxico Burress incident. You know, this really speaks to the sad state of professional sports, but I didn't find that story surprising. I think I grinned a little, because it is pretty funny, but for the most part I was unfazed. I just went, "Well, at least he didn't shoot anyone else."

Okay, gotta rush through these last picks, because my parents called me while I was writing this, and now I've only got a little while before I need to leave for my friend Jon's ugly Christmas sweater party (because it's never too early to get drunk while wearing a hideous sweater).

Jersey Jets at San Francisco: JETS. But it's a road game, and these Niners are showing some pluck, so an upset isn't out of the question.

Kansas City at Denver: BRONCOS. But, again, an upset wouldn't be shocking because the Broncos are utterly unpredictable.

Miami at Buffalo: DOLPHINS. The Bills are in the crapper, the Dolphins are hot, the crowd in Toronto will be an unenthusiastic group of rich people, and J.P. Losman is starting. It all adds up to a victory for the Fins.

New England at Seattle: PATRIOTS. Mike Holmgren is really regretting his Seattle farewell tour.

St. Louis at Arizona: CARDINALS. Come on, Kurt Warner, I need a big game. I managed to get the last slot in my fantasy playoffs!

Dallas at Pittsburgh: STEELERS. You too, Willie Parker and Tony Romo (yes, my league starts multiple quarterbacks. It's wild)!

Washington at Baltimore: RAVENS. Because Ray-Ray is playing for a payday.

Tampa Bay at Carolina: PANTHERS. Because I was basically flipping a coin and Carolina is at home.

All right, that's it, that's all, that's all there is. By the time next week rolls around, my semester will be completely over. Good times.

-Niztradamus

Project Gouda Blind!

Brian Edwards and I have launched a new writing project that we're collaborating on. Project Gouda Blind, baby. (The name of the project is a rather complicated story that is probably not as funny to anyone else as it is to us.) There are two different stories we're working on, and we've posted the first four chapters of one of them (the first few chapters of the other are coming soon, we're just finishing up the editing, and possibly adding some more content before we put it up). You can read more about the project and read the chapters by going here.

We have also set up a facebook page to promote the project and to keep our fans updated on new chapters, news on the Gouda, etc. Please go here and become a fan. It will help our literary street cred.

-Nick

Week 13 NFL Picks

Hey gang,

Another short one this week. Lots of stuff to do. The good news is the semester is almost over, so soon I will get back to blogging on here about topics other than football, and the football articles themselves might be longer and more in-depth. At least until the spring semester starts in January, at which time I will once again cease to have a life outside the Newhouse School.

So I forgot to make my picks before the Thanksgiving games. Well, actually I didn't forget. I went online at about 10:30 that morning to make my picks, but I was at my parents' house, and their satellite internet connection is very fickle in the snow, and I was unable to do anything online. I know, bitch, bitch, bitch. Anyway, I would have been right about Tennessee and Dallas (because you would have been out of your mind to pick against either of them) and I'm honestly not sure which way I would have gone in the Philly-Arizona game. On one hand, the Cardinals looked like the better team on paper. On the other hand, the Cardinals (and every other western team) have been unable to win on the east coast, and this was the epitome of the game where Donovan McNabb gets pissed off about people criticizing and questioning him and responds by having a monster game. So the Eagles' "upset" of the Cardinals was not entirely surprising. But would I have predicted it? I'm really not sure. By the way, I think it would be an effective strategy for Eagles coach Andy Reid to notice this pattern and invest most of his time in finding new and creative ways to piss off his quarterback every week.

On to the remaining picks!

San Francisco at Buffalo: THE BILLS. West coast teams play poorly on the east coast (see above). Mind you, I'm not putting too much stock in the Bills scoring 54 points on Kansas City last week. The Chiefs suck out loud, and as happy as I was with the offensive explosion, I was more disturbed that our defense allowed the Chiefs to rack up more than 460 yards of offense against us (we also forced 5 turnovers, but still). So, no, I don't suddenly think the Bills are going to go on a roll and make the playoffs or anything crazy like that, but we should beat the Niners in Buffalo.

Baltimore at Cincinnati: RAVENS. Prove me wrong, Cincinnati, prove me wrong.

Indianapolis at Cleveland: COLTS. Don't look now, but the Colts are back from the dead. (So are the Cowboys. And so are the Patriots, if you think back to the widespread panic and despair felt by Patriots fans after the Brady injury. It's the season of the zombies!)

Carolina at Green Bay: PANTHERS. As previously noted (several times, in fact) I cannot correctly predict the outcome of a Packers game. This is as good as guaranteeing a Green Bay victory. You're welcome, Pete.

Miami at St. Louis: DOLPHINS. What is there to say? The Rams blow.

New Orleans at Tampa Bay: BUCCANEERS. I have a strange feeling I'm wrong about this, but I'm standing by the NFC South home field advantage theory.

New York Giants at Washington: GIANTS. And the juggernaut rolls on...

Atlanta at San Diego: FALCONS. It's a long road trip, but it's not as hard for eastern teams to go west as it is for western teams to go east, and really, how much confidence do you have in the Chargers at this point, even with a significant home field advantage? Should be an interesting match up, as Michael Turner returns to San Diego. Maybe it will inspire LT to have a decent game for once, but I doubt it. Turner will probably outplay LT by a significant margin, prompting several San Diego sports writers to speculate that the team kept the wrong running back (and, they will undoubtedly point out, the wrong quarterback, when they kept Rivers instead of Brees, and maybe they'll even point out that they might have made a mistake when they caved to Eli Manning's demands and traded him to the Giants immediately after drafting him. After all, Manning the Younger has a Super Bowl ring, and appears headed for another. Chargers fans will now become horribly depressed and start drinking bourbon straight from the bottle).

Denver Broncos at Jersey Jets: JETS. They're sons of bitches, but they're good.

Kansas City at Oakland: RAIDERS. And the award for the game watched by the fewest people this week goes to... Chiefs-Raiders!!!! Seriously, the viewership for this game could be in the triple digits. And that includes the people in the stadium.

Pittsburgh at New England: STEELERS. I know, I know. Willie Parker is gimpy, and the Patriots have looked good recently, and we might have another Tom Brady story on our hands with Matt Cassel. But I picked the Steelers to go to the Super Bowl, dammit, and seeing them win this game would make me happy and give the Bills a slightly more realistic chance of making the playoffs, so I'm picking with my heart.

Chicago Bears at Minnesota Vikings: VIKINGS. I understand one thing about this division and one thing only: the Lions are bad. Everything else is a question mark. So I picked the home team. And, coincidentally, the team with the better Adrian Peterson.

Jacksonville at Houston: TEXANS. Another tough to call game. So I went with the home team. And the team with Andre Johnson.

I'm out. Catch ya next week.

-Niztradamus

NFL Week 12 Picks

Hey gang,

Just taking some time out from working on the horror story to make this week's NFL picks. For those who are curious, there is still quite a bit of work to be done on the story, and I'm not sure when it will be done. It's turning out to be a bigger project that I thought it would. I hope to finish it before Thanksgiving, but in order to do that, I'll need to devote some serious time to writing in the next four days. So I can't make any promises. But I will say that, whenever it's done, it will be worth the wait. I'm really digging this one.

Good news-- I remembered to pick the Thursday game this week! And I was right! Of course, it was Pittsburgh against Cincinnati, so picking the Steelers wasn't rocket science. On to the rest of the picks.

Cincinnati at Pittsburgh: STEELERS. I'm 1-0! Hooray!

Carolina at Atlanta: PANTHERS. The Falcons are good. But the Panthers are better. I am somewhat leery of taking the road team here, as home field advantage has been a fairly solid predictor of success in the NFC South this season, but I just think the Cats are good enough to get it done.

Houston at Cleveland: BROWNS. I'd probably take the Texans here if Matt Schaub was playing QB for them, and not Sage Rosenfels. Should be an entertaining game with some good offense.

San Francisco at Dallas: COWBOYS. Dallas beat the Redskins last week, the Eagles are struggling, and the Giants have a tough game against the Cardinals. Could be a solid week for Jerry's 'Boys.

Tampa Bay at Detroit: BUCCANEERS. And the quest for 0-16 goes on.

New Jersey Jets at Tennessee: TITANS. Actually, I think there's a good chance this is the week Tennessee stumbles. But I hate the Jets and they're certainly no sure thing to win this game. They're on the road, and the Titans have a great defense, which increases the probability of Favre throwing multiple interceptions. That's what I'm hoping for.

Buffalo at Kansas City: CHIEFS. I can't believe how quickly this season has gone from euphoria to agony. A little part of me died when Lindell missed that field goal Monday night. Maybe I'm only picking the Chiefs here because I'm pessimistic and angry and feeling resentful toward the Bills. But it is worth pointing out that the Bills and Chiefs have won the same number of games in the past month-- zero-- and KC has shown occasional signs of competitiveness lately. Plus the Bills are playing on the road after a Monday night game, in a stadium that is notoriously difficult for road teams. You have to admit there is a decent possibility the Chiefs pick up win #2 here, and the Bills will drop below .500.

Chicago at St. Louis: BEARS. Chicago, you made me look like a d-bag last week when I picked you to beat Green Bay and you got your asses handed to you on a platter. Don't let it happen again.

