Last week I witnessed huge success in my NFL picks. An undefeated morning and only one loss in the afternoon put me in front of the race in our morale office pool. If Leodis McKelvin hadn’t returned a 4th quarter kickoff in the Bills game with his hands around his throat, I would have locked up the pool going into the tie-breaker Charger game. I was one of two people (we have 14 total) who picked the Bills.
Although they are my favorite team, I did not pick with my heart this time. I knew from their first game last year that the Bills match up well. Given better play calling this year, they had a shot. Well, the Bills just fired their O-Coordinator the week before the game, so they were a lock to win. Alright, I threw a little heart into the decision, but not as much as one may think.
Where I did pick with my heart was when I decided on the final score of the Charger – Raider game. I was, after the Bills-Debacle, in a five way tie at 13-2. All five players had chosen the Chargers to win. I assumed 7 successful Charger drives and 3 successful Raider drives with more touchdowns scored than field goals. I put my tie-breaking total score at 54. I knew that the Chargers had come out flat every single year under Norv Turner. But I just didn’t want to believe that they would do it yet again. If I had just predicted two fewer successful Charger drives and went with around five points per drive I would have been a lot closer to the final score. Oh well – lesson learned.
I want to touch on a couple other picks from last week. I counted on Denver winning against the Bengals. I got a little lucky at the end there, but overall I felt that the Broncos executed well above the level that Cincy did. They just lacked that execution once they got near mid-field. Actually, both teams looked the same in that regard. Either way, I usually don’t pick Cincy in a close one because they seem to lack the character to go out and get a win. It was nice to see the Broncos try to give them one at the end with that soft defense.
My only afternoon loss came from the 49ers beating Arizona. Kurt Warner looked like he switched it off again. That leads me to wonder if he’s going to play this way the entire season. When he is off, I look for a lot of sacks and turnovers. And a whole lot of three-and-outs. Let’s not forget where the Cards were two or three years ago. They’re not that far removed from mediocrity, so I will need to keep a close eye on them for future picks.
Other than those two games, there weren’t very many surprises in my picks. Week one is a tough one to get right, but the seemingly uneven match-ups made for easy picking in my mind. It just so happened that the teams that were better tended to play that way. Week two looks a lot more ominous. More on that later.
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I would agree with most of what you said. I think Denver showed how bad they are going to be this year with their qb situation. Chargers, so typical, always playing up or down to their competition. Raiders are going to lose alot of games, let's hope the Chargers don't also. They need a pass rush bad!
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