Week 3 NFL Picks

Tweet Sorry for the lack of an NFL 'big picture' post this week, but I left town to visit my sister on Thursday and had just enough time to post a pick for the Thursday night game. Luckily for me (and my pick) Eli, Tom Coughlin and the Giants came through in a game that no one expected them to win... wait! Did I say luckily? I meant totally expectedly. Bill Belichick and Brady passed that torch to Tom Coughlin and Eli a long time ago and I don't think they will be giving it up any time soon. I have to give credit where credit is due: the Giants are the current model franchise of the NFL. That Thursday night game could have easily been a write-off, yet the smart draft-choices they made (Bill Barnwell of Grantland mentioned an interesting point: since the Eli Manning trade, the Giants have always had their top four picks in each subsequent draft) came into the game and fired on all cylinders. Anyways, lets move on to the rest of the games.

Buffalo (-3) At Cleveland

Ugh. What a terrible game. The Bills got curb-stomped in their opening game, then proceeded to embarrass the Kansas City Chiefs at home. Is Buffalo just going to be good at home? This game will tell us a lot. As for the Browns and their poor fans, this could be one of the only games that they can actually win this year...yay?

The pick: Buffalo

Cincinnati (+3) At Washington

Okay, rising star RG3 took about 50 cheap-shots last week against the rams, and the incompetent replacement officials (their new name) ignored every single one of them. The commissioner will make sure to 'remind' the refs of who the league's stars are and RG3 will draw flags if a defender so much as looks at him this week. Wait a second, this is not the NBA and this is not David Stern pulling the strings. If this were the NBA, I would pick the Redskins in a heart-beat, but its not, so I am going with the Bengals.

The pick: Bengals

Detroit (-4) At Tennessee

I think that this Titans team really sucks and the artist formerly known as Chris Johnson is among the primary reasons why. I think a corpse would gain more yards than he has this season. Take the Lions and the money.

The pick: Detroit

Jacksonville (+3) At Indianapolis

Andrew Luck really showed something at the end of last weeks game against the Vikings. He set up Vinateri (he's still got it) for a game-winning kick in less than 18 seconds! Once the Colts win this game, look for a slew of: "Here come the Colts" stories. Will they really be 2-1?

The pick: Colts

Kansas City (+9) At New Orleans

Both teams are 0-2, both teams desperately need a win to avoid a nightmare-ish 0-3 start, (I can't think of many teams that overcame such starts to make the playoffs, but I am pretty sure the numbers are not good), and both teams might not even be that good. Also working against the saints is D-block reminding me that football teams with major off-the field issues never do well. Kansas might lose, but they can cover the spread.

The pick: Kansas City

New York Jets (-1) At Miami

I think that this is a pretty good Jets team that simply got overwhelmed by a much better Pittsburgh squad last week. This is their chance to prove that point (and make me look really smart).

The pick: Jets

San Francisco At Minnesota

Once again, as I am a fan of the 49ers, I will not be picking their game.

St. Louis (+7) At Chicago

Not since LaDanian Tomlinson was in his heyday with the Chargers has a player (in this case two players) eaten so much crow when talking pre-game. Cutler and Marshal submitted comically bad performances against the Packers of Green Bay in their last outing. Luckily for them, the schedule gives them the Rams this week.

The pick: Chicago

Tampa Bay (+8) At Dallas

Tampa really blew it last week. They had a chance to go 2-0 and send the Giants into a potential tailspin, but instead they are 1-1 and now face the second of their NFC East test. This line is just a little bit too high for my liking.

The pick: Tampa Bay

Atlanta (+3) At San Diego

I know, I am just as baffled as you are that the Chargers are favoured in this game.