New England at Miami: PATRIOTS. I know, the Dolphins beat the Patriots at Foxborough earlier this season, so why wouldn't they beat them again at home? Well, for one thing, it's still difficult for me to imagine a world in which the Patriots get swept by the Dolphins. For another, the Patriots just look like a much better team right now, despite the previous loss to Miami and the fact that the teams have identical records. In recent weeks, Miami has struggled in home games against the Raiders and Seahawks. A good east coast team should blow out a bad west coast team at home every time. The fact that those games were close is making me seriously question Miami's status as a wild card contender.

Minnesota at Jacksonville: VIKINGS. One of the toughest games of the week to call. Interconference match up, two teams that look fairly close in terms of talent (even though the Vikings have won two more games), hard to say what's going to happen. When in doubt, take Adrian Peterson's team.

Philadelphia at Baltimore: RAVENS. I would really like to think McNabb was joking when he said he didn't know an NFL game could end in a tie last week. But I'm afraid he might have been serious. Anyway, you tie the Bengals, I don't pick you to beat a good team on the road the following week. That's just how it works. On the other hand, this could follow the pattern of McNabb saying something ridiculous, stirring up controversy, and then coming out and playing a great game the next week. That could happen. But I'm not betting on it.

Oakland at Denver: BRONCOS. It's really starting to look like Denver will win this division. I know, I can't believe it either.

New York Giants at Arizona: GIANTS. Since the Bills are tanking and I hate the Jets, I have decided to reluctantly acknowledge the G-men as a New York team (even though they're not). Anyway, this is definitely the game of the week, and I could see the Cards winning, especially since it's in the desert. But I just couldn't bring myself to pick against the champs when they're playing as well as they are now. If Arizona does somehow win this game, things will get a lot more interesting in the NFC.

Washington at Seattle: REDSKINS. But I did consider taking the Hawks for the upset here. It's always tough to go coast to coast, the Reskins aren't that good, and I think Seattle has been making some small improvements lately. Still, erred on the side of caution and took the team that has won 6 games over the team that has won 2.

Indianapolis at San Diego: COLTS. If Indy wins, it will set them up nicely for a playoff run, and it would likely be the final nail in the coffin for the Chargers. If SD can defend the home turf and pull off the win, it will make the AFC playoff picture much more complicated and keep them alive in the division.

Green Bay at New Orleans: PACKERS. Ugh, another difficult to predict game involving the Packers. I'm always wrong about these. You should probably take the Saints with confidence.

Okay, that's all for now. Hopefully I will remember to come back in a few days and make my Thanksgiving picks in time.

-Niztradamus

NFL Week 11 Picks

Hey gang,

It's been a good week, but a busy one. I'm definitely through the worst of the semester now, and the rest is basically a formality. I am almost ready to declare victory. That being said, I am still rather busy, and I made things worse by going out a couple of times this weekend, so it will be another round of quick picks this week. Enjoy.

Jersey Jets at New England: Once again, I forgot to pick the Thursday game. But if I had remembered, it wouldn't have mattered, because I would have been wrong. Fuck the Garden State Jets. Fuck them in their stupid asses. Now that the Patriots no longer seem like the evil empire (hell, if not for Belichick and Vince Wilfork, this Pats team would be almost likable), the Jets have taken over their place as my most hated division rival. But it's finally time for me to admit that they might actually be good.

Denver at Atlanta: FALCONS. Take a good look at Jay Cutler and Matt Ryan in this game. That's the future of the NFL you're looking at.

Philadelphia at Cincinnati: EAGLES. I can see Philly getting back into this thing.

Chicago at Green Bay: BEARS. I've given the Packers the benefit of the doubt so many times this season, and they keep letting me down. No more. Beware of Bears.

Houston at Indianapolis: COLTS. I can see Indy getting back into this thing.

New Orleans at Kansas City: SAINTS. I cannot see the Saints getting back into this thing, but they will beat the Chiefs.

Oakland at Miami: DOLPHINS. Every other team in the AFC East is getting better while the Bills are free-falling. I hate everything.

Baltimore at Jersey Giants: GIANTS. Yes, I was wrong about the Bears beating Tennessee last week. Yes, the Titans are still undefeated. But at this point I'm finding it difficult to imagine a scenario in which the Giants do not repeat as Super Bowl champs. They're that good. They can do it all. They do not have a weakness. And they will go back-to-back.

Minnesota at Tampa Bay: BUCS. In a battle of violent, seafaring peoples, I'm taking the home team.

Detroit at Carolina: PANTHERS. I stand by what I said about the Giants. But the Panthers are dangerous. If they can win a game when Jake "The Gnome" Delhomme plays as badly as he did last week against the Raiders, people should be very, very frightened of what this team can do when Jake has a good game.

Tennessee at Jacksonville: TITANS. I was somewhat tempted to pick against Tennessee again this week. A road game against a division rival, and a division rival who as expected to be very good at the beginning of the season. But the Jags have been a huge disappointment, they're just not together, and I can't see them overcoming Tennessee's defense.

St. Louis at San Francisco: 49ERS. Wow. I found myself wishing for a third option when I made this pick.

Arizona at Seattle: CARDINALS. The Seahawks actually showed a little friskiness when they nearly beat Miami on the road last week, but the Cards just have too much firepower. Even traveling to the Pacific Northwest, 'Zona should go back to the desert with a record of 7-3. I can't believe it either.

San Diego at Pittsburgh: STEELERS. As bad as the AFC West is, I can see the Chargers getting back into this thing. But they're almost out of chances. Yes, their division is a war of attrition, but if they fall to 4-6 today, and they probably will, it will become a lot harder to see them reaching the postseason.

Dallas at Washington: COWBOYS. Romo is back. So are the Cowboys. And Portis might not play. I think Dallas will serve notice to the league on national television tonight-- Jerry Jones isn't crazy. The Cowboys WILL get back into this thing.

Cleveland at Buffalo: THE BILLS. Call it a homer pick if you want to. The Browns are a trendy pick this week for a road team to steal a victory. And the Bills are patently awful, I'll admit it. But the Browns aren't a hell of a lot better. And I think all the people who are picking Cleveland in this game are underestimating the influence of a crazy, drunken Buffalo crowd on Monday night. Remember last year's Monday night game, when our fans nearly carried us to a victory over the vastly superior Cowboys? Yeah, we might get a similar kind of boost this week. I've got a good feeling about this. I think we break out of our slump and roll over the Browns.

All right, that's all for this week. Enjoy.

-Niztradamus

PS-- I know it's annoying to try to force one's musical taste on other people, but bear with me for a minute. The new Butch Walker record came out last week, and I'm not going to write a whole thing talking about how great it is (although I could). I'll just say this-- do me a favor and listen to one song. Download the song "Vessels" from the new album. I'm listening to it right now, and it's making me happy (even though it's a sad song, and even though I'm a pretty morose person). I rarely use the word "lush" to describe a song. Actually, I don't think I have ever used the word "lush" to describe a song. But "Vessels" is lush. And beautiful. And I can't stop listening to it. Bonus recommendation: In the new issue of Esquire, they recommend five somewhat obscure songs that you probably didn't hear this year, though you should have. I downloaded a couple of them last night, and one is particularly awesome. It's called "Grounds For Divorce" by Elbow. Check it out.

My brain hurts.

Nothing like starting your week by waking up at 5 o'clock on Monday morning with a bad hangover. And then it turned out I didn't have any pain relievers in the apartment, so I had to drag my ass to Rite Aid to buy some Excedrin. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to make doing research more fun by drinking a lot of rum while scanning news articles.

Brief Update

As some people have pointed out recently, the "Dispatches" blog has basically become a place where I post NFL articles and nothing else. I apologize for that. It was never my intention. In fact, I think I deserve some credit for continuing to produce the football article each week.

Anyway, even though I don't have a lot of time right now, I wanted to give any readers out there a brief summary of what's going on in my world. I'm coming up on the busiest time of the semester. The next week (or two) is going to be absolute hell, but if I get through it relatively unscathed, the rest should be smooth sailing. This week, I have a pretty big assignment for my magazine editing class due on Wednesday, a research paper for my ethics class due on Thursday, and one of my last major stories for my news reporting class due on Saturday. I have not made substantial progress on any of these projects. I mean, I've done some serious research (mostly today and yesterday. I am, at heart, a procrastinator), but I still have a long way to go.

I am particularly excited about the story for my reporting class. I'm finding some great information, and this could potentially be a pretty big story, assuming I can get people to talk to me about it some time this week. The professors are calling this a "document story," and the main purpose of the assignment is to teach us to use information from public records to buttress a story. Since my beat is the business of higher education, I'm reporting on the university's finances, mainly by looking at the forms the school is required to file with the IRS, since they are technically considered a non-profit organization. Obviously, since these are public records, this information is out there for anyone to see if they care to look it up. But it seems that most people just don't care enough to look into it, or even if they do, they're not making the sorts of connections that I'm making. Man, I hope I can get people to talk to me about what I'm seeing. This story could be excellent.

