Bik's Week 12 Thursday Night Pick

Don’t call it a comeback! Back after ANOTHER above .500 week (which included 3 pushes – how brutal was that!)  and we’ll keep going with what works. Keeping things quick and simple.

Onto the Thursday Night Pick. Home team in CAPS:

Saints (-8.5) over FALCONS

I really did everything I possibly could to find a way to take Atlanta. The only thing I could come up with was that with their season effectively over, how great it would be for them to jam up their rival Saints from home-field advantage in the playoffs. It would just be too sweet right? But to do that, you actually need a good team and I just flat out don’t think they have any makings of a decent team. They’re too banged up and will once again fail to win in the trenches. They struggle with the pass-rush and if you’re giving Brees even an extra second, he’ll find a way to hurt you. I do hate going against the HOME DOG, but I gotta!

Rest of Week 12 picks on Friday

Last Week: 7-5-3

This Season: 73-83-6

Bik's Week 10 NFL Picks: Power Ranks v3.0

It’s been a bit longer than I had hoped to do the next power-ranks so here they are through 10 weeks. So back again are my current power ranks for the NFL. The Number in brackets is the teams rank from Week 7:

Bik's Week 9 Picks

Due to some scheduling conflicts didn’t get a chance to post my Thursday Night Pick but just know it was documented between TJ and I that I picked Dolphins +3.... I know it looks shady since my picks are struggling this year and I’m posting that I got the game right the day after, but just make a leap of faith.

I was going to write something about the Sedins’ re-signing with the Canucks but it was getting excessively long and this piece is generally saved for the NFL Picks so I’ll have that for you next week. So onto the picks – on bye this week: Denver, Detroit, New York Giants, Arizona, San Francisco, Jacksonville. Home teams are in CAPS.

Bik's Week 6 Picks

Sorry no write-up again – adjusting to a new schedule. I’ll be back with a take next week though. Only quick write-ups this week on games. Falcons and Dolphins are on bye weeks.

Home teams are in CAPS

Bik's Week 5 Picks

Here are the Week 5 Picks, the Vikings, Steelers, Redskins and Buccaneers are on Bye-Weeks... Oddly enough when you remove 4 of the worst teams from a weekends worth of action, a lot of good games emerge. As always, Home teams are in CAPS

Bik's Thursday Night Week 5 Pick: Identifying Identities

Through 4 weeks in the NFL season we’ve learned some things. Now in years past I’ve felt the things we’ve learned at this time of the year to be fake. After all Arizona recently started the year 4-0, Bills started 4-1, Raiders were 3-2, and Falcons were 2-3. But for some reason this year some of the fast starts seem very authentic. The teams that were supposed to be good, actually are good. Now there might be a few surprises here and there, but certainly not to the same level we’ve seen in years past. Considering who the Chiefs opened the season against, it wasn’t a crazy notion to see them start the season at least 3-1, so 4-0 isn’t that big of a stretch. More of the surprise teams are in that 2-2 range where we didn’t expect them to be as good and really they’ve just been unlucky so far (I.e. San Diego, Tennessee) but we still don’t know enough about them.

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.

Bik's Week 3 Picks: Over-Reacting

Now that we’re 2 weeks into the season, it should have given NFL team fan bases enough time to digest what they’ve seen and begin to over-react. So let’s examine some over-reactions through 2 Weeks.

Home team in CAPS

Bik's Week 2 Picks: Detailed Analysis of the Greatest Football Play so far This Season

As I described yesterday, Week 1 of the 2013 NFL Season was not flattering to me. I needed to go back to the drawing board. Back to the basement. Re-crunch the numbers. Re-examine everything and find the correct formula for success. Maybe watch some game film. But then it occurred to me.... What I needed was to get back to when this game was fun. Just being a kid, and running around. Forget the fanfare, the high production value of the NFL. Grabbing a pigskin and calling some friends.... and just playing. Playing the game for fun. So I’m going back to when football was fun. Here’s a detailed analysis over the most important football play of the 2013-14 Season:

Bik's Week 1 NFL Picks: Back to the Future

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.