The pick: Atlanta

Philadelphia (-3) At Arizona

Okay Arizona, you managed to upset the Patriots in one of the most poorly played last minutes of a game I have ever seen. The Patriots and Cardinals were trying to out-do each other to see who could blow the game in a worse way with the Patriots coming out on top (but not by much). Now you are coming up against a team that I have no idea what to expect from. The Eagles could win by 50 or lose by 50 and I don't think that I would bat an eyelash. Tragically, Vegas took the odds of "Andy Reid screwing up a clock-management situation" props off of the board after they almost went bankrupt last week.

The pick: Eagles

Houston (-1.5) At Denver

Here you go Houston, you know that attention will be paid to this game, this is your chance to send the rest of the AFC (and the league) a message that you are for real.

The pick: Houston

Sunday Night Football/Game of the Week: New England (+2) At Baltimore

The Ravens make their second straight appearance in my gimmicky "game of the week" feature, and what a game this could be! Both teams are coming off losses in games that they feel should have been wins. Both teams do not like each other, and both teams will bring it. It is hard to fathom that one of these two teams will be 1-2 after this game (unless they tie... don't bet on it). Also last week I received a rather annoying post on my Facebook wall about Ray Lewis' performance in week one, so I will return the favour here by posting his stellar week 2 stat-line: 5 whole tackles. That is all. As for the betting aspect of this game, this is one of those that you stay-the-hell away from at all costs and just enjoy what should be a spectacular duel between two AFC contenders.

The pick (since I have to): Ravens

Green Bay (-3.5) At Seattle

I do not fear Qwest Field.

The pick: Packers (and the over)

The results so far
Thursday night games: 2-0
All other games: 7-7
Overall: 9-7

Enjoy your football everyone!

Thursday Night NFL Pick

Tweet I am keeping this very brief for reasons that I will explain in the next picks post (coming either Saturday or early Sunday). Tonight's game puts the New York Giants, comeback kings, versus the Carolina Panthers who are led by the dynamic Cam Newton. Eli and Cam could not be more different in terms of athletic ability, one guy looks like an athlete and the other looks like a middle school math teacher (think 'presbo' from the Wire). Anyways, all signs point to a Carolina win tonight: at home, less injured,  much better than people gave them credit for over the first two weeks and so on. For this reason I am picking the Giants (-3). Eli and co. have pulled this trick on us before, I am not falling for it again.

Last Thursday's prediction: victory.

Enjoy your football everyone!

Best Cartoons Growing Up V

Tweet It has been waaaaaaaaaay too long since I did one of these.

For this feature I really dug deep to find a show that I am sure everyone watched religiously as a kid. The show I chose was incredibly fun to watch and (not surprisingly) still holds up today. Not only were the characters interesting and dynamic, the writing was excellent. These are things that modern-day cartoons are severely lacking in, which just further supports the notion that growing up in the 90's was better than growing up in any other decade.

So what cartoon did I chose? Just look below.

That's right, Hey Arnold!

To this day I have yet to find anyone that did not like this show (more likely they have not seen it, and in that case I feel bad for their deprived childhood). I can't do this show any justice by talking about it, so if you have some time to kill definitely check out the link I posted (and then watch several more when you remember how good this show is). I promise 'Best Cartoons VI will come soon. Cheers! 

Week 2 NFL Picks

Tweet I initially planned to do these sometime on Saturday, but that plan fell through and I am making the picks for week 2 of the NFL season on Sunday morning. On Thursday, my last-second pick of the Packers over the Bears turned out to be golden. Hopefully that carries over.

Arizona (+14) At New England

The Patriots open their season at home against a team with a weak secondary, a mediocre QB, and not much talent. Expect Tom Brady to put up huge numbers in this one in a blow out.

The pick: Patriots

Game of the week: Baltimore (+3) At Philadelphia

It might be a really bad sign for the Eagles that every person in North America is taking the Ravens in this game (with confidence). To be honest, I have no idea how they came up with this line. The Ravens routed a descent team, while the Eagles barely beat the Browns... the Browns! Perhaps Vegas thinks that the Eagles will actually run the ball more today and be effective doing it, or they are afraid of Vick having one of those games where he just beats a team by himself. Regardless, this week the Ravens send a message to the rest of the NFL.

