Week 8 Picks

Baltimore 18 @ New Orleans 22
Tampa Bay 13 @ New York Giants 30
Jacksonville 14 @ Philadelphia 17
San Francisco 19 @ Chicago 23
Atlanta 20 @ Cincinatti 23
Arizona 14 @ Green Bay 24
Houston 27 @ Tennessee 20
Seattle 17 @ Kansas City 21
St. Louis 23 @ San Diego 21
New York Jets 20 @ Cleveland 17
Indianapolis 22 @ Denver 16
Pittsburgh 20 @ Oakland 18
Dallas 20 @ Carolina 26
New England 23 @ Minnesota 20

66-33 Through Week 7, 1 victory behind the leader on ESPN.com, second overall.

Hire me, bitches.

even though i lost you...

Pittsburgh 23 Atlanta 16
New England 26 Buffalo 10
Carolina 20 Cincinnati 27
San Diego 23 Kansas City 12
Green Bay 20 Miami 15
Detroit 33 Jets 36
Philly 35 Tampa 17
Jacksonville 28 Houston 10
Denver 18 Cleveland 12
Washington 16 Indy 30
Arizona 17 Oakland 22
That's right you dirty Raiders, you can win this game.
Minnesota 17 Seattle 24
New York 20 Dallas 23

That's it bitches. I'm close to the top espn experts... hopefully next week will prove to be the point where i begin to lead.

political op-ed is much needed... it will come.

The 5

I don't have time for the 5/5/& 5 this week so I'm just going to write about the 5 major things that I noticed this weekend/got wrong/got really right. I'm not sure how it's going to pan out, so I'll just start:

5. Bengals getting whipped by the Pats at home. I definitely didn't see this one coming. I guess every team is suspect to a let-down and this surely was one of those games for the Bungals. They're still my favorite to win the Super Bowl and I suspect this will just be a major motivator for Marvin Lewis and the Bengals. We'll have to see how well they rebound but I'm guessing they still win the division and get into the post season with a bye. But the resurgence of the Patriots? Maybe. Laurence Maroney looks like a #1 pick RB and Corey Dillion is choking on his mouthpiece. Brady is still the stud of previous years and may have found another favorite target in Doug Gabriel. You can never count the Patriots out, but they're still not quite as good as the last few years.

4. My scoring predictions are still getting close to spot on. The games I picked right ended up really close to the scores I picked, and if not the totals, the differences. I can surely pin down a lot of these predictions well, I just have to get the slop out and go with the teams that are going to win. I hope I can get another 14-2-like week. Stay tuned.

3. Jacksonville over Washington. WHERE IS THIS OFFENSE COMING FROM!?!? The Redskins were absolutely dead in the water in weeks 1 & 2 but have now emerged as one of the best in the league the last two weeks. And against a major player on defense! The Jags are still a great team but their massive schedule might make their playoff hunt a really difficult one. When they came back and tied it at 30, I thought for sure they'd beat the lowly Redskins in OT but I must have forgotten about Santana Moss. What a catch, what a run. I'll be giving a bit more clout to Washington just so you know, but I still think they're overrated. (Every year)

2. Seattle over Chicago. WOW, did those Bears put on a show or what?!? Seattle didn't have Sean Alexander and that was definitely a factor because it would have made Hasslebeck a bit more settled, but I don't think they would have won anyway. The Bears D made Seattle's prolific (against the Giants anyway) offense look LAME. Chicago's offense even looked solid. Thomas Jones two touchdowns? That killed me in my fantasy league. Bastards. Maybe the Bears are the real deal. Maybe they're not. I'm leaning towards NOT still, but they're definitely going to have a bye week going into the playoffs. We'll talk about the matchups when they happen.