My research paper for my ethics class is also quite interesting. I'm writing about the Don Imus "nappy-headed hos" controversy, and the general thrust of my argument is that, even though what Imus said was basically indefensible, the media coverage of the story was inappropriately one-sided. Plenty of journalists rushed to condemn Imus for what he said, while relatively few took a stand for freedom of speech or argued that the reaction was not proportionate to the offense. I'm not necessarily saying those positions are correct, but I find it curious and somewhat troubling that relatively few people in the mainstream media were making those arguments.

My lack of free time is becoming increasingly frustrating to me, as I have all sorts of great ideas for stuff that I would like to write. I'm still working on the horror story that I've mentioned before, though I can't make any sort of prediction regarding when it will be finished. One problem is simply that I can't afford to dedicate much time to writing fiction right now. Another problem is that the story is proving to be much longer than I originally expected. I thought it would be about a 3,000-4,000 word story when I first came up with the idea. I've now written over 6,500 words and I'm not particularly close to the end.

Whenever the story is finished, I intend to put it up on an internet publishing site I found recently, www.webook.com. It looks like a good place to have your stuff read by other aspiring writers, and maybe even get it in print if enough other people dig your story.

I don't know if I've written much about the multimedia project I've been working on for the past few weeks (probably not, considering how little I've been blogging), but the project involved interviewing a cancer patient, recording the interview, then pairing the audio with photographs of the interview subject and her family. It was a difficult project to work on, from both an emotional and a logistical standpoint. There were a lot of complications, many of them arising from the fact that our professors did not organize this well and the thing turned into sort of a clusterfuck. It was also particularly difficult for my group because our interview subject had to go into the hospital to be treated for a spot of cancer that recently appeared in her lung, so our access to her and her family was limited, preventing us from getting all the audio and photographs we wanted. That being said, I think we did an excellent job with what we had. I was thrilled to be teamed up with a great group of people (two fellow print journalists from my class, plus an undergraduate photographer), and I think that what we produced is a very professional and moving presentation. It will eventually be online somewhere. They might end up on the American Cancer Society's website, and I wouldn't be surprised if our professors set something up on the university's website as well. I have no idea when this will happen, but I'm not holding my breath, considering the lack of foresight and organization our professors have displayed thus far. As soon as the project is on the web somewhere, I'll let you all know and link to it.

So I never got around to writing something about the election before it took place, but I'm still thinking about writing something about what Obama's presidency will-- or won't-- change about the country. I voted for Obama, and I'm thrilled that he won, but I'm not filled with the boundless optimism I see in some people. I've always been a glass-half-empty kind of guy (as if you didn't know that already). Actually, there was an article in Esquire a few months back, during the primary season, that expressed many of my thoughts much more eloquently than I could myself. I strongly recommend you click the link and read the article; it's one of the best political pieces I've ever read, and this is the kind of writing that makes me love Esquire so much.

Okay, I think that's all for now. I could tell you more, but I'm getting tired and I should probably get back to work. Hopefully more blogs like this one will be coming in the future. As much as I love writing about football, it's nice to write about other things, too.

-Nick

NFL Week 10 Picks

Bears: The Number One Threat to the Tennessee Titans (and America)

I'll have to keep this relatively brief this week, as I am buried in work.

Denver at Cleveland: BRONCOS. I predict Denver will come from behind in the fourth quarter to win this game 34-30. Jay Cutler will throw for more than 400 yards. I'm so sure of this, it's almost like it already happened. But seriously, I had no idea there was a game on Thursday night until I got back from class and saw the final score. It's depressing how busy I am. My NFL awareness hasn't been this low in many years.

New Orleans at Atlanta: FALCONS. Because the Falcons are surprisingly good, and the Saints can't play defense at all.

Tennessee at Chicago: BEARS. Rationally, I know this is probably a stupid pick. The Titans are the lone undefeated team in the league, and the Bears have the always erratic Rex Grossman at quarterback. But the Titans will stumble sooner or later, and why not now? A road game against a respectable opponent, and considering it's an interconference game, the intensity might not be there for the Titans. I just have a gut feeling they're due to get a blemish on their record.

Jacksonville at Detroit: JAGUARS. The Jags lost to the previously winless Bengals last week, and it would be fun to predict that they lose to another 0-fer team this week. I was even tempted to do so, considering Jacksonville is definitely not clicking right now and it's a road game. Also, just as the Titans are bound to lose at some point, the Lions are bound to win. Although I will admit it's more likely that the Lions go 0-16 than that the Titans go 16-0. Anyway, I think Detroit will get one in the win column eventually, but I wasn't ready to predict it this week.

Seattle at Miami: DOLPHINS. The Seahawks suck, this is an extremely long road trip, they're not good at traveling, and they have a ton of injuries. Really no valid reason to pick against the home team in this one. So, of course, the Dolphins will probably lose.

Green Bay at Minnesota: PACKERS. Both teams are 4-4, but I strongly feel that the Packers are better, and I still think Green Bay winds up taking the NFC North. Despite backing the Bears against the Titans this week, I just can't see Chicago winning the division.

Buffalo at New England: PATRIOTS. The Bills have lost 3 of their last 4, and it's hard to say whether they're just going through a rough stretch or if this is a full-fledged collapse. Honestly, I'm leaning toward collapse. I mean, I still think we're better than the Jets and Dolphins, we just didn't play up to our potential in those games and made some truly awful mistakes. However, I also think we're nowhere near as good as we looked in the beginning of the season. We may have been overrated to begin with, and now we're plagued with injuries at key positions. The team's confidence must be at a low right now, coming off two consecutive divisional losses, we're just flat out not as good as the Patriots, and we're playing on the road against a team that has dominated us for most of this decade. In other words, the Patriots are a stone cold lock in this game. They will win, and almost certainly by a wide margin. Disclaimer: I have been wrong about the Bills for four consecutive weeks now-- I predicted we would lose to the Chargers and beat the Cardinals, Jets, and Dolphins. I hope that trend continues. But it won't.

St. Louis at Jersey Jets: RAMS. Partly because I'm pissed at the Jets after last week, and partly because I really do think the Rams are better than their record. After losing to Arizona, they have little chance of making the postseason, but I think they could be a major spoiler for teams in the second half of the season. Call this the upset special of week 10 (well, this and the Bears).

Baltimore at Houston: TEXANS. Houston is my favorite bad team in the NFL this season (unless you count the Bills, and we might soon be doing that). They're just fun. They throw constantly, their games tend to have exciting finishes, and Andre Johnson is quickly becoming one of my favorite players. This is definitely a tough game to call, and Baltimore is better than I first thought. But, what the hell, might as well side with the home team instead of taking a rookie quarterback on the road.

Carolina at Oakland: PANTHERS. The Raiders have won 2 games this season, and right now they're not as good as their record. Does the embarrassing state of the Raiders make Lane Kiffin look better in retrospect?

Indianapolis at Pittsburgh: STEELERS. This game could be the nail in the coffin for the Colts. The Titans are running away with the division, and if Indy picks up loss number 5 here, they'll be hard-pressed to make the playoffs in the competitive AFC.

Kansas City at San Diego: CHARGERS. I think it was a mistake for the Chargers to fire defensive coordinator Ted Cottrell. Changing coordinators or coaches partway through a season is almost never a good idea, and I know Cottrell is capable of being a great defensive coordinator (he built a ferocious defense when he was in Buffalo several years ago). On the other hand, Ron Rivera was the architect of that dominant Bears defense, circa 2005, so maybe it wasn't a bad call. Anyway, it's hard to have much faith in the Chargers, but the Chiefs are a complete mess, so it's hard to imagine KC beating anyone on the road. And, as messed up as the Chargers are, they still have a solid chance of winning the division. They'll still be a game back of the Broncos even assuming they win this game, but Denver doesn't exactly inspire confidence in anyone.

Jersey Giants at Philadelphia: GIANTS. I was very tempted to take the Eagles here. They're playing well, Westbrook is unbelievable, and you know their fans will be going insane with the hated Giants in town. If Jersey is going to pick up a rare loss, this is the kind of situation where it would happen. So Philly would be an understandable upset pick here. But... I couldn't do it. The Giants are just so good. I think they're the best team in the league, easily. Yes, the Titans are undefeated, but the Giants would be perfect if not for a fluky loss to the Browns. Can't really hold one inexplicable bad game against them. Besides, let's assume the Titans and Giants make it to the Super Bowl. Right now, is there anyone outside the state of Tennessee who would take the Titans over the Giants at a neutral location? There probably are some people who would, but I'm not one of them.

San Francisco at Arizona: CARDINALS. To say the Mike Singletary era got off to an inauspicious start would be a massive understatement. And I'm ready to admit it-- the Cardinals are for real. Tim Hightower... who knew? The Cards will win this game by many points.

Okay, that's all for this week. Please, Buffalo, for the love of God, find a way to beat the Patriots. Use the Wildcat constantly. Start Fred Jackson at quarterback. Whatever you need to do. I've had a stressful week and a win over the Patriots would make everything seem better. Yeah, I know it's not going to happen. I still love you, Bills.

-Nick

NFL Week 9 Article and Picks

NFL Week 9: Everybody All Together Now-- J-E-T-S SUCK! SUCK! SUCK!

