Working this Thanksgiving weekend, 8 shifts in 9 days so I’m rushing through this week’s picks. I’ll have more time next week.

Miami at Cincinnati
BENGALS

Cleveland at NY Giants
GIANTS

Green Bay at Indianapolis
PACKERS

Green Bay a game behind Chicago and Minnesota in the division so they have to keep up.

Philadelphia at Pittsburgh
STEELERS

Pittsburgh coming off the bye week so well rested and prepared for Philly.

Atlanta at Washington
REDSKINS

Just to be silly I’ll pick my team to end Atlanta’s undefeated streak. Could happen.

Baltimore at Kansas City
RAVENS

Ravens do tend to trip against bad teams like KC.

Chicago at Jacksonville
BEARS

Seattle at Carolina
SEAHAWKS

Buffalo at San Francisco
49ERS

Denver at New England
PATRIOTS

Brady vs Manning again. NFL doesn’t schedule these 2 on purpose. Last year these 2 teams won their divisions so they meet this season. Why we got Patriots/Colts so many years in a row.

Tennessee at Minnesota
VIKINGS

San Diego at New Orleans
SAINTS

New Orleans should end their 2012 losing streak at home on Sunday night. If not their season is over, if it wasn’t already.

Houston at NY Jets
TEXANS

Monday nighter which could be a NY blowout again.

Week 2 finished below .500, not surprising given such a weird week. Like Pats/Cards where I just wrote “easy pick”. Oops. Picked NYG over Carolina, forgot to tweet that however I did pick New York. They are great on the road and Cam Newton is overrated.

NY Giants 36 Carolina 7

Forgot to write earlier that this is the first Queen’s Football season I haven’t been working on since 2005. Worked on the radio broadcasts since 2006. Last year only did 3 or 4 games and had to tap out this season with working midnights. Queen’s had been playing very well this season, had their first loss of the season Saturday against McMaster. The defending Vanier Cup champions so no shame in that. Good luck to the new CFRC sports crew this season.

Onto Sunday’s games, this one will be quick. Saturday morning when I usually write this I had a power outage. So rushing on a Sunday.

Jacksonville 0-2 at Indianapolis 1-1
COLTS

Fact the Jaguars are 0-2 is not a shock. Strange that the Chiefs and Saints are though.

Buffalo 1-1 at Cleveland 0-2
BILLS

Browns should’ve beaten Philly so not as bad as 0-2 indicate. They will have a short week after this with a Thursday night game against Baltimore.

NY Jets 1-1 at Miami 1-1
JETS

Flip a coin.

Kansas City 0-2 at New Orleans 0-2
CHIEFS

I’m picking New Orleans to be 0-3? Yes.

Cincinnati 1-1 at Washington 1-1
BENGALS

Redskins’ defense wasn’t as good as previous years. And now they lose 2 players to injury for the rest of the season in Orakpo and Carriker. Again, glad I said in Week 1 I was looking forward to 2013.

Detroit 1-1 at Tennessee 0-2
LIONS

Detroit has to win games like this if they want to be in the playoffs again.

San Francisco 2-0 at Minnesota 1-1
49ERS

San Fran looks like the best team in the league right now.

St. Louis 1-1 at Chicago 1-1
BEARS

Another coin flip game.

Tampa Bay 1-1 at Dallas 1-1
COWBOYS

Dallas looked great in the opening night game and then horrible versus Seattle. Now they are at home so I’ll pick them.

Atlanta 2-0 at San Diego 2-0
CHARGERS

I should pick Atlanta, but the “Monday night game then flying to the West Coast” thing is in the back of my head.

Philadelphia 2-0 at Arizona 2-0
EAGLES

Philly would be one of the weaker 3-0 teams in recent memory.

Pittsburgh 1-1 at Oakland 0-2
STEELERS

Raiders almost made the playoffs last season. Not sure where that team went.

Houston 2-0 at Denver 1-1
HOUSTON

Texans are 2-0 but haven’t really beaten anyone of substance. Knocking off Denver would be a good sign of how well they are playing.

Sunday night
New England 1-1 at Baltimore 1-1
PATRIOTS

I’ll go with New England after a bad loss to Arizona.

Monday
Green Bay 1-1 at Seattle 1-1
PACKERS

Should be a tough game. Seattle’s defense shutdown Dallas at home. Packers have a few more weapons and a better QB though.

9-7 in Week 1, which I forgot to mention is always the hardest week to pick in the entire season.  Was on a roll with only 3 wrong until the late Sunday games tripped me up.  Split the Monday night doubleheader to finish above .500 on that night.

Earlier on Twitter I picked Green Bay over Chicago. A much easier win than I thought. Onto today’s games.

