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It stinks in the litter box. It stinks, it sucks, and I’m going to be back on my window perch again real soon. I’ve been as bad in October as I was good in September, a disturbing year-after-year pattern now. Its not as bad as the numbers indicate. Lets recap a bit from last week:
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MNF: KC vs Oakland
Duante Hall is worth the 4 points alone. The idea of Holmes showcasing his stuff on MNF is also appealing. Green actually completed passed to Gonzalez AND his wideout this week! Rolling....
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SPECIAL TEAMS were key when the chiefs downed the ball inside the five at the end of the game. Finally!! Don’t take that for granted; i’ve been watching balls sail into the end zone all season long. Oakland might have also had a shot in this game if the coaching were better from Oakland. Going for it down 7-0 in the 2nd quarter was stupid, even if they had made it. Parcells might have won this game for Oakland. Gannon was murdered.
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TB at SF
Garcia has happy feet and that doesn’t bode well. Remember: play TB vs. West Coast. The lines pretty high, though. 3.5? I guess its okay so long as its below 4.
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JUST A FEW WEEKS ago, SF couldn’t pound the ball on Cleveland with Hearst amassing under 20 yards. So forgive me if I didn’t think Hearst would get 100 on Tampa. Tampa’s schedule has been so lopsided its hard to know where they should go. But there is a lot of smoke here not to think that Tampa’s power rating is sliding. This was the prototypical matchup for TB and they were blown out in this game. Don’t kick the end zone cones! Taking TB was overpaying and Bucs players paid for their sins.
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Washington at Buffalo
Someone needs to get their act together...FAST! I love the new physicalness of the Washington defense.
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HISTORICALLY, Washington has struggled with the smallish backs. I felt that their stronger core of linebackers led by Arrington might reverse this trend. The biggest problem in Washington, though, is a lack of running backs and certainly a lack of running backs who have any hope of picking up the blitz. Going back to the start of the season, owner Dan Snyder cut their 3rd running back against Spurriers objections. With injuries mounting, this might prove to be a cut that will haunt them in the coming weeks. Ramsey needs to evolve into a team leader.
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Chicago at Seattle
The temptation is to think that Seattle can’t cover, but they are likely to showcase their muster against the punchless Bears.
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MY PATIENCE with Seattle is at an end. From past experience, I know all too well that after being disappointed by a team like Seattle, you go into the next week against them and they burn you. So I was patient and went with them for a 3rd week and a 3rd loss. Hey, I have Seattle overrated, I overpaid, and I lost. Plain and simple. Seattle is an 8-8 team. Time to accept this and move on.
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SD at Cleveland
Boston lit it up in his first game back, but the SD pass defense is unfixable. The question is: which Tim Couch do we see this week?
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ANSWER: Kelly Holcomb.
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Jets at Houston
Jets riding the tide, but remember what I said about the Falcons in regards to riding bad teams on an uptick. This game is wide open. Could be a good day for the Jets Santana Moss.
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COVERED THAT PRETTY WELL...
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Dallas at Detroit
Detroit can put up points here.
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I SHOULD HAVE ADDED “Assuming Harrington can manage a QB rating above 7.3 in the first half...”
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New England at Miami
Who knows? Both teams strike me as unpredictable.
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AGAIN, PROPHETIC. Miami was the right call and New England was the right call.
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Philadelphia at NY
Book says take the road team in this series, although the Giants may finally own the upperhand.
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I DON’T THINK the book said anything about the Eagles winning with under 100 passing yards, though.
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Denver at Minnesota
Missing the Snake.
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BRONCOS LOOKED LIKE chickens with their heads cut off trying to come up with something in the 2nd half.
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Green Bay at St Louis
Bulger will light up that cheesy defense, but the Packers will be in the 20s too. Depth of wideouts will challenge the Rams.
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PACKERS NAILED 24. Al Harris needs to cut off his hair, because it is drawing too much attention to his bad play. Yes, he comes up with picks but that is just selfish playing when it comes from gambling all the time and giving up a ton of plays the other way.
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NO at Atlanta
I just like the sound of the name “Kurt Kitner”. Surprised NO can only command 1 here. A deal?
*
OKAY, HAVE TO CONFESS to playing the Falcons here. Mainly because I couldn’t think of any reason why any moron would play the Falcons. And the fact that the books held tight on a number they easily could have run up worried me. However, I think this line was more an indictment of NO than a vote of confidence on Atlanta. When the Saints play a team with a pass rush, their horrendous play should return unabated.
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Tennessee at Carolina
The Pass against The Run.