The pick: Ravens

Cleveland (+7) At Cincinnati

The two teams that lost to the Eagles and Ravens last week! We get a chance to see if Cleveland is actually better than we think, and the Bengals worse. Don't count on it though.

The pick: Cincy

Houston (-6.5) At Jacksonville

AFC contender vs. AFC doormat. Houston has been making noise the past few seasons, and if they want people to take them seriously as contenders they need to brush teams like the Jaguars away convincingly. I think they are contenders and I think they show it by beating up on a much weaker team.

The pick: Houston

Kansas City (+3) At Buffalo

Neither team wants to start 0-2 (well, I don't think anyone actually wants to start off without a win in their first two games) but both teams will look at this as an opportunity to get a W.

The pick: Kansas City

Minnesota (-2.5) At Indianapolis

Andrew Luck should fare much better against a defense that isn't the Bears, but Adrian Peterson should run this Colts team ragged.

The pick: Vikings

Upset Special: New Orleans (-3) At Carolina

This game reminds us of how important coaching is in the NFL and we are treated to a variety of "Whats wrong with the Saints" stories all of next week. Cam Newton wins a fantasy football match-up by himself

The pick: Panthers

Oakland (-1.5) At Miami

A West-coast team travelling East to play a 1pm game in the blistering Miami conditions after having a shorter week to prepare? And Carson Palmer is involved? Take the Dolphins and the money.

The pick: Dolphins

Tampa Bay (+7.5) At New York Giants

Before the season started, I jumped on 16-1 odds on Tampa to win the division. Those odds are now down to 8-1 and I am picking Tampa to win outright today! Of course this means that Eli will tear them apart and make me regret ever typing this.

The pick: Tampa

Dallas (-3.5) At Seattle

Am I the only one who thought the Cowboys defense was really impressive in their season opening win over the Giants? This team might be a sleeper and we just don't see it yet. The Seattle home-field advantage is offset by virtue of the Cowboys getting an extra 3 days to prepare, having played their week 1 game on a Wednesday night.

The pick: Dallas

Washington (-3.5) At St. Louis

The RG3 Band-wagon really takes off after this game once everyone realizes that the Redskins are somehow 2-0.

The pick: Redskins

New York Jets (+4.5) At Pittsburgh Steelers

The team Tebow beat in the playoffs! But that will be about the only good thing going for the Jets this game. Expect a tough, defensive battle, with Pittsburgh shaking off the stink Peyton Manning put on them last week.

The pick: Steelers

Tennessee (+6.5) At San Diego

When you are not sure, take the points.

The pick: Titans

Detroit At San Francisco

Being a 49ers fan, I will abstain from picking their games as I will clearly be biased.

Monday Night Football: Denver (+3) At Atlanta

Peyton Manning gets to play in a dome. Conditions that he has dominated over the course of his career. The Broncos come up against a Falcons team that absolutely trashed the Chiefs in week 1 (on the road no less) and will be looking to establish a lead in their division. Personally, I am torn. I don't think that this Falcons team is legit, but I also have not seen Manning take a big hit yet. But then again, its a Monday night game on prime-time television, and we know Manning will deliver.

The pick: Broncos

Thursday night: 1-0

Overall Record: 1-0*

*Picks feature started in Week 2

Enjoy your football everyone!

The NFL Big Picture: 5 Burning Questions for Week 2

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He is back, and he looked good. Look out AFC West!

After a wild opening day filled with great finishes, great stories, ripping into replacement officials, and overall FOOTBALL related activity, here are some burning questions for week 2 of the NFL season. We will start with the most competitive division in football.

# 5 With the Redskins' surprising victory over the Saints, the Cowboys looking impressive, and the Eagles (great expectations) and Giants (less than Philadelphia, but still recognized as the defending champions) to round off the division; is the NFC East the most interesting division in football? Which team will ultimately emerge and win the division and the automatic playoff berth that comes with it?