By Nick "fair and balanced" Roberts

Greetings and salutations. I am in an excellent mood this week, as I spent all day yesterday drinking and writing fiction. Now, I don't really condone spending an entire day half in the bag (or entirely in the bag), but considering I hadn't been truly drunk-- I define "truly drunk" as "incapable of operating heavy machinery"-- since sometime in August, I felt like I was due. And I find a little alcohol (okay, a lot of alcohol) is good for the creative mind. So there it is. The aforementioned horror story is not done yet (turns out it's going to be quite a bit longer than I originally thought), but it's coming along nicely. When it's finished, you'll be the first to know.

I don't usually spend much time discussing college football in the NFL article, for obvious reasons. But I think it's worth pointing out that the USC Trojans are really good. Granted, we have played a lot of profoundly terrible football teams, but you can't fake this kind of dominance. This season we have outscored our opponents 322-57, and that includes the game we lost. We have recorded shutouts in three of our past four games. Do we deserve to be in the national title game? I don't know. We have played a very soft schedule, and we did have the inexplicable loss to Oregon State. But I know I would pick USC against anyone in the country. Well, maybe not Florida. Florida scares me.

Moving along to the NFL, this promises to be an interesting week. We have one big AFC East showdown, Jersey at Buffalo, and another big game that still feels like an AFC East rivalry, even though it isn't (New England at Indy). These two games should go a long way toward determining who is really the team to beat in the East. It could also be a turning point for the Colts. They are running out of time to get their season back on track.

The resurgent St. Louis Rams, who came tantalizingly close to defeating New England on the road last week, have a chance to begin clawing their way back into the NFC West race, as they host division leader Arizona. It will also be a huge day in the NFC East, as the Cowboys pay a visit to the Giants. A Dallas win puts the Cowboys back in the picture (especially since Romo should be returning soon), while a victory by the G-Men would give them a strangehold on the division and the fast track to the #1 seed in the conference. Other exciting games include the Packers making a visit to the undefeated Titans (will the '72 Dolphins be popping the cork today?) and an intriguing interconference Monday night game, as the Steelers visit the surprising Redskins. If the Cowboys upset the Giants and the Redskins beat the Steelers, Washington will suddenly become a serious threat to steal the East away from the champs. That would be an interesting scenario, but I don't really expect either of those things to happen.

You'll probably be surprised to know that I handled the Bills losing to the Dolphins last week fairly well. Admittedly, I still have marks on my knuckles because I punched my desk at one point in the fourth quarter, but once the game was over I calmed down. I was much more disturbed after the Arizona loss. After that game, I thought we looked like a team that really wasn't very good, that had only gotten to 4-0 because of a soft schedule and some lucky breaks. Against Miami, I thought we still looked like a good team, just one that was making some idiotic errors and riding out some very bad luck. In the Miami game we took bad penalties, we dropped passes, Trent was uncharacteristically shaky, Terrence McGee was a complete liability at corner, and Marshawn Lynch wasn't himself (I strongly suspect he's been hurt for over a month). Basically, anything that could go wrong did go wrong. The game was an aberration. We had a bad day. It happens to every team.

All that being said, the Miami loss is still a cause for concern. Sitting at 5-1, with three straight division games coming up, we had a chance to take complete control of the division. We squandered that opportunity in Florida. Now we face a must-win at home against the Jets. It's not a must-win mathematically; we could lose and still be tied for first place, if the Colts beat the Patriots. But it's a must-win in a psychological sense. We need to prove to ourselves-- and everyone else-- that we are a legitimate contender in the division and that we can compete with these guys. We will need the confidence of a win over the Jets to have any chance of going into Gillette and beating the Patriots next Sunday. It won't be easy. Even though Favre is new to the division, he's still going to get up for an AFC East rival, and I expect him to play well. The Bills are also struggling with some injuries right now, especially on defense. But I expect the guys to rise to the challenge. I think Trent will put the team on his back if he has to, and I'm sure the Ralph will be jumping today, so that will make it harder on the Jets.

On to the picks!

Jersey Jets at Buffalo: THE BILLS. Discussed this pretty thoroughly earlier. Don't have a lot to add. I guess I'll just throw out a random prediction-- this will be a breakout game for Leodis McKelvin. I bet he picks off Favre at least once and, what the hell, I'll predict he runs a kickoff back for a touchdown.

Detroit at Chicago: BEARS. The Lions are just awful. I do not anticipate picking them in a single game this season, but you never know.

Jacksonville at Cincinnati: JAGUARS. On the other hand, I could see myself picking the Bengals at some point this season. But not this week. Without Carson Palmer, I don't see any way they can generate enough offense to beat the Jags.

Baltimore at Cleveland: BROWNS. Toughest call of the week. Neither team is terrible, but neither team is particularly good. I had to go with the Browns because they've been improving lately and they're at home.

Arizona at St. Louis: CARDINALS. As you'll remember, last week I ridiculed the idea of picking Arizona on the road. And I wasn't wrong-- they lost to the Panthers. However, they did put up one hell of a fight, and very nearly won that game. Considering Carolina is a pretty good team, I was impressed. I have also been impressed by the dramatic improvement of the Rams, and they played well against New England last week. I originally thought I would pick the Rams in this game, but the Cards are slowly winning me over.

Houston at Minnesota: TEXANS. Yeah, the Texans! Houston has quietly been putting together a nice run over the past few weeks, and the Vikings are dysfunctional. The seat under Brad Childress couldn't be much hotter. Andre Johnson of the Texans might be the most dominant receiver in the NFL right now, and I think most people who don't play fantasy football and/or live in the state of Texas are probably unaware of this. Well, no more. Stand up and take notice. He's the best Andre since Reed.

Green Bay at Tennessee: TITANS. If this game were in Wisconsin, I'd give the Pack a good shot at the upset. But since it isn't, and because I was very impressed with Tennessee's comeback win over the Colts last week, I'm going to predict that the undefeated juggernaut rolls on.

Tampa Bay at Kansas City: BUCCANEERS. I think anyone who drafted Larry Johnson for their fantasy team this year deserves some kind of compensation pick in next year's draft.

Miami at Denver: BRONCOS. Making this pick was harder than you might think. The Dolphins, clearly, are capable of competing with just about anyone from week to week. And there are serious questions about Denver (remember the blowout loss to the Patriots a couple weeks ago). But still, it's Mile High, the Dolphins are inconsistent, had to go with common sense and take the home team.

Dallas at Jersey Giants: GIANTS. I think the Cowboys will be a trendy upset pick this week, and I can sort of understand why. Strange things happen in rivalry games, and the Cowboys do have a ton of talent on their roster, even if they haven't really been showing it lately. But I just can't see them putting it all together and beating the Giants in the Meadowlands.

Philadelphia at Seattle: EAGLES. Philly has become sort of the forgotten team in the NFC East, but they're still capable of making some noise, especially now that Westbrook is back and playing well. Watch out for the Eagles, they're dangerous.

Atlanta at Oakland: FALCONS. It's a long way from Atlanta to Oakland, but I think the Falcons are good enough to pull off the long distance road win.

New England at Indianapolis: PATRIOTS. This is my favorite upset pick of the week. The Colts are actually favored by about a touchdown. Indy could certainly win this game, especially since emotions will be running high with the hated Patriots in town. But I just think the Patriots are a better team, even without Brady, and the Colts could be missing some key players (i.e. Reggie Wayne). Plus, it kind of seems like it has to happen this way, doesn't it? The Bills and Patriots both win this week, putting them both at 6-2 and tied for the division lead heading into next week's showdown at Foxborough.

Pittsburgh at Washington: STEELERS. The Steelers are going to be pissed after losing to the Giants last week, and they'll have an added boost with the likely return of Willie Parker. I still stand by my opinion that the Redskins are not as good as their record, but I do have to admit that Clinton Portis is having a monstrous year, and he may be good enough to carry this team back to the playoffs.

All right, that's all for this week. Hopefully I'll have some stuff to put on the blog between now and next week's NFL article. The horror story might get done, and there are a couple other things I'm thinking about writing, possibly something about Tuesday's election. But I make no promises. If it were up to me I would write fascinating content for the blog every day, but sadly I have other obligations. Enjoy the games and keep your eyes on the blog, because there will be new stuff coming, hopefully sooner rather than later.

-Niztradamus

My student loan article

Today I got an article published for the first time in a while. It's only in SU's campus newspaper, the Daily Orange, but I still feel good about it. I desperately need published articles to show to potential employers in the future. Granted, I'll probably be doing an internship in the spring semester that will let me get a lot of clips for my portfolio, but it's still nice to get an early start. The article that was printed today was about student loans and how students plan to manage their debt. The original version was quite a bit longer and more detailed, but editors gotta edit. You need to make the article fit the space. Click here to read the story on the D.O.'s website.

NFL Week 8 Picks

NFL Week 8: London Calling. Also, I Don’t Understand Why Water Pills Are Considered Performance Enhancing Drugs

Hey gang,

It’s been kind of a crazy week (and weekend), which is why I’m making the picks on Sunday morning. So this might not be in time to do you any good, if you’re in a pick ‘em league or enjoy sports betting (who doesn’t?) but the important thing is I’m soldiering on and making the picks, albeit at the last minute. Went 8-6 last week, expecting a better performance this time around. Read on for picks and insight (which may or may not incite change).

