The best seat in the house is the view from the couch

2007 NFL Picks - Week 2

Sorry for the delay. Normally, I post on Tuesday with a recap of the previous week’s games. This week just didn’t setup for that (next week won’t either, as I’ll be traveling for work). But from Week 3 – 17, I should be able to follow my normal NFL Posting schedule. Or at least I’ll try. But no promises…

So let's jump right into the good (Indy), bad (Baltimore) and ugly (Cleveland) from Week 1 of the 2007 NFL season before handing out Week 2’s picks

Good:

n Kind of goes without saying, but the Colts were pretty fantastic Thursday night. Especially after the half. Everyone picked New England to completely decimate the AFC, and while they certainly started out well (CameraGate notwithstanding), the Colts looked just as good, and did it against better competition. I might not be ready to hand the Pats the Lombardi Trophy just yet...

n I’m still trying to figure out whether Pittsburgh is as good as they looked Sunday, or if it was just a product of playing the team that will be holding the #1 overall draft pick next year. I think it’s probably 80/20 in favor of them being that good.

n Denver’s special teams gets some serious credit for pulling off the game winning field goal, on the road, while the clock was winding down to triple-zeroes. I understand the need to gain the extra eight yards or so that Javon Walker got on the final offensive play, but I have to think that Jason Elam could have made that field goal from eight yards deeper. Either way, it worked out in the end. Just living dangerously is all…

n Tennessee’s running game is either ridiculously good, or Jacksonville’s defense is a block of Swiss cheese.

Bad:

n Minnesota/Atlanta, Baltimore/Cincinnati, Arizona/San Francisco, and Chicago/San Diego. Four games that set back offensive advances in the NFL by about 20 years. Just ugly all around. Aren’t the Chargers and Bengals supposed to be offensive powerhouses?

n For that matter, I thought Dallas’ only strength this season was going to be their defense, since I’m convinced this is the year TO snaps. But giving up 35 points to a team that lost their starting running back early and had an ineffective quarterback late... That offense better be that good every game.

n New Orleans’ offense… New Orleans’ defense… New Orleans in general. Is it too early to start bringing back the “Aint’s”?

Ugly:

n Cleveland’s first quarter against Pittsburgh. In less than 6 minutes, they fumbled a snap on a punt (and committed FOUR penalties on the play), threw an INT, committed an offsides on a 3rd & 5 (which negated a 3-yard sack), and nearly gave up 15 yards on an Unsportsmanlike after stopping the Steelers on a long 3rd down. After that, I simply turned the game off – it was basically over anyway.

n The stupidity of the New England Patriots’ administration and coaching staff. As a fan, this absolutely sucks. I have to deal with people playing the “they’re only good because they cheat” card for the rest of the year (and maybe longer). And with a game this week that I didn’t expect New England to win anyway, the heckling will be even louder.

n My own stupidity. I had the good fortune to bang two parlays and two teasers this week, including a ridiculous 8-team 6-point teaser with Pittsburgh (+1), New England (-0.5), Tennessee (+13), San Diego (-0.5), Seattle (Pk), Dallas (Pk), Baltimore (+9) and San Francisco (+3) to start the season off nicely… and then decided it would be a good idea to try and win another World Series of Poker seat through a handful of Super-Satellites. Hello stupidity, goodbye winnings!

Onto this week’s picks. As always, Home team in CAPS, and the lines are accurate as of noon today from Bodog.com. Started off the season 7-7-2 last week, though when you factor those nice teasers into the equation it was more like 12-2-2…

49ers (+3) over RAMS: The injury to Orlando Pace is probably going to do more damage to the Rams’ chances this season than anything else. Stephen Jackson won’t have nearly the running lanes he’s become accustomed to, and Marc Bulger will need a little help protecting his blindside. The 49ers have a tendency to play to the level of their opponent, so this may be ugly.

Packers (+1) over GIANTS: Back to back road dogs… hmm. This line has actually been pulled from most books because of the uncertainty around Eli Manning’s shoulder, but regardless of his participation the Giants are too banged up to win this one. And if their hopes rest of Jared Lorenzen’s rather large left arm… well, this might just be my Suicide Eliminator pick for the week.

Bills (+10) over STEELERS: The Steelers should win this outright, but just not as easily as they handled the JV Browns last week. Ten points seems like an awful lot to give up, and when it’s teased to +16…

Saints (-4) over BUCS: Four picks and not one home team – might be a long week… I’m of the opinion that the Saints are not as good as they played last season, but they’re still the best team in the NFC South. And the Bucs, well, they’re not.