To put it simply, this is a division where any team can beat the other, and every division game matters. Just to put into context how wacky this division actually can be, last year the Eagles had the best division record at 5-1 yet did not finish first (if you watched their game against the Browns, you might see why that occured), perhaps even more odd is that the Redskins managed to beat the eventual Superbowl champion New York Giants twice! If RG3 can replicate his effort against the Saints and play the whole season like he did in week one, it is very possible that all four teams could be competing for a division title in the last two weeks of the season. This division will definitely be one of the main points of discussion all season not just on this blog, but on major sports networks as well. There is no way to make an accurate prediction until more games are watched, but at gunpoint I would pick the Cowboys right now.

# 4 Did you know that there is a Thursday night game in every week of the season? Is this a good idea? Bad idea?

I was really happy when I heard that the NFL network would air Thursday night games throughout the season. This is a nice bridge between the six-day wait between the Monday night game and the early Sunday games, and gives us a nice football fix in the middle of the week. Whether its a good idea or not remains to be seen. For fans I think its great, but what about the teams? The Packers (more on them in a bit) and Bears only had 96 hours to prepare for a crucial game. How will their performance be affected? What if one team has more time to prepare for the other, even if it isn't their BYE week? Does it benefit teams for their next game? (The Giants and Cowboys have had a lot of extra time to prepare for their games against the Bucs and Sea-hawks respectively). Only time will tell, but I would be very interested to see statistics of the records on Thursday night and then of the following game(s).

# 3 Can the Green Bay Packers avoid going into an early 0-2 hole against their division rival: the Chicago Bears? Will the Bears take advantage of this opportunity and nick an important division win and start off strong at 2-0?

Speaking of Thursday night games, this is our first one, and what a match-up it is! This game will be Green Bay's second home game already so it puts that much more importance on it, as starting 0-2 with 8 road games to go has 'disappointing' season written all over it. Having said that, I fully expect Aaron Rodgers and his Packers team to recover and beat Chicago in convincing fashion. They are simply too good to go 0-2 (Then again, we thought the same thing about the Eagles last year, the NFL is a weird league and weirder things have happened). This seems like a good place to mention that I will be making picks throughout the year against the spread, and will post the meaningless results in every week's 'big picture' post. For this game I pick the Packers (-5.5) over the Bears.

NFL: The Big Picture: Season Preview Edition

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I don't think its a coincidence that one of the worst days of the year (the end of summer) is followed by one of the best (the kickoff to the NFL season). Needless to say, we at Millennium are extremely excited about having the NFL back in our lives and will be sharing our opinions on it with you. For our season preview I decided to send five 'big picture' questions (from the whole league) to Luka and Cabrock and have them offer their takes on them. In addition to the 'big' five, I also posed three questions about our regular season opener between bitter rivals the Dallas Cowboys and the defending Superbowl champions; the New York Giants. We begin our discussion with one of the biggest stories of last year: Tebowmania.

What are your thoughts on Tim Tebow and his new team, the New York Jets? Will Tebow thrive in the specialty role that Rex Ryan plans to use him in (short, goal-line situations)? Will the media circus make this team implode? Is the Sanchize even a good quarterback?

Luka:

First let me just say one thing, FOOTBALL!!!. These last few weeks after The Olympics have been rough but with the season set to kickoff tonight I can hardly wait. However being an Eagles fan I would have probably been more excited with any other two teams (except the Browns and Dolphins) kicking the season off. I can't stand the Giants or the Cowboys so I'm interested to see who I end up rooting for tonight.

