So last night, I saw Michael J. Fox on TV promoting his new
show on NBC – also there was football.... There was a sign here – because last
night was essentially “Back to the Future.” If you had told me that Peyton
Manning was going to have a historically great night with Dallas Clark and
Brandon Stokely on the field, I’d assume it was 2006 and I’d ask you for your
copy of the “Grays Sports Almanac.”
Wow – just wow about Peyton.
- The non-travelling call when he gets up.
- The 10 second backcourt violation non-call (remember this is
1985 so the 8 second hadn’t been adopted yet... plus its high school).
- The shot-clock violation non-call.
- The hideous form as he drives the lane for a layup or dunk.
I’m trying to do everything I can to avoid re-discussing
that NFL Season Opener because I picked the Ravens but then we get to maybe the
best part of the clip:
- This dude’s face at the 1:27 mark
That’s the collective look of every Broncos fan as they unleashed
a seemingly endless wave of offensive bullets at the Ravens D. What was amazing
to see is the utter unwillingness of the Ravens back 7 in the second half to
get involved in plays. I don’t know if it was the altitude and lack of game
shape in Week 1 or motivation because their offence wasn’t getting any first
downs, but deflated and exhausted were the only 2 ways to describe how they
looked.
And also because after as many neck/spine surgeries the man
has had, it’s unfathomable to understand how a 38 year old man is operating and
executing perfectly against Super Bowl Champions. Unless he is of course, a
modern day Teen Wolf..... Well, Middle-Aged Wolf.
Onto the rest of the Week 1 Picks. As always the Home Team
is in CAPS.
Ravens (+8) over BRONCOS
Denver beat Baltimore 49-27 on Thursday Night.
New England (-9.5) over BILLS
The history of Bill Belichick against rookie QB’s has been
well documented and that’s what he’s up against here. But what about against 1st
year coaches? Well since 2001, The Hoodie has been equally as dominant going 25-8
against rookie coaches. Bills Head Coach Doug Marrone begins Day 1 on the job against
Bill Belichick. How’s that for on the job training. Just as a fun sidebar in
that, the point differential over those 33 games works out to 10.8 points in
favour of the Pats.
Titans (+7) over STEELERS
These 2 teams played last year and the Steelers ended up
losing 26-23 albeit in Tennessee. It’s Week 1 so we don’t know too much about the
league right now, and really this game epitomises the early fogginess. I feel
like the Steelers could win this by double digits or lose this outright, with
no in between. Titans will introduce the formation du jour Pistol formation.
They have the pieces to make it work with an athletic QB in Jake Locker, a
speedster RB in Chris Johnson, and after spending both financial and draft
capital to improve the interior line to an already steady exterior line, a full
TD Spread could be busted as quickly as CJ2K can bust a 60 yard TD. Now mind
you Dick LeBeau loves conjuring up ways to make any offence inefficient (See:
Redskins Game last year... RG3 = 16/34 177 yards passing. 6 carries for 8
yards), but with their own problems scoring, 7 points seems like a lot.
SAINTS (-3) over Falcons
Sean Payton comes back. The Saints have one of the best home
field advantages in the league. Under Sean Payton the Saints have owned......
sorry, read that as OWNED the
Falcons. 10-2 with an OT Loss in there as well. Payton returns from his 1 year
NFL Sanctioned hiatus/Suspension, with a home game vs. his biggest rival. I’m
not saying he’s probably foaming at the mouth to get at this game, but
considering it’s at home with his history of dominating the Falcons, you’d
think this line would be a little higher. Instead it’s just incorporating the
usual Home Field Advantage for the Saints and that otherwise these teams are
equals.
JETS (+3.5) over Buccaneers
It’s officially too trendy to hate the Jets. Hating on the
Jets has become the new #YOLO, the Instagram your meal photo, the Candy Crush
Saga Score.... The hate is going too far. I get it... there’s reason to hate
them. But to the point that a team that finished 1 game better than them is a
favourite on their own field? We all dislike Mark Sanchez, but the team won 6
games in spite of him last year. It literally can’t get any worse from the
offensive side of the ball for them, and they still manage to win some games.
Why? Because their defence is GOOD. Like... REALLY GOOD. So in comes Josh
Freeman (in a contract year, having already stumbled down the stretch last
year), and the Buccaneers who finished 7-9 last year, bringing in all this
Revis hype with them, as a favourite? It’s not like Freeman completed 46% of
his passes in pre-season or anything. It’s a contrarian move here to pick the
Jets, but that’s why I like it... besides #YOLO.
Chiefs (-3.5) over JAGUARS
I feel like the Jaguars should get the level of hate the
Jets do. At least for the personnel on their roster. It’s abysmal. We can’t
really hate the Raiders (more on them later), and we hate the Jets for the
excessive coverage of a poor team... But the Jaguars have almost nothing to be
excited about. The Chiefs meanwhile have improved their Coach and QB (an
important combo to have if you didn’t know), plus return 6 Pro-Bowlers.... 4 of
which are on defence. These 2 teams drafted 1st and 2nd
but 1 of them won’t be back. The Chiefs just needed tweaks to what was already
built and they got those in Reid + Smith.
PANTHERS (+3.5) over Seahawks
I love my Seahawks and rarely do I want to pick against
them. But the truth of the matter is until they can consistently show they can
win on the road, gonna have to fade them. The Week 2 matchup vs. the 49ers is
just staring the entire league in the face so already in Week 1 this could be a
look-ahead game. And since 2002 they cover only 39% of their games on the road.