*
I’VE UNDERESTIMATED THE Titans too, largely because of that early season debacle. Truth is, though, ever since they let McNair air it out midway last year, the Titans have been unbeatable. Carolina was fat & happy after proving themselves the week before, and I don’t think this is an indictment of the Panthers. In fact, I’m more impressed with them than ever because they managed to run up 350 yards, which makes me feel they can hit a couple pass plays during games when they need them in the future. They needed to show that and they did.
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Baltimore at Cincinnati
Ravens are concerned here. No really!! But aren’t they a great surprise this season? Both teams, I mean.
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COREY DILLON IS such a moron, signing a contract again and then complaining about the team yet again. I guess he was used to Cincinnati the OLD way and Marvin Lewis is making him work or something. This was an impressive win by the Bengals against a Ravens team that has shown up every week.
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My subject for today has to do with winning and losing streaks, and how they affect the spread. Take the Bucs: -7 against the Cowboys is definitely high. Why? Simply, they haven’t won a home game yet and there is a camp of thought that they are “due”. Now, any coin-flipping statistician knows the fallacy of this thinking. However, football isn’t flipping a coin. These are real human beings and it is logical to expect that a team that has lost will focus and prepare better, whereas a team fat&happy from a win might let their preparation and determination slide a bit. So I’m arguing – there IS a reasonable logic to this way of thinking. Every week, you’ll see the lines tip a bit to teams hot off a momentum changing win, or towards a team that has improbably lost a couple games and has people thinking “they can’t lose again!” The thing you have to love about Parcells is he thinks like a gambler. He knows where letdowns are likely to occur. He looks up past histories – as he did against the Cardinals and Eagles– and realizes when and where there might be trouble ahead. And he knows that winning ugly is a great time to heap constructive criticism on his team, as he has had ample opportunity to do.
Conversely, if you look at a team like the Chiefs, I think the winning streak starts working in the favor of the gambler. After all, they have to lose sometime and the Chiefs certainly are at the point where the expectation is that the law of averages is about to catch up with them. However, the Chiefs are as motivated with each win as most teams are with a loss. After all, how often do you get to try to extend your undefeated streak in the NFL? With a bye week coming up soon, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and the Chiefs don’t want that light to be a train. Still, streaks are generally made up of many close wins. Teams that burn too hot – perhaps like the Titans – generally burn out quicker than teams that just find a way to win every week. That makes the Chiefs a darn good bet to win but a risky cover.
I can pit two games head-to-head this week: Colts giving 13 to the Texans is identical to the 49ers going on the road at –7. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see either of these teams cleaning up, but likely one of them will cover and one of them won’t. Which to choose? It can be difficult to blow out a team that is looking for a moral victory like the Texans. I like the 49ers better and my reason is: Garcia. You may recall that Garcia began his career in Arizona on MNF. I know because seconds before Aeneas Williams ended Steve Young’s career, I called out to an unknown guy named Garcia and yelled from about 5 feet away, “Get ready Garcia, you’re up next!” Anyway, without a pass rush against him, Garcia is likely to carve up Arizona like a Thanksgiving turkey. Marcel Shipp behind that big Arizona line is a small concern, but no more than – say – Pittman for Tampa Bay.
Last week, I pointed out how the bye was very advantageous in week 6 in many late game road comebacks. Would it follow in week 7? On the positive, you see all the teams that are on the bye lost again. That’s 0-4. However, the 2nd half scores hardly favored the better rested teams and they went 3-2 as a group, led by Minnesota, San Diego, and the Rams. But the two losses – by Carolina and Tampa Bay – were positively brutal. (The missing game is Washington vs. Buffalo, where Buffalo is also a non-byed team that takes off next week).
The Rams are back and its more than a personnel change, its a change in philosophy. No longer having the scary threat of Marshall Faulk to slow down defensive pass rushes, the Rams have wisely opted to go max protection and let their talented wide receivers have a couple seconds to break open. The scheme has worked beautifully and you can’t like the Steelers porous defenses chances of holding these guys back. However, I can’t say that Bulger knows the 3-4 defense terribly well and he could be challenged by the variety of blitz packages the Steelers will bring. Expect adjustments at halftime! The line, Steelers –1, puts all the pressure on the Steelers to get their act straight and field a competitive team.
In Cleveland, if you have two QBs...you have NO QBs. The Chiefs/Bills features the league’s best special teams against one of the league’s worst special teams. The Jets are rushing Pennington back to avoid paying Vinnie some incentives, and that usually doesn’t bode well. Although there is a lot of meaningless bru-haha about SD/Miami, my biggest concern is that Tomlinson seems genuinely upset he didn’t get a goalline carry last week to pad his numbers. That kind of criticism is worrisome following the team’s first win of the season. Marty seems to have gone too soft.
Everyone is scheduling New Orleans for Homecoming this year!