PANTHERS (-7) over Texans: This pick scares the hell out of me. Carolina looked good last week, but they are too inconsistent to depend on for a big cover every week. Houston looked fantastic, but they played against a pretty terrible Kansas City team. Once again, a pick that I’ll feel much better about when I tease it 6 points, one way or the other.

Falcons (+10.5) over JAGUARS: The Falcons’ running game is much, MUCH better than the Titans’. Jacksonville gave up 282 yards on the ground last week to Tennessee – anybody want to bet that Atlanta has a pretty nice day chewing up yardage? Or at least nice enough to speed the game up and keep the scores down?

Bengals (-7) over BROWNS: No matter how hard Browns fans try, Brady Quinn is not entering a game before Week 6 (and probably not until after the bye week). That said, Cincy played a horrible game against a very good Ravens’ defense, and still managed a W. I’m expecting a 350yard, 3TD game for Carson Palmer, and a nice day on the ground for Rudi Johnson once the Bengals build a lead.

Colts (-7.5) over TITANS: Vince Young cannot have under 100 yards passing against this Colts team and still expect to pick up a win. The rest of the Titans just are not good enough to pull that off. Not to mention, Indy has had an extra three days of practice and rest to get ready for this one.

Seahawks (-3) over CARDINALS: Seattle is the class of the NFC West, Arizona is the team everyone loves to complain about. Considering my past history gambling on games involving the Cardinals, lines like this terrify me. Once again, a pretty safe teaser at Seattle (+3).

LIONS (-3.5) over Vikings: I have zero confidence in either pick in this game. The Lions offense looked outstanding against a terrible Oakland team. The Vikings defense looked outstanding against a terrible Falcons team. Which one do you trust more? Translation: I’m not betting on this game; you do so at your own risk…

DOLPHINS (+4) over Cowboys: The Dolphins played the Redskins pretty well last week, and with the Cowboys defense depleted (especially up the middle with the loss of Jason Ferguson), the Dolphins should be able to keep this one close. They just need to keep Tony Romo under pressure all game long, which is harder than it sounds.

Jets (+10) over RAVENS: A lot of books have pulled this line while they wait to hear about Chad Pennington’s injury, but some still list it at 10 points. (UPDATE: Newsday reports that Kellen Clemens is starting over Pennington this week. All the more reason to bet on New York) Apparently, the odds makers weren’t watching the Ravens/Bengals game last week. There’s a decent chance the Raven’s couldn’t score 10 points in the entire game this week, let alone win a game by that margin.

Chiefs (+13) over BEARS: Bad Rex, Good Rex. Bad Rex, Good Rex. Flip a coin here guys – the Chiefs are terrible, but if Bad Rex steps on the field, the Bears aren’t covering two touchdowns.

BRONCOS (-10) over Raiders: Talk about parity in a division… the Chargers and Broncos look like legitimate 10+ win threats, while KC & Oakland both look to be fighting Cleveland for the #1 overall pick next spring.

PATRIOTS (-4) over Chargers: There’s a 50/50 shot that the Chargers have safety help for Randy Moss during pre-game stretching… Obviously, with this being the Sunday Night, Nationally-televised game, there will be little talk outside of the video camera scandal. The upshot is that it’s a home game, and I don’t see how the Gillette fans will let the pats lose this game. The downside is that if they do lose (and there’s a decent shot that the Chargers - with their talent and the “revenge” factor from last season’s playoffs - could pull off a big road win) all the coverage will be “they can’t win without a cameraman!”. Like I said above – this SUCKS.

Redskins (+7) over EAGLES: Clearly, Donovan McNabb isn’t healed from the ACL injury that cost him the second half of 2006. More importantly, Washington looked pretty good last week (albeit against a weak Miami team), while Philadelphia looked very pedestrian in what should have been a “gimme” game against Green Bay. I’m slowly reversing course in my Eagles-love from my NFL Preview – now they need to earn it back.

RECAP: 49ers / Packers / Bills / Saints / PANTHERS / Falcons / Bengals / Colts / Seahawks / LIONS / DOLPHINS / Jets / Chiefs / BRONCOS / PATRIOTS / Redskins

Lots of scary numbers out there this week, but if you look hard enough, there’s lots of money to be made, too.

Lata.

Labels: 2007, Gambling, It's all about the Benjamins, NFL, NFL Picks, Picks

posted by Big D @ 12:54 PM