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.