Good news! Not only did nobody came back around last week and call me an idiot who could have done just as well with coin-flipping (thanks!), it turns out that my ego is much tougher than I thought… because I’m going to do it again.
Given last week’s 8-8 debacle, I’ll understand if you choose to interpret these as “recommendations best ignored”:
Minnesota (+3.5*) over GREEN BAY**
Kansas City over OAKLAND (+6.5)
New Orleans (+2.5) over NY GIANTS — The Saints looked bad last week, but it seemed to be a matter of focus and timing. I don’t really need an excuse to pick them, but if I did, it would be that they’re unlikely to repeat that mess.
ST. LOUIS over Washington (+2.5)
Chicago over DETROIT (+4.5) — I will NOT be happy if Da Bears decide to play footsie with the opposition again this week and take it down to an OT field goal.
CLEVELAND over Tampa Bay (+3.5)
ATLANTA over Carolina (+6.5)
Tennessee (+4.5) over BUFFALO
Indianapolis over HOUSTON (+8.5) — There’s very little to add here. If you’re a Texans fan, though, you’re probably in desperate need of something to smile about, and so you must — must — visit Nick Anderson’s interactive animation. At the very least, it’ll give you a break from the crying.
New England (+2.5) over JACKSONVILLE
Baltimore (+3.5) over PITTSBURGH
SAN FRANCISCO over Arizona (+3.5)
DENVER over Cincinnati (+3.5) — When in their natural mile-high environment, Denver generally does better than the opposition… but by how many points? It’s likely to be a great game. (Edit: you may have noticed that I’ve put myself in a double-bind here. Denver is the favorite. If I’ve picked them on the basis of the spread, they have to win by 4…. but I also indicated I thought Cincy would win. There is no scenario where both of these outcomes can be correct, indicating a pretty clear case of cotton on Polimom’s brain.)
San Diego over SEATTLE (+4.5)
Philadelphia (+6.5) over DALLAS
NY Jets (+2.5) over MIAMI
Gun Toting Liberal has his picks up again also, here.
An interesting sidenote: Compared to GTL, my record is pretty bad. However, he’s not trying to account for point spreads; his are straight picks, i.e.: a win by 1 is still a win, whereas in Polimom’s picks, a win by 1 could be (and very often is) a loss. Putting his picks last week into the point spread framework, he’d have been 6-10 last week instead of 11-5. (Yeah, I know. I’m looking for excuses….) So — in the interests of apples v. apples (and my ego), I’ve italicized who I think will actually win each game above.
* The + sign indicates point spreads. The + is the equivalent of a “spot”, and the underdog effectively starts the game with that number of points. Thus, in the first game, if the final score is Minn 3 – Green Bay 7, I’d lose; the spotted 3.5 points wouldn’t be enough to “cover the spread”.
**Teams in all caps = playing at home
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Couple of things:
I didn’t call you an idiot because (1) I don’t call anyone who has been in the Army and trained how to kill you 50 ways an idiot [that is the province of certain congresscritters and Senators who are making political posturing speeches, and who should frankly know better], (2) you are probably better at this than I am, and (3) I didn’t follow the scores well enough to know how well you did. So there.
As far as Denver/Cincy goes: how do you think the current weather conditions in Denver are going to affect this? Will the Bengals even get to the stadium?
Re: Nick Anderson’s “Help the Texans” – I found that to be a hoot – too bad he didn’t do something like that for the elections!
~E”f’n”T.
I don’t call anyone who has been in the Army and trained how to kill you 50 ways an idiot
HAHAHAHAHA! Glad to know somebody respects me for something!
And while I’m about as likely to predict the weather correctly as I am these football games, I don’t think they’ll have any problems. Be slush by then, though….
Only the Saints game counts… 🙂
blueshead — vraiment!