Tampa Bay at Dallas: BUCCANEERS. Earlier this week, I felt confident in this pick. Tampa Bay looks dangerous this year. Jeff Garcia is playing unbelievably well for a quarterback his age. The Bucs may actually be the second-best team in the NFC, behind the Giants. Plus the Cowboys are a mess. Pacman suspended again, Romo out, safety Roy Williams out (brief tangent: I‘ve come up with a good way to differentiate between the two Roy Williamses. From now on I will refer to wide receiver Roy Williams as WRoy Williams and strong safety Roy Williams as Roy WilliamSS), people speculating about Wade’s job security. So all things seem to be pointing to the Bucs here. But then I started getting worried. Is this one of those sucker punch games where one team is going to seem so obvious, and then their opponent dominates them? I don’t know. But I worry.

Washington at Detroit: REDSKINS. I remain unimpressed by Washington, but they get the pick again because they’re playing a terrible opponent. Still, NFL teams don’t go 0-16. Cincinnati and Detroit will both win at least once by season’s end. Will this week be the one for either of them? I’m going with Washington, but I won’t be shocked if today is Detroit’s moment in the sun, so to speak. You know, to the extent you can be in the sun when you play in a dome in Detroit.

Buffalo at Miami: THE BILLS. We’ve had success against Chad Pennington in the past, and I’m not too worried about Miami’s passing game. I think anyone who plays the Dolphins needs to be somewhat concerned about the Ronnie Brown factor, but I believe our front seven will be able to handle the Wildcat formation. By the way, the Wildcat is named after the West Genesee Wildcats, the football team of a central New York high school, not far from where I live. The Marshawn Lynch big game watch continues. Six games into the season and no 100-yarders yet? Come on, offensive line, let’s get it together. The Beast must be unleashed! But if Trent keeps completing 80+ percent of his passes, I’ll let it slide.

St. Louis at New England: PATRIOTS. I’m about to say something crazy. Just giving you fair warning. I’m not picking the Rams this week, because as much as they’ve improved, winning on the road in Foxboro is a tough order to fill. BUT… I do think the Rams have an outside shot of making the playoffs. Yes, you read that correctly. Here’s how it could happen. If they lose to the Patriots today, they will drop to 2-5. Obviously, this makes their playoff hopes dim. However, they play in a weak division, and the Rams have been getting better every game this season. At first, the progress was hard to see. When they lost to the Bills by 17 points and dropped to 0-4, things looked dismal. But the Rams were in that game until late in the fourth quarter, and the margin of defeat was actually their smallest of the season to that point. Baby steps, guys. Progress is progress. Then they had a bye week, fired their coach, came back and won two games in a row, looking good doing it. Okay, you may be saying, I see your point, but if they lose today, they’re still 2-5. How do they make the playoffs? Here’s how-- their division is terrible. The Cardinals look scary right now, but you have to expect Kurt Warner to either get injured or suffer a meltdown and start chucking interceptions at some point. Then Matt Leinart will come in, and Matt has not been playing all season, and has probably been spending most of his time having threesomes in hot tubs with supermodels and drinking bottles of Labatt Blue Light delivered by hot girls on skates. Needless to say, he will be rusty. Meanwhile, the Rams will be surging behind them in the standings, and the Cardinals do not exactly have a distinguished history of handling pressure with aplomb and grace.

San Diego at New Orleans at London: CHARGERS. Most of the week, I planned on picking New Orleans. I think they will handle the transatlantic journey better than San Diego, partly because the Chargers played in Buffalo last weekend and then moved on straight to the UK, so it’s been a long time since they’ve seen sunny southern California. I’m switching my pick to the Chargers because of the crazy week the Saints have had. First, they lose Reggie Bush for several games. Then they cross the Atlantic. Then the story breaks that four NFL players have tested positive for banned substances, and three of them are Saints-- defensive end Will Smith, defensive end Charles Grant, and running back Deuce McAllister. With Reggie injured and Deuce staring at a 4-game suspension, I present to you Sentence I Never Thought I Would Write #397: Now might be a good time to sign Pierre Thomas to your fantasy team.

Kansas City at Jersey Jets: JETS. I don’t think this one needs a lot of explanation. The Jets are at home, the Chiefs are terrible, looks like an easy win for the gunslinger’s crew. Hey, remember when everyone loved Larry Johnson and he was a consensus #1 fantasy pick and people talked about him running for over 2,000 yards in a season? Neither do I.

Atlanta at Philadelphia: EAGLES. The Falcons are one of the feel-good stories of this season. Things really couldn’t have worked out better for them with Michael Turner and Matt Ryan. The Eagles, meanwhile, have been troubled. They might be better than their 3-3 record, as some have argued, but they’ve just been too inconsistent to be taken seriously as contenders. Still, have to go with them in this spot because they’re at home, Westbrook is coming back, and they need this win badly.

Oakland at Baltimore: RAVENS. The Raiders playing on the east coast at 1 p.m. against a team with a great defense, and they might be missing Darren McFadden. This should not end well for Oakland. Still, they do have a chance because the Ravens are unpredictable, and half of Baltimore’s team has an injury of some kind. Yesterday, a horse named Raven’s Pass upset Curlin in the Breeders’ Cup Classic. This would be more interesting if the Ravens had a great passing game. Alas, they do not.

Arizona at Carolina: PANTHERS. Don’t talk yourself into picking Arizona. Just don’t do it. I know it’s tempting. They’re coming off back to back victories over the Bills and Cowboys, they just had a bye week, and they look like one of the rising teams in the NFL. You’re tempted, aren’t you? You want to pick the Cardinals. Here’s how to solve that: Remember Arizona’s last road game, against the Jets. Yes, that would be the game when Kurt Warner turned the ball over 6 times and Brett Favre threw 6 touchdown passes. Still thinking of picking the Cards? Slap yourself across the face-- hard-- and take a shot of whiskey. That should clear your head. You’re welcome.

Cleveland at Jacksonville: JAGUARS. The Browns have looked friskier lately, but they’re still not very good and the Jaguars have had an extra week of preparation for this game. Seems fairly straightforward. Of course, nothing is as it seems in the NFL, so the Browns will probably win by 30.

Cincinnati at Houston: TEXANS. Someone look into this for me and find out what Ryan Fitzpatrick’s major was at Harvard. I mean, I know he’s making good money getting thrown to the wolves every week, but it has to be pretty damn unpleasant. You’d think he might want to get started on whatever non-football career he had in mind. I’m sure employers would jump at the chance to hire a guy with a Harvard diploma who also started several games at quarterback in the NFL. At the very least he should be able to turn this into some kind of reality show. Maybe Leinart could be part of this? I don’t know, I’m just kicking ideas around. Back to the game-- look for Andre Johnson to dominate again today.

Jersey Giants at Pittsburgh: GIANTS. Toughest call of the week, without a doubt. I went with the Giants because I have concerns about Pitt’s offensive line, and Willie Parker is still hurt. The Giants’ pass rush should present serious problems for the Steelers. It will still be hard to go into the house that ketchup built and get a win, but I think the champs will be up to the challenge.

Seattle at San Francisco: 49ERS. I guess. Ugh. This is definitely the dog of the week. This might be the game I’ve been least interested in all season. The only flicker of interest I have here is that it’s Mike Singletary’s first game as coach of the Niners. He seems like he would be a good coach, and probably a very intense one. I would be scared of Mike Singletary, whether I was playing for him or against him.

Indianapolis at Tennessee: TITANS. You have to pick Tennessee here. They’re 6-0, Indy is 3-3. The Titans have looked dominant all season; the Colts have shown flashes of brilliance but have been woefully inconsistent. On the other hand, the Colts have owned the Titans in the recent past, and that trend could continue. Maybe the Colts are just in their heads. And before long, the weight of being the only undefeated team in the league will start to take a toll on Tennessee. If this game were in Indy, I would probably take the Colts. But since it’s in Nashville, on Monday night, and the seats will be filled with many thousands of screaming fans falling down drunk on moonshine, gotta go with the Titans. By the way, congrats to LenDale White for finally getting into shape and living up to his potential. I had already written him off as a bust, but he’s proving me wrong. Could this year’s AFC Championship be a rematch of the Music City Miracle game? It doesn’t look all that far-fetched right now. The idea makes me want to hurl, and I’m not sure if it’s excitement or terror.

All right, that’s it. The end of the picks for this week. Writing that article felt good, I have to say. First time I’ve done the meaty, overly long football article in several weeks. Good times. I hope it was as good for you as it was for me. I need a cigarette.

Have a week.

-Niztradamus

Picks coming, sorry for the delay.

NFL picks will be posted sometime tomorrow morning. I wasted a lot of time and money this weekend. I could have been doing more productive things like analyzing football games, or working on stuff for class, or writing fiction (new short story will be coming sometime this week, by the way. It will be my first piece of short fiction in quite some time, and I'm pumped about it).

Sometimes I feel compelled to do social things because I am occasionally accused of being a hermit, and then I go out and pretend to be social and wind up wishing I had stayed home and worked instead. Sorry, I'm just a little annoyed right now, and mildly intoxicated. Anyway, the point is, NFL picks coming tomorrow morning, new story later in the week. It's a horror tale, just in time for Halloween. Congrats to USC on another win, although they did not triumph by a margin wide enough to make me money. Still, all is forgiven. Fight on.