Over a field-goal I’ll take the home ‘dog.
Bengals (+3) over BEARS
The first of the 2 Ohio teams (how is it both Ohio cities in
the NFL start with a C and have a moniker starting with B? Anyways, factoid
that’ll make you forget something from Grade 8 Math like what cosine is) that I
really like this year. This one is not as surprising since the Bengals have
been slowly gathering all these pieces. Most of this pick is me not wanting to
buy into Jay Cutler. I like Marc Trestman, and I think it was a good hire for
them. But they live off their defence and I want to see how it holds up now
without Lovie Smith as the coach before I start to pick them. I know what I’m
getting with the Bengals, and to begin the season, I like it a little bit more.
BROWNS (Pick ‘Em) over Dolphins
Now this one is the other sleeper Ohio pick. I really like
the Browns and history has not given me any reason to suggest that I should.
Here’s what I do like. The co-ordinators. Bringing in Ray Horton from Arizona
to coach the defence and Norv Turner to do the offense is huge. Until the
stink-bomb that is Phillip Rivers (I irrationally feel like he doesn’t like to
be called Phil Rivers) went off last year along with the remarkably shoddy
offensive line, the Chargers had a top 11 offence the past 4 years. Turner can
make a QB look good. And the Browns have far more stability along the offensive
line with Joe Thomas manning the Left Tackle than the red carpet the Chargers
rolled out for defensive ends last year. On defence... remember when the
Cardinals were 4-0 last year? It was on the back of their defence which was
propped up by the brilliant scheming of Ray Horton. And this defence has pieces
with Joe Haden, TJ Ward, D’Qwell Jackson. It’s going to over-achieve and they’ll
start the year off right.
Vikings (+5) over LIONS
“I’ll take Weird QB stats for $500 Alex”
“Answer: This Quarterback completed 64.1% of his throws with 11 TD’s while playing indoors last season, and 68% of his throws with 4 TD’s and 0 INT’s in September ”
“Who is Drew Brees?”
“Incorrect”
“Who is Tom Brady?”
“Incorrect”
“Who is Aaron Rodgers”
“Answer: This Quarterback completed 64.1% of his throws with 11 TD’s while playing indoors last season, and 68% of his throws with 4 TD’s and 0 INT’s in September ”
“Who is Drew Brees?”
“Incorrect”
“Who is Tom Brady?”
“Incorrect”
“Who is Aaron Rodgers”
*Jeopardy Buzzer after all contestants get it wrong and inexplicably
look at each other dumbfounded*
“The answer we were looking for was, Who Is Christian Ponder”
“The answer we were looking for was, Who Is Christian Ponder”
“Hmmmph.... I’ll take coaches who should have been fired in
the off-season for $1000 Alex”
“The Answer: Jim Schwartz”
“The Answer: Jim Schwartz”
COLTS (-10) over Raiders
It’s not even fair to hate the Raiders for the team they put
together because this regime has really had no chance to succeed at it. I empathize
for the Raiders. I hope you return to glory soon. Maybe not like win the Super
Bowl glory, but even sniff at a playoff spot would be nice. It’d be nice to see
Raider Nation being their usual rambunctious selves in November and December in
meaningful games.
Packers (+4.5) over 49ERS
This game is going to be great... and yes yessss... I hate
the 49ers. But this isn’t about that. This game actually really terrifies me
because it could go so many different ways. But picking the Packers here is
about Green Bay spending all of its resources into figuring out how to slow
down Kaepernick. Try to forget about the playoff game – I know it’s tough, but
a team is never as bad as its worst game and the Green Bay D couldn’t not have
looked any worse. Plus they were not even remotely healthy.
RAMS (-4.5) over Cardinals
1 of 2 afternoon games and nobody will be watching it
because of the Packers and 49ers. The Cardinals have suddenly been getting a
lot of pre-season hype and I’m not sure I totally get it. Especially after they
lost their 1st round pick to a broken leg. I don’t see any sort of
run game here especially since Bruce Arians is the coach and will just get Carson
Palmer destroyed.
Giants (+3.5) over COWBOYS
This is everything I need to know about this game. Giants
have won 4 straight IN Dallas. Cowboys have covered only 3 of 19 games as a
home favourite the past 3 seasons.
REDSKINS (-3.5) over Eagles
Chip Kelly is allegedly a visionary, and there’s really no
reason to doubt that. He’s being lauded as an offensive genius that will bring
this whole new revolution to the way of thinking on the offensive side of the
ball. And I’m rooting for it to happen. I like what I read about Kelly and if
some new wrinkles come into play that’ll be cool. But it doesn’t change the
fact that the defenders on this team are still pretty awful. They did the whole
addition by subtraction thing by getting rid of their starting corners from last
year. While a new reckoning might be coming with Mike Vick at the helm, his
turnover proneness still worries me. If it creeps up again it’ll keep that
defence on the field more than they already will be considering the up-tempo
offensive system they want to play.
Texans (-3.5) over CHARGERS
The Chargers and the Raiders play in the same division. They
are 2 of the 3 teams in California. Every once in a while talk heats up about
getting a new team in LA. I can’t wait till 75% of the California teams just
stink. Actually make that 100% right now. I hate the 49ers.
This Week: 0-1
This Season: 0-1
Last Season: 134-128-5
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