Oakland 0-1 at Miami 0-1
RAIDERS

Saw parts of San Diego/Oakland while at work. You didn’t miss much if you couldn’t stay up.  Most notable for Oakland losing pretty much because of a backup long snapper’s horrible performance. Caused a couple of fumbles and bad punts.  Miami was worse last Sunday so have to go with the Raiders.

Houston 1-0 at Jacksonville 0-1
TEXANS

Houston versus a team that is giving up some home games for London, England in the future.  Needless to say not much a home field advantage in Jacksonville.

Cleveland 0-1 at Cincinnati 0-1
BENGALS

The Browns rookie quarterback, Brandon Weeden, got run over by a big American flag and then had a horrible game. Think I should go with the Bengals.

Kansas City 0-1 at Buffalo 0-1
CHIEFS

My pick of the Bills last week didn’t work out.  Laid an egg.

Baltimore 1-0 at Philadelphia 1-0
RAVENS

Eagles barely beat the lowly Browns. Baltimore looked good in the first week.  Although go back a year ago and same thing happened. Followed up a big Week 1 win with a bad loss.  I still will go with the Ravens.

Minnesota 1-0 at Indianapolis 0-1
VIKINGS

Indy struggled against Chicago. Minnesota won a overtime game against Jacksonville, which is still a win. You can tell I’m not a fan of the Jags.

Arizona 1-0 at New England 1-0
PATRIOTS

Easy pick.

New Orleans 0-1 at Carolina 0-1
SAINTS

New Orleans should get back on track against an overrated Cam Newton.  Look at the 2nd half of last season and Newton had a dropoff in passing.

Tampa Bay 1-0 at NY Giants 0-1
BUCS

NYG don’t have a good record at home over the last few seasons, much better on the road. Road record since 2006 is 32-17 and in New Jersey they are 25-23? Weird.

Late Games

Washington 1-0 at St. Louis 0-1
REDSKINS

Robert Griffin III with a great debut.  I still say I’m looking forward to 2013.  A decent season for 2012 is good enough for me. That trade with St. Louis was one I agreed with and now I’m very glad they did that.

Dallas 1-0 at Seattle 0-1
COWBOYS

I’m picking Dallas to go 2-0.  I can leave my allegiances at the door when making picks.

Tennessee 0-1 at San Diego 1-0
CHARGERS

San Diego won on Monday, not impressive by any means. But the Titans have a rookie QB and not much going for them.

NY Jets 1-0 at Pittsburgh 0-1
STEELERS

Like my Packers pick over the Bears I think Pittsburgh needs this game more than NY.

Sunday Night, Detroit 1-0 at San Francisco 1-0
49ERS

San Fran handled Green Bay so they should be able to handle a lesser team from the NFC North.

Monday Night, Denver 1-0 at Atlanta 1-0
FALCONS

Just a hunch.

NFL season means, the return of “Carnell Knowledge”.  My weekly NFL picks blog.  Is there a pun in that title?

Things slowed down this summer on the blog. Getting into doing a weekly one will hopefully get the ball rolling again.

Disclaimer, during the season I’ll try to get them up by the weekend. Which usually would be fine, except this season is the first where Thursday Night Football is on every week. So if I don’t get the full blog up by Thursday I’ll tweet that pick and then put that in the blog. And this week because of President Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention the season kicks off on Wednesday night. 4 years ago the season kicked off the same night as John McCain was getting the Republican Nomination. Then the NFL tweaked their start time to avoid too much of a conflict. Came to their senses this time and decided to just put the game on Wednesday. Might as well put it on a night by yourself.

For new readers, In BOLD I put the team I think will win.  I don’t put up point spreads or that stuff.  Winners and losers. No hedging my bets.

Tonight, Cowboys at Giants
COWBOYS

New York gets on a roll near the end of the season, while Dallas will look good in September/October. Happens quite often.

Sunday games
Falcons at Chiefs
FALCONS

Keep hearing a lot of pundits liking Kansas City this year. I’ll wait to see how they are. Atlanta made the playoffs last year, then got crushed. Which is their M.O. with Matt Ryan. Last 2 playoff games they lost 24-2 and 48-21. Until I see the Chiefs play well I will go with Atlanta.

Eagles at Browns
EAGLES

By default since they are playing Cleveland.  They are that bad.

Redskins at Saints
SAINTS

My team the Redskins finally have a QB. 2013 should be fun to watch, problem when it is 2012. However Washington beat the Super Bowl Champion Giants twice last season. Twice? Yep. No idea how that happened.

Rams at Lions
LIONS

That Detroit defense last year was horrid, yet they still made the playoffs. Don’t see them sneaking in this year unless that gets better.  Enough to beat the Rams who had the Number 2 pick in last year’s draft, which they traded to the Redskins.