-Nick

Week 7 NFL Picks

Hey gang,

Sorry the picks are last-minute this week. Went out last night, I've been working on a story this weekend, had to work for a few hours yesterday (and will go in for a few more hours today), it's been hectic. Last week I put the most work into my picks of any week all season, and predictably I had my worst week, going only 7-7. So this week I just shot from the hip and used common sense. We'll see if this strategy is any more effective.

San Diego at Buffalo: CHARGERS. I hate myself.

Minnesota at Chicago: BEARS. Two of the most unpredictable teams in the league. Enjoy.

Pittsburgh at Cincinnati: STEELERS. One of these weeks, Cincy will jump up and win. I'm hoping it's not today.

Tennessee at Kansas City: TITANS.

New Orleans at Carolina: PANTHERS. I was stunned by Carolina's blowout loss to the Bucs last week. But I've learned my lesson-- homefield advantage is everything in this division.

Dallas at St. Louis: COWBOYS. I'm psyched about Roy Williams squared. Now we just need to get both Steve Smiths on the same team. Not only do they have the same name, they play the same position. The world might explode.

Baltimore at Miami: DOLPHINS. Come on, Fins, don't fail me now.

San Francisco at Jersey Giants: GIANTS.

Detroit at Houston: TEXANS. Here's how bad the Lions are-- they are nearly double-digit underdogs to a team that has won one game.

Jersey Jets at Oakland: JETS.

Cleveland at Washington: REDSKINS. But Washington better be careful, Cleveland is finally getting it together, and the Skins really aren't that good.

Indianapolis at Green Bay: COLTS. Peyton is back.

Seattle at Tampa Bay: BUCCANEERS. The Seahawks are falling apart, and Seneca Wallace is not the man to save them.

Denver at New England: BRONCOS. Just because it would make me happy. But go Red Sox!

Okay, those are the picks. As Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier are wont to say, have a week.

-Niztradamus

NFL Week 6 Picks

I swear I will get back to writing real blog posts and not just NFL picks eventually, but I continue to be swamped with work.

I actually put effort into my picks this week, rather than just using common sense and my own knowledge of what's going on in the league. I've been somewhat disappointed in my prognostication lately, so I decided to actually look at the stats, crunch the numbers, review the injury reports, etc. Last week I went 8-6, which isn't terrible, but I'm capable of better. The fact that I put more thought and research into the picks is no guarantee I'll do any better this week (in fact, the way the unpredictable NFL goes, it wouldn't be a shock if I do worse), but at least I feel like I have good reasons for every pick I made this week. Here goes:

Chicago at Atlanta: BEARS. You're on notice.

Carolina at Tampa Bay: PANTHERS. Interesting fact: Carolina has the third best point differential in the league, trailing only the two undefeated teams.

St. Louis at Washington: REDSKINS. This one seemed like a no-brainer, but it could be closer than people expect. The Rams are coming off an extra week of rest, the coaching change could inject some energy into them, and I still think Washington is a little overrated, though they're obviously a good team.

Miami at Houston: DOLPHINS. One of the toughest picks of the week, but the Dolphins have statistical advantages in most categories, and they're hot right now, so I had to go with them.

Baltimore at Indianapolis: RAVENS. Feel pretty good about this one. The Colts really don't match up well against the Ravens. And Baltimore is an underdog here. I like them a lot.

Detroit at Minnesota: VIKINGS. One of the easiest picks this week. The only thing the Lions can sort of do well is pass, and they're going to be missing starting QB Jon Kitna. Two of their receivers are on the injury report as well, though they may play.

Oakland at New Orleans: SAINTS. Hard to have faith in New Orleans after they blew the game against the Vikings last week, but they seem to have a clear advantage in talent over the Raiders.

Cincinnati at New York Jets: JETS. Favre is playing great, the Jets had two weeks to prepare for this one, and the 0-5 Bengals will be starting backup QB Ryan Fitzpatrick, who attended Harvard. Enough said.

Jacksonville at Denver: BRONCOS. The Jags continue to be plagued by injuries, and I don't have a great deal of faith in Denver as a team, but they are much better at home.

Dallas at Arizona: CARDINALS. I picked a few underdogs this week, but I'll call this one the upset special. Dallas lost to Washington two weeks ago, then flirted with disaster last week by letting the woeful Bengals back into the game, before finally pulling away. It's also become clear that Arizona is way, way better at home than they are on the road, and Dallas has some injuries in their secondary, so I could see Kurt Warner picking them apart.

Philadelphia at San Francisco: EAGLES. I noticed this pattern last year or two years ago: The Eagles hit a rough patch in the season. The team starts getting frustrated and, eventually, Donovan McNabb makes some controversial, or at least noteworthy, comments in public about how the team needs to play better. The media begins to speculate that Philadelphia has chemistry problems in the locker room. Then McNabb comes out the next week and absolutely devastates whoever the unfortunate opponent might be. No less than 300 yards and 3 touchdowns for Donovan this week. I guarantee it.

Green Bay at Seattle: PACKERS. I know Green Bay has been struggling lately and it's a long trip to Seattle, but I'm feeling good about this one. Especially since Matt Hasselbeck probably is not going to play, and Aaron Rodgers probably is. The Packers get back on track in this one.

New England at San Diego: CHARGERS. Even though the Patriots have lost only one game, and the Chargers have lost three, San Diego seems to have a clear advantage in a number of statistical categories. Plus the game is in California, and I usually like the home team in a cross-country match up. The Pats played in San Francisco last week, and stayed on the West coast rather than flying back to Massachusetts for a few days of practice. This seems to make sense, but the strategy didn't work for the Cardinals when they decided to stay on the East coast for back to back road games against the Redskins and the Jets. The Cardinals lost both games, and gave up 56 points in the game against New York.

New York Giants at Cleveland: GIANTS. The best team in the league against one of the worst. It might be time to start the "When Does Brady Quinn Become Cleveland's Starting QB?" pool.

All right, that's all for this week. I hope my hard work pays off.

-Niztradamus

NFL Week 5 Picks

Last week was a disappointing one for my picks. Went only 7-6, so I'm now 37-23 on the season. There were some surprising upsets last week, as the Cowboys and the Broncos both fell from the ranks of the unbeaten. Other surprising wins included the Bears over the Eagles and the Buccaneers over the Packers. Guess I'm going to have to start taking the Bucs and the Bears seriously. Now only the Titans, Bills and Giants are undefeated. Will any of them fall this week? Probably not the Giants, who are coming off a bye week and playing at home against the Seahawks. But the Titans and Bills both have tough road games. Tennessee plays at Baltimore in what promises to be a nasty defensive battle. The Bills travel to Arizona for what could be a shootout with the Cards. Here are the picks, with commentary.

Atlanta at Green Bay: PACKERS. I'm not as confident in this pick as I thought I'd be. Aaron Rodgers might not play tomorrow, and my confidence in Green Bay was shaken by last week's loss to Tampa. Plus the Falcons are much, much better than anyone expected. Michael Turner has been fantastic thus far, and Matt Ryan doesn't look half bad, either. Still, gotta go with the Packers, especially since they're at home.

Tennessee at Baltimore: TITANS. I won't be surprised if the Ravens win here. They're a strong team, excellent defensively, and they could use the homefield advantage to deal the Titans their first loss. I'll be interested to see how Kerry Collins plays in this game. Vince Young returned to practice this week, and you know there are going to be some people, both inside and outside the organization, who won't be happy about having their multimillion dollar man sitting the bench. Jeff Fisher has said that Kerry Collins will be the quarterback as long as the team keeps winning. But that's not exactly a vote of confidence, is it? Until now, Collins didn't really have to worry about the pressure, because Vince was not capable of returning to the field. Now that he's getting closer, those doubts may start creeping into Kerry's head. Couple that with a ferocious Baltimore defense, and it wouldn't be a shock if Collins struggles in this game. Still, I went with the Titans because I think they're the better team, overall, and because the Ravens are coming off a hardfought Monday night loss to the Steelers in overtime. That kind of game can take a lot out of a team.

San Diego at Miami: CHARGERS. It will be interesting this week to see if the Dolphins run their crazy offensive formation that worked so well against the Patriots. You know the Chargers have been watching tape of that wingback formation and will be prepared for it. While I think it would be premature to say the Chargers are back to their 2007 form, they have won two games in a row and had an impressive comeback against Oakland last week. If they pound the Dolphins on the road, it could be time to acknowledge the Chargers as contenders once again.

Indianapolis at Houston: COLTS. Much like the Chargers, the Colts are trying to regain their form of years past. At 1-2, the Colts are in serious danger of watching the Tennessee Titans run away with the division Indy has always ruled with an iron fist. The Texans, meanwhile, are struggling more than many people (including myself) thought they would this season. I didn't think they would be a playoff contender in this tough division, but I thought they would consistently give their opponents a tough fight, no matter who they played. So far, they've pretty much been the doormat they've always been. Indianapolis is coming off a bye week, and I expect a much better effort from them than what they've shown so far this season. I'll take the Colts by a comfortable margin.

Seattle at New York Giants: GIANTS. Seattle traveling to the East coast. Giants playing in front of their fans after a week of rest. Should be a win for Eli's gang.

