Bik's Week 4 Picks: Saying Goodbye To Greatness

Regular readers of The Extra Period will know by now that I take a lot of digs at baseball. Partially because baseball gives us so many opportunities to, partially because I’m not a fan and the sport does tend to catch some of my ire. It’s important NOT to read that last part as “I hate baseball” because I don’t. It’s just not for me is all. In the wide spectrum of sports, some are bound not to catch you the way others can, for me that’s baseball. But at the end of the day it is a sport, and given the remarkable degree of difficulty to play any sport at a top level, it has my respect in that regard. It’s not easy to do what they do, this I know. I’ll also appreciate greatness in sports, no matter my feelings towards the sport.

Last night Mariano Rivera made his final appearance in Yankee Stadium  and will now play out the final week of his career before retiring, heading off to Cooperstown and staying in our memories. A season long story line came to an emotional tipping point when Derek Jeter and Andy Pettitte strolled out to the mound to relieve the legendary pitcher. He’s gotten gifts from opposing teams, standing ovations from fans during away games, and every bit of adulation he deserves for a storied career. Again, I’m not a baseball guy so I’m not going to start telling you about the stats because they are partially hollow to me. But to me the most special part of what Rivera has achieved is the way he’s done it. Forget the excellence he brings on the field, it’s his demeanor and the example he sets that inspires. That “I’m just going to do my job and shut my mouth” mentality. In an era where players bicker amongst themselves in social media, Rivera is a gem in a fading generation of greatness. There aren’t many athletes with that mindset and probably even fewer when we filter players who only played for 1 franchise. Really what’s the recent list? Paul Scholes, Joe Sakic.... That’s pretty much it. Between the 3 icons I think I’ve heard them say 50 collective words in interviews. Unless you’re trying to pull a Ray Bourque, this is what guys who hang around too long don’t seem to get. What Rivera achieved yesterday was the summit of pure reverence. That's not just what we want to see as sports fans...... its what we want to GIVE BACK to that player. You deserved it. We WANT to stand up and honour you for those 5 minutes and salute you one last time because for the past 20 years you've given us reasons to cheer from your craft. You've given us moments of euphoria when just seconds prior we were tense.

Records could be broken this year, Championships will be handed out and champagne will be poured to celebrate, but there won’t be a cooler more meaningful moment that what took place at Yankee Stadium last night.

The emotion that poured out yesterday reminded me of another players emotions that is getting set to embark on his farewell tour now that the NHL season starts up next week.

With the new schedule of every team playing each other twice, you’ll get the chance to see every player this season. Yes you can see Crosby, Ovechkin, and Stamkos... I’m telling you now though, if there’s 1 hockey game this year you should make a point to go see, it’s when Anaheim rolls into your arena to see Teemu Selanne play in front of you again. Celebrate greatness one last time. Now his legacy isn’t as lofty as Rivera’s but certainly the respect is there and thankfully we didn’t lose The Finnish Flash during a putrid lockout shortened year so he can be given farewell tour that he also deserves. A tip of my cap and a raising of the stick to these 2. Thanks for the memories Mo and looking forward to a year full of them Teemu.

Onto the Week 4 Picks, the Packers and Panthers are on Bye-Weeks. As always, Home teams are in CAPS

49ers (-3) over RAMS

The 49ers beat the Rams 35-11 on Thursday Night

VIKINGS (+3) over Steelers

This game is IIIIIN LOOONDON. It’s unfortunate that this is the game that the NFL has decided to send over but I guess when you look at it pre-season, why not send your league’s MVP and an iconic team overseas to showcase your sport. I’m hoping the Vikings pass-rush and defensive line in general remembers their own previous greatness against the toilet-paper soft Offensive Line the Steelers have in front of Ben Roethlisberger to keep him safe and protected.

BILLS (+3) over Ravens

There are a lot of home under-dogs this week. I already avoided 1 on Thursday night (technically Minnesota is a home underdog but since the game is in London it’s kind of moot), and I don’t want to fade them all but this is one I definitely feel sketchy about. This could go so many different ways especially considering how ineffective CJ Spiller has been for Buffalo so far this season. However Fred Jackson has been a pleasant throwback surprise and if Terrence Cody can’t go this week for the Ravens that could hurt their run D. Now the Bills did let Geno Smith throw the ball up and down on them, but the Ravens are banged up at the wideout spot, so if they can find a way to bottle up Torrey Smith as much as possible, plus considering the Ray Rice injury and Baltimore’s inability to move the ball at all, I’ll take the points and go for a close game.