DO NOT LET THE BLACK CAT CROSS Y-O-U-R PATH!
*
MNF: KC vs Oakland
Duante Hall is worth the 4 points alone. The idea of Holmes showcasing his stuff on MNF is also appealing. Green actually completed passed to Gonzalez AND his wideout this week! Rolling....
*
SPECIAL TEAMS were key when the chiefs downed the ball inside the five at the end of the game. Finally!! Don’t take that for granted; i’ve been watching balls sail into the end zone all season long. Oakland might have also had a shot in this game if the coaching were better from Oakland. Going for it down 7-0 in the 2nd quarter was stupid, even if they had made it. Parcells might have won this game for Oakland. Gannon was murdered.
*
TB at SF
Garcia has happy feet and that doesn’t bode well. Remember: play TB vs. West Coast. The lines pretty high, though. 3.5? I guess its okay so long as its below 4.
*
JUST A FEW WEEKS ago, SF couldn’t pound the ball on Cleveland with Hearst amassing under 20 yards. So forgive me if I didn’t think Hearst would get 100 on Tampa. Tampa’s schedule has been so lopsided its hard to know where they should go. But there is a lot of smoke here not to think that Tampa’s power rating is sliding. This was the prototypical matchup for TB and they were blown out in this game. Don’t kick the end zone cones! Taking TB was overpaying and Bucs players paid for their sins.
*
Washington at Buffalo
Someone needs to get their act together...FAST! I love the new physicalness of the Washington defense.
*
HISTORICALLY, Washington has struggled with the smallish backs. I felt that their stronger core of linebackers led by Arrington might reverse this trend. The biggest problem in Washington, though, is a lack of running backs and certainly a lack of running backs who have any hope of picking up the blitz. Going back to the start of the season, owner Dan Snyder cut their 3rd running back against Spurriers objections. With injuries mounting, this might prove to be a cut that will haunt them in the coming weeks. Ramsey needs to evolve into a team leader.
*
Chicago at Seattle
The temptation is to think that Seattle can’t cover, but they are likely to showcase their muster against the punchless Bears.
*
MY PATIENCE with Seattle is at an end. From past experience, I know all too well that after being disappointed by a team like Seattle, you go into the next week against them and they burn you. So I was patient and went with them for a 3rd week and a 3rd loss. Hey, I have Seattle overrated, I overpaid, and I lost. Plain and simple. Seattle is an 8-8 team. Time to accept this and move on.
*
SD at Cleveland
Boston lit it up in his first game back, but the SD pass defense is unfixable. The question is: which Tim Couch do we see this week?
*
ANSWER: Kelly Holcomb.
*
Jets at Houston
Jets riding the tide, but remember what I said about the Falcons in regards to riding bad teams on an uptick. This game is wide open. Could be a good day for the Jets Santana Moss.
*
COVERED THAT PRETTY WELL...
*
Dallas at Detroit
Detroit can put up points here.
*
I SHOULD HAVE ADDED “Assuming Harrington can manage a QB rating above 7.3 in the first half...”
*
New England at Miami
Who knows? Both teams strike me as unpredictable.
*
AGAIN, PROPHETIC. Miami was the right call and New England was the right call.
*
Philadelphia at NY
Book says take the road team in this series, although the Giants may finally own the upperhand.
*
I DON’T THINK the book said anything about the Eagles winning with under 100 passing yards, though.
*
Denver at Minnesota
Missing the Snake.
*
BRONCOS LOOKED LIKE chickens with their heads cut off trying to come up with something in the 2nd half.
*
Green Bay at St Louis
Bulger will light up that cheesy defense, but the Packers will be in the 20s too. Depth of wideouts will challenge the Rams.
*
PACKERS NAILED 24. Al Harris needs to cut off his hair, because it is drawing too much attention to his bad play. Yes, he comes up with picks but that is just selfish playing when it comes from gambling all the time and giving up a ton of plays the other way.
*
NO at Atlanta
I just like the sound of the name “Kurt Kitner”. Surprised NO can only command 1 here. A deal?
*
OKAY, HAVE TO CONFESS to playing the Falcons here. Mainly because I couldn’t think of any reason why any moron would play the Falcons. And the fact that the books held tight on a number they easily could have run up worried me. However, I think this line was more an indictment of NO than a vote of confidence on Atlanta. When the Saints play a team with a pass rush, their horrendous play should return unabated.
*
Tennessee at Carolina
The Pass against The Run.
*
I’VE UNDERESTIMATED THE Titans too, largely because of that early season debacle. Truth is, though, ever since they let McNair air it out midway last year, the Titans have been unbeatable. Carolina was fat & happy after proving themselves the week before, and I don’t think this is an indictment of the Panthers. In fact, I’m more impressed with them than ever because they managed to run up 350 yards, which makes me feel they can hit a couple pass plays during games when they need them in the future. They needed to show that and they did.