Washington at Philadelphia: EAGLES. I owe the Redskins an apology. I had previously dismissed them as the one team in the NFC East that wasn't a real contender. By beating the mighty Cowboys last week, they proved me wrong. The Redskins must be taken seriously. And, hey, maybe Dan Snyder finally found a coach who will stick around more than a year or two. All that being said, the Eagles are at home, they're a very good team, and this is a must-win for them. Westbrook will probably be back on the field, McNabb should be feeling better than last week, and they know that if they lose this game they will be in a very deep hole in their division. The Eagles will win this game because they have to.

Kansas City at Carolina: PANTHERS. Hey, props to the Chiefs for knocking off the Broncos last week. Nobody saw that coming. Can they pull off another upset on the road against the Cats? My Magic 8 Ball says no. Me too.

Chicago at Detroit: BEARS. Lions fans should (and do) feel good about finally getting rid of Matt Millen. But firing your terrible GM doesn't immediately make your team better, so Detroit fans should still be ready to boo on Sunday.

Tampa Bay at Denver: BUCS. Tampa had an impressive win over the Packers last week. Denver suffered a stunning loss to the lowly Chiefs, in which they proved just how abysmal their defense truly is by letting Larry Johnson run for nearly 200 yards. They made LJ 2008 look like LJ 2005. Plus the Bucs have a defense that looks good enough to at least slow down the Denver offense, even if they can't stop it completely. So the Bucs are the logical pick, right? Yeah, that's what I thought too. Yet for some reason I feel like I'm going to be wrong about this.

Buffalo at Arizona: THE BILLS. I spent a lot of time this week thinking about this game. My initial gut feeling was that the Bills would probably lose. Second road game in a row, against a team with a high-powered offense, and we're missing our top cornerback, Terrence McGee. Sounds like a recipe for defeat. On the other hand, the Cardinals are missing receiver Anquan Boldin, so that might sort of neutralize the loss of McGee, and Arizona did just lose a game by three touchdowns in which their quarterback passed for 472 yards and they scored 35 points. Clearly, the Zona defense has problems. And they're returning home from an extended East coast road trip, so fatigue may be an issue. And Kurt Warner is turnover-prone (he personally turned the ball over six times against the Jets-- three picks, three fumbles lost). The Cardinals are favored by 1.5 points here, and I know a lot of people are picking Arizona to win. But this feels like the kind of game to me where people are going to have all kinds of good reasons for picking the Cardinals before the game, then after Arizona loses all those people are going to be saying, "Wait, I picked a 2-2 team that just allowed 56 points to the Jets to beat one of the last three undefeated teams in the league? Why the hell would I do that?" I will not be one of those people. I stand by the Bills. In Trent We Trust.

Cincinnati at Dallas: COWBOYS. I do not envy the Bengals. Dallas is going to be pissed after losing to Washington last week, and they will vent that frustration by pounding Cincy. Dallas by many points.

New England at San Francisco: PATRIOTS. This is an interesting one. The last time we saw the Patriots they were getting their asses handed to them by the hapless Dolphins, mainly because they couldn't figure out how to defend a high school offensive formation. I wouldn't be stunned if the Pats made it two losses in a row against the Niners. San Fran is better than I thought they would be, they're getting some pretty good play from J.T. O'Sullivan (although I still don't feel good about this. If J.P. Losman and A.J. Feeley taught us anything, it's that an NFL quarterback should not go by his initials), and it's tough for a team to go all the way across the country for a road game. But Bill Belichick tends to bounce back from losses in a big way, and the Patriots have had an extra week to prepare for this one. Gotta go with New England. But I hope I'm wrong. Go J.T.!

Pittsburgh at Jacksonville: JAGUARS. I feel like a sucker picking Jacksonville here, but I couldn't talk myself out of it. The Jags haven't been very impressive this season, and their record is worse than Pittsburgh's. But there are compelling reasons to think the Steelers could lose this game. Injuries are a major concern, of course, as Pittsburgh is looking at starting running back Mewelde Moore in this contest. They also have injuries on the offensive line, which has not been stellar even when healthy. And they're playing on the road after a Monday night game-- an especially physical and lengthy Monday night game, at that. You should downgrade the Steelers a few points just based on that.

Minnesota at New Orleans: VIKINGS. The Vikings are one of the teams I just can't figure out this year. It really seems like they should be better than they are. Of course, I also picked them to lose the one game that they won. This game should be fun to watch. Considering the way the Saints play defense, Adrian Peterson could have a huge day. And I think Minnesota's D is good enough to slow down the Saints' offensive arsenal.

LEE EVANS NOTE: I initially had a pretty negative reaction to the Lee Evans contract extension. I felt that Evans was not worth nearly the amount of money we gave him, which makes him the third highest paid receiver in the league. On the other hand, he is a very good player and a valuable one to the team. Plus I've been critical of Sabres management for not forking over the money to keep players like Chris Drury, Daniel Briere, and Brian Campbell, so it'd be sort of hypocritical of me to attack the Bills for overpaying one of their stars. I also started to feel better about the contract when I looked at some of Evans's stats earlier today. He is quietly having a very good season. He is second in the AFC in receiving yards, trailing only Denver's Brandon Marshall, who is some kind of superhero (supervillain?). I also noticed that, among receivers with at least 10 receptions, Lee is leading the NFL in yards per catch. 13 of his 14 receptions have resulted in either a first down or a touchdown. So I'm OK with the deal. We're cool, Lee. Now go out there and tear the Cardinals to shreds.

For those who haven't been paying attention, here are Trent Edwards's numbers in the fourth quarter this season: 27/35, 350 yards, 3TD, 0 INT, 3 come from behind victories. By the way, that's 77% completions and a 136.6 QB rating.

All right, that's all for this week, kids. Enjoy. Go Bills!

NFL Week 4: Just Picks

Don't have time to write even a semblance of an article this week, as I'm going home for the weekend and I'm trying to get on the road ASAP. Here we go with the picks. Went 11-5 last week, now 30-17 on the season.

Cleveland at Cincinnati: BENGALS.

Minnesota at Tennessee: TITANS.

Denver at Kansas City: BRONCOS.

San Francisco at New Orleans: SAINTS.

Arizona at New York Jets: CARDINALS.

Green Bay at Tampa Bay: PACKERS. (Why is Green Bay the underdog here? The injuries in the secondary? I don't get it)

Atlanta at Carolina: PANTHERS.

Houston at Jacksonville: JAGUARS.

San Diego at Oakland: CHARGERS.

Buffalo at St. Louis: THE BILLS.

Washington at Dallas: COWBOYS.

Philadelphia at Chicago: EAGLES.

Baltimore at Pittsburgh: STEELERS.

Enjoy the games. I'll be back in the 'Cuse in a couple of days.

-Niztradamus.

We're #6!

So on ESPN.com's weekly NFL power rankings, the Bills come in at #6 after improving to 3-0 (we were 10th last week). Obviously, this is not unexpected, as we are one of only 6 teams still unbeaten in the league. They didn't simply rank all the unbeatens at the top of the charts. The Eagles and Steelers are in front of us, despite having one loss apiece, and the undefeated Broncos and Ravens (at 2-0) are behind us. So, anyway, the Bills being ranked #6 is about what I would have expected if I had stopped to think about it. But it was still stunning for me to click on the rankings and see the Bills so close to the top of the page. I can't remember the last time we were considered one of the NFL's 6 best teams. Of course, this really has no meaning since it's just one web site's opinion, and the best teams in the league after 3 games won't necessarily be the best teams after 16 games. My mantra right now is "All this means is we can't do worse than 3-13." Hopefully, after we play the Rams next week I'll be saying we can't do worse than 4-12.

Some fans were probably discouraged by the way we struggled against the Raiders last week but I actually found the win encouraging. It's not as if we were revealed to be a mediocre team that lucked out in the first two weeks. We are a legitimately good team that simply played poorly and made a lot of mistakes for three quarters on Sunday. But when it mattered most we asserted ourselves, took control of the game, and made a thrilling comeback. That's the kind of thing good teams do. Everybody makes mistakes, everybody plays a bad game once in a while, but the good teams are the ones who let their bad games hurt them the least. And the Bills managed to escape a bad game with a win on Sunday. I'll take it. I think what happened was we had a letdown game after being really pumped to open the season at home against Seattle, and then getting really pumped up again in Week 2 to go on the road against the Jags, who were expected to be a very good team this year and who put a beating on us last season. Suddenly, we found ourselves making headlines around the league and everyone accepted that we would blow Oakland out of the water (well, not me. Remember, in my picks article I predicted the Bills would make us sweat. I also almost predicted the Dolphins would beat the Patriots... but then I wussed out). We started drinking our own Kool-Aid, thought that all we had to do was show up and we would beat the Raiders, and they nearly caught us sleeping. Nearly.

So I didn't take the loss too hard. A couple things that made it easier to take were that the defending champion Giants, who looked as good as anyone through the first two weeks, had to go to overtime to beat the lowly Bengals. And the mighty Patriots, the proud owners of last year's 16-0 regular season, were blown out by the Dolphins, who won all of 1 game in 2007. So it's safe to say there were some good teams out there who had worse days than the Bills on Sunday.

Hopefully, our young team will have learned its lesson that you can't just show up and win. You have to play hard every game, regardless of the opponent. And I'm hoping that means we'll come out with intensity and put a hurting on the Rams this weekend.