BROWNS (+4) over Bengals

LET THE BRIAN HOYER ERA BEGIN!!!! Finally my pre-season hype on this team was mildly rewarded. Also, can someone explain to me how the Bengals won that game last week? They put up 34 points sure, but what exactly did they do offensively? They had 2 nice drives. 2. That’s it. Don’t believe me? Check it out. They got 7 points from the game winning fumble recovery TD (so we’re down to 27), they started 1 drive from Green Bays’ 2 yard line (down to 20), 1 drive was 4 plays that started at midfield + got a 15 yard unnecessary roughness penalty..... Not exactly prime job putting together plays at home vs. the GREEN BAY DEFENCE! The Browns D is fierce and Joe Haden is going to be a shadow on AJ Green.

I'm also liking the home underdog. Look there's a lot of them this week. Over half of them are going to cover. It's going to happen. Also the Bengals come off playing Green Bay in a wild game, and what’s next on their schedule? The New England Patriots. This is a classic sandwich game where the middle game doesn’t look as impressive and a prime look-a-head spot.

JAGUARS (+8.5) over Colts

So last year the Colts had arguably their biggest win in this new Andrew Luck era against the Green Bay Packers in come from behind fashion. They followed that up with a 35-7 loss to the New York Jets. Way to lay an egg, nice response. And that’s LAST year’s New York Jets. The one’s led by Mark Sanchez.  Their statement game win of the season came last week, they’ve got another marquee matchup on the docket with the Seahawks set to visit Indy... it’s another prime sandwich game with another home underdog. Add in that the Colts will be missing Ahmad Bradshaw, so Trent Richardson who is still learning the playbook and pass protection assignment schemes will be heavily involved and Donald Brown who is most famous for this play.

Now I should point 1 last thing out because you might have noticed that this’ll be 3 weeks in a row I’ve taken the Jaguars. The spread is the great equalizer and that’s why I’ve kept picking them but there comes a point where maybe a team is just so bad that they can’t be helped. If they can’t keep this one close, might just have to start fading them blindly.

Seahawks (-2.5) over TEXANS

I had 1 fear in wanting to pick the Jaguars last week vs. the Seahawks. My fear was that Pete Carroll just has his team so locked in with his “Always Compete” mantra that no matter who is playing in the game that the team is just going to go through a wall to make any play but I didn’t think the Seahawks would run the score up on a former member of their coaching staff. Clearly I was wrong. The important thing to note here is that because they came off that Jacksonville game, the team has basically preparing for this game for a while now. This is one of the home underdogs I’m going to fade and hope JJ Watt doesn’t devour the ailing Seahawks defensive line.

Matt Schaub isn’t winning this game. He averaged 4.9 net yards per pass last week against the Ravens. Andre Johnson is banged up and the press corners from the Seahawks aren’t going to make this any easier.

BUCCANEERS (-2.5) over Cardinals

I’ll remember the Josh Freeman era fondly. There was the backdoor cover stretch when he was 22 and 23, then basically the stretch when Greg Schiano begin to throw him under the bus, reverse the bus, park the bus next to him, allow a full intake of passengers onto the bus using Freeman as a step stool onto the vehicle, burning out, travelling nowhere, then letting all the passengers back off.

I’m going to buy some Mike Glennon stock and still believe in their D. With Revis on Larry Fitzgerald and Palmer completing barely 50% of his passes against New Orleans, I think the D will shut down Arizona and Doug Martin will carry the entire load and do enough to prop up Mike Glennon to win this game.

Bears (+3) over LIONS

I have a feeling this is going to be a comeback down to Earth game for the Lions. The Bears traditionally have struggled in divisional games they travel in but they just travelled to a tough place in Pittsburgh and dropped 40 on what’s still a decent Defence. Oh you say the Lions D has the league’s best 3^rd down percentage? Great, call me when they play someone other than Minnesota, Arizona, or Washington. They get their first real opponent of the year this week which kicks off a brutal stretch for them. vs. Chicago, @ Green Bay, @ Cleveland, vs. Cincinnati, vs. Dallas, bye week then @ Chicago. I feel like by the end of it we’ll just be saying “another same ole’ Lions season!”

CHIEFS (-4) over Giants

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA #Giants... That is all.