*
Baltimore at Cincinnati
Ravens are concerned here. No really!! But aren’t they a great surprise this season? Both teams, I mean.
*
COREY DILLON IS such a moron, signing a contract again and then complaining about the team yet again. I guess he was used to Cincinnati the OLD way and Marvin Lewis is making him work or something. This was an impressive win by the Bengals against a Ravens team that has shown up every week.
************************************************
My subject for today has to do with winning and losing streaks, and how they affect the spread. Take the Bucs: -7 against the Cowboys is definitely high. Why? Simply, they haven’t won a home game yet and there is a camp of thought that they are “due”. Now, any coin-flipping statistician knows the fallacy of this thinking. However, football isn’t flipping a coin. These are real human beings and it is logical to expect that a team that has lost will focus and prepare better, whereas a team fat&happy from a win might let their preparation and determination slide a bit. So I’m arguing – there IS a reasonable logic to this way of thinking. Every week, you’ll see the lines tip a bit to teams hot off a momentum changing win, or towards a team that has improbably lost a couple games and has people thinking “they can’t lose again!” The thing you have to love about Parcells is he thinks like a gambler. He knows where letdowns are likely to occur. He looks up past histories – as he did against the Cardinals and Eagles– and realizes when and where there might be trouble ahead. And he knows that winning ugly is a great time to heap constructive criticism on his team, as he has had ample opportunity to do.
Conversely, if you look at a team like the Chiefs, I think the winning streak starts working in the favor of the gambler. After all, they have to lose sometime and the Chiefs certainly are at the point where the expectation is that the law of averages is about to catch up with them. However, the Chiefs are as motivated with each win as most teams are with a loss. After all, how often do you get to try to extend your undefeated streak in the NFL? With a bye week coming up soon, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and the Chiefs don’t want that light to be a train. Still, streaks are generally made up of many close wins. Teams that burn too hot – perhaps like the Titans – generally burn out quicker than teams that just find a way to win every week. That makes the Chiefs a darn good bet to win but a risky cover.
I can pit two games head-to-head this week: Colts giving 13 to the Texans is identical to the 49ers going on the road at –7. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see either of these teams cleaning up, but likely one of them will cover and one of them won’t. Which to choose? It can be difficult to blow out a team that is looking for a moral victory like the Texans. I like the 49ers better and my reason is: Garcia. You may recall that Garcia began his career in Arizona on MNF. I know because seconds before Aeneas Williams ended Steve Young’s career, I called out to an unknown guy named Garcia and yelled from about 5 feet away, “Get ready Garcia, you’re up next!” Anyway, without a pass rush against him, Garcia is likely to carve up Arizona like a Thanksgiving turkey. Marcel Shipp behind that big Arizona line is a small concern, but no more than – say – Pittman for Tampa Bay.
Last week, I pointed out how the bye was very advantageous in week 6 in many late game road comebacks. Would it follow in week 7? On the positive, you see all the teams that are on the bye lost again. That’s 0-4. However, the 2nd half scores hardly favored the better rested teams and they went 3-2 as a group, led by Minnesota, San Diego, and the Rams. But the two losses – by Carolina and Tampa Bay – were positively brutal. (The missing game is Washington vs. Buffalo, where Buffalo is also a non-byed team that takes off next week).
The Rams are back and its more than a personnel change, its a change in philosophy. No longer having the scary threat of Marshall Faulk to slow down defensive pass rushes, the Rams have wisely opted to go max protection and let their talented wide receivers have a couple seconds to break open. The scheme has worked beautifully and you can’t like the Steelers porous defenses chances of holding these guys back. However, I can’t say that Bulger knows the 3-4 defense terribly well and he could be challenged by the variety of blitz packages the Steelers will bring. Expect adjustments at halftime! The line, Steelers –1, puts all the pressure on the Steelers to get their act straight and field a competitive team.
In Cleveland, if you have two QBs...you have NO QBs. The Chiefs/Bills features the league’s best special teams against one of the league’s worst special teams. The Jets are rushing Pennington back to avoid paying Vinnie some incentives, and that usually doesn’t bode well. Although there is a lot of meaningless bru-haha about SD/Miami, my biggest concern is that Tomlinson seems genuinely upset he didn’t get a goalline carry last week to pad his numbers. That kind of criticism is worrisome following the team’s first win of the season. Marty seems to have gone too soft.
Everyone is scheduling New Orleans for Homecoming this year!
DO NOT LET THE BLACK CAT CROSS Y-O-U-R PATH!