I'm a Tebow guy. Ever since I lost money betting against him in his first miracle win of the season last year I've grown to like him and his goofy style of play that leads to Disney-style endings week after week. That being said I don't think there's a worse pairing than Tebow and the Jets. The Jets anemic offense mixed with the New York media combined with the lack of faith Jets fans have in Mark Sanchez can only lead to one of the more distracting, side-show filled professional sports teams of recent memory. Because of this I either see the Jets being bad (more likely even though their defense is still solid) or riding a sports-movie inspired script to the playoffs. Think about it, the tough takes no shit coach, the defense that doubles as the heart of the team, a talented but lacking in confidence starting QB, and a heavily religious back-up QB that carries the team to the promised land on and off the field. I can already hear someone, somewhere writing up the script. In all seriousness though, I hope Jets fans are happy with 6-10 this year.

Daki:

Have to say that I am very disappointed that I forgot the obligatory FOOTBALL!!! in all caps and with exclamation points, not a good start for me. I too am a Tebow guy and I honestly think that he will take over the starting role from Sanchez around week 6. The Jets are too good defensively and play in a division that is too weak (other than the ever present Patriots), for them to be that bad. I can see them being a very respectable 8-8 this year, with lots of trash-talk from Rex Ryan and a lot of team prayer sessions following the game. Gotta say I love the movie pitch, but you forgot to include the rival team (the Giants?) embarrassing our protagonists (leading the tough-takes-no-shit-coach to finally start the religious QB) and then losing to them at the end with guys saying things like: "You guys are alright!"Actually, can this happen in real life?

Cabrock:

Guess who’s back? It feels good to finally be writing about football again :’)
For some reason, today has been one of the more busy days of the summer so I wont be writing an overly long article, but hopefully there’s some insightful tidbits in here. Anyways, lets get to the questions:

We all know I hate Tim Tebow; that’s not even a discussion. However, this is probably the one role I can see him thriving in. In college, Tebow was Superman and shit on most of the NCAA. However, in my opinion, the best Florida team during the Tebow years was the season that Chris Leak was the starter and Tebow contributed as the “change of pace” QB. People give Rex Ryan too much credit. He got his job by excelling as the D-coordinator of the ferocious Ravens defence. When you really think about it, my little sister could have walked in on Sunday and said “everyone stand in front of the guy in front of you” and the Ravens wouldn’t have allowed more than 20 points per game. Rex talks way too much shit and consistently fails to back it up. I wouldn’t say the Sanchize is a franchise QB, but I feel like he could be a solid starter that could run a simple offense if given the opportunity. Basically, I don’t have much hope for the Jets. I think they go 7-9 this season and a lot of people lose their jobs in the offseason.

Sticking to the AFC, a lot of people feel that the Houston Texans would have made the Superbowl last season had it not been for injuries. This notion is heavily supported by the fact that the Texans came close to beating the Ravens with a third-string QB. So guys, are the Texans for real? Or was their success last year smoke and mirrors?

Breaking Bad Mid-season Finale Review

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Spoilers below as always!

Finally the stage is set for the conclusion of Breaking Bad. Its just a shame that we will have to wait more than half a year to see it. I already complained about AMC splitting this season into two parts (way back in the first review of this season), but now having seen where they left us, and where things stand, can you blame me for bitching about it again? Thank God that the NFL kicks off this Thursday, otherwise this would have been a really depressing stretch of television. But anyways, on to my thoughts about the episode.

'Gliding All Over' really felt like a simple episode to me. Not that this is a necessarily bad thing, but I can't help but feel a bit disappointed by it. The gem of this episode; the prison killings were really well done. We got to see each and every one of Mike's "nine guys" plus the lawyer become the latest victims of W.W.'s reign of terror. From the music, to Walter's indifference at the very end of the scene, it was easily the best 3 minutes of the episode. The rest of the episode? Underwhelming to say the least. In the past, Breaking Bad would have methodically showed us the expansion of Walt's new-found empire into European territory, here we got to see it all in roughly five minutes, with a little montage to guide us through it. I don't know about you, but I expected more from an episode that will be the last one we see for a while.