Jets (+3.5) over TITANS

We got 2 brutal offensive teams and 2 good if not great defensive teams. Anything more than a field goal is a gift here. Jake Locker is improving but this just isn’t the game for him. He’s still not completing enough of his passes and I don’t know if Chris Johnson will bust off a big run against this Jets D to open things up for the passing game. Plus apparently Geno Smith can stand back in a pocket, take huge hits while delivering darts downfield.

Cowboys (-2) over CHARGERS

Another home underdog that I’m feeling mildly sketchy about. Well if it wasn’t for the fact that the Chargers had a CLASSIC “Chargers in September” game last week.

RAIDERS (+3.5) over Redskins

Why are the Redskins favoured over anyone right now? Let alone on the road...... I’m going to apply to work for their defence. My position will be “At Least I Might Get In The Way Of SOMEBODY-----ANYBODY!!!”

BRONCOS (-10.5) over Eagles

Peyton Manning is doing amazing things with this offence. Chip Kelly is doing amazing things with his new offence (the results might not show it yet but the concept of it is amazing). What’s the difference?

Peyton is giving his team a chance right now. SUPPORTING his defence and the players on his side of the ball. Sharing it equally to all his weapons. He has 4 pass-catchers with over 20 targets and none over 30.  He has 2 running backs with over 30 carries. His offensive weapons are remaining engaged in the game because he’s spreading it around equally. He’s keeping his defence off the field by sustaining long drives.

The Eagles are putting up yards, but are doing it in 24 minutes. They’re tiring out their own defensive players by keeping them on the field for 38 minutes and now they travel to the high altitude of Denver and it’s supposed to get easier? Trying to cover Peyton whipping the ball all around the place to different players all the time. Good luck. Lest we forget that this Eagles Offense can get tired this week as well because remember they didn’t run this offence fully in the pre-season. That was 4 weeks they had to get into game shape for the season that they didn’t fully utilize. Plus they didn’t even play the full games offensively so they played maybe in total 3 halves through 4 weeks, and then right away were expected to play 60 minutes of this high-tempo-constantly-move-the-ball-and-snap-it-quickly-don’t-breathe-just-react offence. It’s not been easy on them either which is why you haven’t seen that same explosion you saw in the 1^st quarter of the Redskins game. Not to worry though Eagles offensive players, Peyton will keep the D on the field for well over 40 minutes.

FALCONS (-2) over Patriots

Matt Ryan is so good at home. I don’t really like anything about Atlanta in particular this season, but I just know that Matt Ryan is so good at home. They have 34 wins at home since Ryan got there in 2008. 34. They are in a similar position as the 49ers where they’ve fallen back 2 games of their division rival and if it’s 3 back then you can pretty much kiss the season good-bye. It’s a marquee game for them as the Patriots come in and it’s always fun to try to get a win over Brady and Bellichick.

So what if the Patriots only give up 11 points a game. They’ve played Josh Freeman, Geno Smith and EJ Manuel. Gronk and Amendola might play but they’ll definitely be limited and if this offence can’t click perfectly they won’t be given the same close game opportunities they’ve been afforded playing those crummy offences as they finally play a high-powered team on a field where the home team is 34-5.

SAINTS (-6.5) over Dolphins

You know what you’re going to hear a lot of this Monday night.... Saints had the worst D last year, Bountygate,  Head Coach Sean Payton was gone for a year... and you’ll probably get annoyed by it by the 3^rd quarter.

Now imagine having to hear that every day since the last NFL Season ended. All through the draft process of how the team should draft new players to improve this defence and replace guys. All through the summer in training camp when they had to hear about Rob Ryan failed in Dallas and isn’t going to help out the Saints who had the worst D. That’s all these players have heard. You’ll get annoyed by hearing it in the 2^nd quarter, these guys were done with it in May and June. They’re arriving on Monday night, ticked off and ready to put a whooping on these Dolphins. This is a step-up in weight class for the ‘Fins. They played a Brandon Weeden led Cleveland Browns in Week 1 (you’ll notice how quickly I’ve burned up any “I believe in Brandon Weeden” posts I’ve written before... GO BRIAN HOYER!), they got an Indy team which I still don’t like in Week 2, and Atlanta in a bad scheduling spot in Week 3 at home. This is Monday Night. In New Orleans. One of the toughest places to play. And no Cameron Wake to be there with you. Good luck.

Enjoy the Breaking Bad Finale!

This Week: 1-0

Last Week: 11-4-1

This Season: 23-24-2