Last season, the Bills finished 30th in total offense and 31st in total defense. This year, we are 15th in total offense and 5th in total defense. Sure, the offense is still middle of the road, but considering we moved up 15 spots, I'll take it. And the improvement by the defense is mind-blowing. In the past two weeks, we've held two pretty damn good rushing teams under 100 yards on the ground. The Raiders gained over 300 rushing yards against the Chiefs, 98 against the Bills. Perhaps the most significant statistic about this year's team is 3rd down defense. Last year, we were terrible on 3rd downs on both sides of the ball. This year? #1 in third down defense, allowing a conversion rate of only 18%. On offense, we're 15th in 3rd down conversion percentage. Again, middle of the pack, but a lot better than last year.

Aside from the defense, the other reason to be confident in the Bills is Trent Edwards. This guy is developing into a good quarterback. He's exceeding all my expectations I had for him this season. He's no longer just a game manager, a guy who's goal is to not lose the game for his team. Trent is a winner, he's put his team on his back the past two weeks and come out with two big victories. When he drops back in the pocket, I feel a confidence I haven't felt in a Bills quarterback in quite a long time.

So we've got a vastly improved defense, a good quarterback who's only going to get better, a respectable offensive line, stellar special teams, a strong young running back, and a receiving corps that looks better than anyone thought it would. (I don't know why, maybe it's Turk Schonert's influence, but Josh Reed and Roscoe Parrish suddenly seem better than they've ever been before). That sounds like the composition of a pretty good team, doesn't it?

Then again, we could still go 3-13. Just remind yourself of that before you start dreaming of a Bills-Cowboys three-match.

NFL Week 3: Love that Home Cooking

Saturday night, time to make the NFL picks. Looks like home teams should dominate this week.

Oakland at Buffalo: THE BILLS. Should be a good day in Orchard Park. A win will move the Bills to 3-0 for the first time since 1992 (and we reached the Super Bowl that season. Coincidence?). Also, Bruce Smith's name is going up on the Wall of Fame at Ralph Wilson Stadium tomorrow. Wish I could be there, as Bruce is probably my favorite Bill ever, but alas, I am far too busy, and I'm going home next weekend. Didn't think I could take the time to make the trip two weeks in a row. Anyway, I'm pretty confident the Bills will win this game, but I don't think it will be the blowout a lot of people are predicting. Just a gut feeling the hometown heroes might make us sweat a little. Prediction: Should be a good day for Marshawn Lynch. Oakland's run defense is not the best, and I think Lynch will enjoy his first 100-yard day of the season and/or his first multi-touchdown game of 2008.

Kansas City at Atlanta: FALCONS. Not quite sure what to think of Hot-lanta yet, but I know one thing: the Chiefs are really, truly, horrendously awful.

Tampa Bay at Chicago: BEARS. One of the tougher games of the week for me to call. These both look like sort of middle-of-the-road teams. When in doubt, go with the home field advantage.

Houston at Tennessee: TITANS. The Texans do have the advantage of an unexpected extra week of rest, after they were forced to postpone last week's game with the Ravens because of Hurricane Ike. And, despite being blown out by Pittsburgh on opening day, I still think the Texans will be a competitive team this year. But the Titans look like a playoff contender (in fact, if Peyton hadn't orchestrated a great comeback against the Vikings last week, the Titans would be the only team in the division with a win). I am especially impressed by Tennessee's defense. Pretty ferocious bunch.

Carolina at Minnesota: PANTHERS. Switching it up with a road team. This was another tough call for me. I think the switch from Tarvaris Jackson to Gus Frerotte will help Minnesota (wow, typing that sentence was weird), but the Vikes might be missing Adrian Peterson, and Carolina has looked pretty good the first two weeks. Plus they get Steve Smith back for this game, and assuming he doesn't punch a teammate in the face during warm-ups, he should make a difference in the game. And I try to make it a policy to pick the team that has won games in a match up between an undefeated squad and a winless one.

Miami at New England: PATRIOTS. But I have this crazy gut feeling the Fins actually have a chance here. Still, my brain overruled my gut and forced me to pick the team that hasn't lost a regular season game in like 20 months. That feeling in my gut may have been caused by drinking way too much coffee earlier tonight.

Cincinnati at New York Giants: GIANTS. The slam-dunk pick of the week. Yes, the defending champs were beating on a much inferior team last week, but they look really strong. The race for the NFC East promises to be exciting, especially after that epic battle between Dallas and Philly last Monday night.

Arizona at Washington: REDSKINS. Wanted to pick the Cards here, both because I like them better than the 'Skins, and because 'Zona's actually been kind of impressive in their first two games. But I just couldn't wrap my mind around the idea of a world in which the Bills and the Cardinals both start the season 3-0 (by the way, how weird would it be if Buffalo and Arizona both went into their game in week 5 undefeated?). Plus, the Redskins looked feisty against Nawlins last week, and it's a long road trip for the Cards.

New Orleans at Denver: BRONCOS. Okay, I'm ready to admit it. Denver is way better than I thought they would be. That offense is unbelievable. Brandon Marshall looks poised to be one of the NFL's elite receivers for the next decade or so, and Jay Cutler has the look of a Pro Bowl QB. On the other hand, Cutler was really not clutch last week. He threw an interception in the end zone on a drive late in the game when Denver desperately needed points. And yes, he did ultimately rally his team to victory, but only after he benefited from one of the all-time bad officiating calls. Keep in mind he should have ended that game with TWO turnovers in the final minutes that cost his team a chance at the win. Still, he's an extraordinarily talented dude, and the clutch-ness may come later.

Detroit at San Francisco: 49ERS. Pretty nice win for this Niners squad last week, on the road against the Seahawks. And people (myself included) may laugh at the Lions a lot, but they showed some toughness last week. They were a lot closer to beating the Packers than the final score indicates. They actually had a lead in that game in the fourth quarter. Then the wheels fell off at the end, but still, they put up much more of a fight against the Pack than I expected. So I don't think this will be an easy win for the 49ers, but it should be a win. Again, I went with the team that has won over the team that hasn't, and the team that's playing in front of its own fans.

St. Louis at Seattle: SEAHAWKS. Oh no, I can't use the "pick the team that's won a game" strategy, because they're a combined 0-4. Seattle has looked somewhat less terrible than St. Louis. Also sticking with the home team motif. I'm tempted to predict a tie but... nah.

Cleveland at Baltimore: BROWNS. For those keeping track, this is the second road team pick. I feel like this might be a stupid selection. For one thing, I'm bucking the home team trend, and the team-that's-won-over-the team-that-hasn't-won trend (Baltimore's 1-0, Cleveland 0-2). But here's the thing-- I'm not quite ready to forget how bad Baltimore was last season (Remember, they were the "1" in Miami's "1-15"), and their win in week 1 was over the Bengals, who look like one of the NFL's worst teams. Plus there's a lot of talent on this Browns team, and they desperately need this game after losing two consecutive home games to start the season. I think they'll come out flying, knowing that if they drop this one, their season is in serious jeopardy. And Joe Flacco looked good in his debut, but he's a rookie from a small school, and he almost has to struggle at the NFL level. Okay, there we go, talked myself into thinking this Browns pick wasn't a godawful idea. We'll see what the score says.

Pittsburgh at Philadelphia: EAGLES. I agonized over this pick. The Steelers are one of my Super Bowl picks, but Philly has looked great so far, I was even impressed while they lost at Dallas last week. Big Ben's shoulder is a concern, Westbrook and McNabb are on fire right now, and-- again-- the Eagles are at home. So there you have it. By the way-- everyone who follows the NFL has probably seen the famous DeSean Jackson premature celebration fumble play a number of times now, but I read something even funnier about Jackson. He had something similar happen in high school. He celebrated a touchdown by spreading his arms, angel style, and diving into the end zone. Except he-- again-- celebrated a little prematurely and landed at the 1 yard line instead of in the end zone. Maybe someone needs to tell DeSean that old school celebration has merit-- simply spike the ball once you are safely and securely in the end zone.

Jacksonville at Indianapolis: COLTS. Neither team has looked impressive thus far, but I liked the grit Indy showed with the comeback last week, and the Colts fit both of the trends in my picks this week.

Dallas at Green Bay: COWBOYS. Road team #3. Wouldn't be very surprised if Green Bay wins, but I've gotta stand behind my Super Bowl team until someone beats them. And, as I pointed out earlier, the Pack came perilously close to losing to the Lions last week, even though the final score wound up looking like a blowout in their favor.

New York Jets at San Diego: CHARGERS. This is the pick I'm probably most confident about this week, after the Giants. And yes, I know the Chargers haven't won yet. But they were real close to being 2-0 instead of 0-2. And, after getting thoroughly screwed by Ed Hochuli last week, you know the Chargers are pissed. Really pissed. This is going to be what Bill Simmons calls "an eff you game" and what I call "a fuck you game" (because I am not censored) for the Chargers. I believe that, even if LT doesn't play or is severely limited, the Chargers will win by a large number of points. Prediction: This is a very good week to start Darren Sproles on your fantasy team.

Oh yeah, update on my record. Went a respectable 11-4 last week, improving the season record to 19-12.

All right, that's all for this week. I'll be back again next Friday or Saturday with the week 4 picks.

-Niztradamus