1. San Franchoko- Okay, I get it. I have red and gold blinders and I can't see my team for what it really is. I'm totally die-hard for the Niners and I can't really get a real evaluation on them because I see potential when there probably isn't any. I think we're better than we are because I WANT us to be better than we are. I will work on picking us to lose from now on, I promise. Should we have lost by 41? ABSOLUTELY NOT. We have a MUCH better offense than that and Norv is making me scratch my chin a bit. The worst part is that I have to pick them again this week! I won't give you a 10 minute run-down of why we CAN win the game when I make my predictions later. I will just tell you the final score so I remove myself from the potentially damaging biased comments that reporters so dearly fear. I still love my shitty team though, yes, yes I do.

Dodgers Analysis

I planned on writing a blog after game 1 but I ran out of time. As you should know, it's 2-0 Mets heading back to Los Angeles. The home team is supposed to win their games and force a game 5. We'll have to see if the Dodgers can put up a fight.

Game 1:
What's the deal with the runners??!?! That play where Drew and Kent were both tagged out at home was absolutely absurd. I'm sure you've heard about it since then, but God damn that shit was stupid. Personally, I blame the third base coach and J.D. Drew the most. First of all, everyone in the stadium first thought that the fly ball was going to be caught. Thus, Kent and Drew didn't have much of a chance to take off running and therefore would have SURELY had a close play at the plate on Kent, who is no speedy man. SO, at worst case, Kent should have been thrown out at home, Drew would be at third and Martin would be at second. INSTEAD, the third base coach BARELY signals to Drew to hold up, and he doesn't pay attention. Immediately after telling Drew to stop however, the coach drops his hands and kind of stands there like an idiot. He was confused. You can't be confused when coaching third base! Jesus Christ, this is the playoffs! Had things worked out right, we could have had a 3 run lead leaving that inning and the final score would have most definitely been affected.

Grady Little has been criticised a gagillion times for his Pedro incident in the playoffs. I have been happy with Grady all year and really don't think the Pedro deal was THAT big of a blunder. I mean, he lost the playoffs because of it, but in the end it came down to him having faith in his BEST pitcher. That's suspect at best. But now that the playoffs are happening, I've been feeling a certain move and Grady does something completely opposite. I get a gut feeling, and he gets a gut feeling, and they're completely different.

I don't like that.

He is the coach and I'm the opinionated spectator, but the guy isn't exactly winning games with his decisions. Did you see what Leyland did with the Tigers the other day? Now that's intuitive coaching. Grady puts in Brad Penny, who is obviously still struggling with his back, and Penny gives up 2 earned and the game is out of reach.

The main thing coming out of this 6-5 loss was that we put up a fight. Even with some stupid plays and some bad pitching calls, we hung with the best team in the National League for 9 innings and even had a chance to win that game in the end. Instead it really came down to who was the better team, and that's the Mets. Hands down. Oh well, lose game 1, gotta put up a fight in game 2. The home teams ARE supposed to win.

Game 2:

I wasn't really confident in Kuo although he pitched well, I thought. Nothing crazy dominating, but he did hold them to 4 runs throughout. The beginning innings kept us surely around but it took 3 innings just to get a hit. When you're playing a team like the Mets with their offense, you HAVE to put up some runs. We didn't.

Glavine looked just like I thought he would: Hall of Famer. This was honestly the most boring game I've seen in a long time and is an example of why people say they don't like baseball because it's slow and lame. This game was extremely slow and lame. I fell asleep 3 or 4 different times and the Dodgers didn't have a chance from the first pitch.

We hold the best team in the league to 4 runs and we don't even have a chance? The Dodgers looked DEAD. All through the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th, EVERY Dodger player looked as if the game was over. Totally deer in the headlights man, and that can't happen in the playoffs.

Here's the deal:

Because of the attitude I saw on their faces leaving that game, I think we're going to get swept. HOWEVER, if we DO win game 3, we WILL win game 4. Then anything can happen in game 5.

Winning 3 in a row against the best team all year? Most likely not going to happen.

I'm not betting on it. See what happens in game 3. See if those wide-eyed Dodgers clamp down and focus. See if they score 7 runs and win that game handily. If they do, we'll go to game 5.

If they don't, see you next year.