Patriots at Titans
PATRIOTS

Jake Locker named the starting QB for the Titans. Might as well go with the young guy, but that should be easy picking for the Pats.

Dolphins at Texans
TEXANS

Last year Houston lost their starting QB and their backup QB before the post-season. And they still won a playoff game and had a shot of beating Baltimore. Miami has a long road back to being average.

Bills at Jets
BILLS

Buffalo a team in NY state that hasn’t had a stupid amount of coverage like a certain one that wears green.  Bills could hammer the over-hyped Jets.

Jaguars at Vikings
JAGS

Battle of possible LA franchises, I’m kidding. Minnesota should stay. Jacksonville will be gone from that area of the country eventually.

Colts at Bears
BEARS

Indy starting from scratch so a long season for them.

The late games on Sundays are 10 minutes later too, kickoff for them are now 4:25pm EST. If you’ve watched enough football you know sometimes a network be showing the end of an out of town finish and have to leave “due to NFL rules”. That is why they have pushed up the time.

Panthers at Bucs
BUCS

Tampa Bay quit on their coach last season. No other way to say it. Many NFL commentators mentioned that. Better coaching this season for a team that was good 2 seasons ago.  Carolina also one of the overrated teams.

Seahawks at Cardinals
SEAHAWKS

Seattle’s starting QB is a guy they picked up in the 3rd round, Russell Wilson. They signed a free agent quarterback who is now a highly paid guy on the bench. Good for grabbing Wilson, and bad they wasted money they could have spent on someone else.  Cardinals quarterback situation has become a gong show.

49ers at Packers
PACKERS

Could be game of the week. I’ll go with GB since Rodgers is much better than Smith.

Sunday night, Steelers at Broncos
STEELERS

Pittsburgh back to Denver where they lost in the playoffs. Mainly because their defensive playcallers got cocky against Tebow. He’s not a great QB, however you can’t play “Cover 0” against someone. That’s just asking for trouble. From Wikipedia.

“The main disadvantage of Cover 0 is that there is no ‘help over the top’ – if a wide receiver ‘beats’ (runs past) his defender, there is no one left in the secondary who can make up the coverage on the receiver, which could result in an easy pass completion and possible touchdown.”

What happened in Overtime? Denver completed a pass in the middle and the guy ran all the way for a TD. Now Tebow is in NY and Peyton Manning is in Denver.  Steelers won’t be as dumb as the playoff game.

Monday night Doubleheader, Bengals at Ravens

RAVENS

Both playoff teams, I almost forgot the Bengals were in the post-season. Baltimore could’ve been in the Super Bowl if not for the kicker missing a field goal. By the way, the Ravens cut that kicker in the pre-season. Kept him around that long, then get rid of him. Weird.

Chargers at Raiders
RAIDERS

Late night game on Monday night. Both teams I feel “bleh” about. I’ll take Oakland because they are at home.

Shorter than usual, didn’t start writing till Sunday morning. Tomorrow a blog with a link to Friday’s episode.  Going to try and get that going again where I upload each week’s show.

Indianapolis at Baltimore
RAVENS

Winless Colts against the Ravens. Nuff said.

New England at Washington
PATRIOTS

Redskins defense holds up for a quarter or two but Pats will break through with an easy win. Like the Pats/Chiefs Monday night game from last month.

New Orleans at Tennessee
SAINTS

Saints on the road could be an issue depending on weather. Titans running game is finally back. Not enough to beat New Orleans.

Kansas City at N.Y. Jets
JETS

Jets on another ‘we need to win’ game. Especially since the Wildcard tiebreak is your AFC Record and the Jets are near the bottom in that. Loss to Denver a couple of weeks back hurt that.

Philadelphia at Miami
DOLPHINS

Eagles who are done, and Miami who have battled back after a horrible start.

Tampa Bay at Jacksonville
BUCS

Ugh.

Atlanta at Carolina
FALCONS

If Carolina’s defense was better I’d pick them here.

Houston at Cincinnati
TEXANS

Houston can win no matter who is their quarterback apparently.

Minnesota at Detroit
LIONS

I can see the Lions having some more stupid penalties. Not enough to pick the Vikings.

Chicago at Denver
BRONCOS

Bears can’t win with a bad QB.

San Francisco at Arizona
49ERS

Arizona beat the Cowboys, although Dallas really beat themselves. 49ers with another win.

Oakland at Green Bay
PACKERS

Undefeated streak to continue.

Buffalo at San Diego
CHARGERS

Bills playing better last couple of weeks yet keep losing.

Sunday Night, N.Y. Giants at Dallas
COWBOYS

I have no clue who will win this. Giants put up a good fight against Green Bay. But NY has still lost 4 in a row. Dallas had a great game against New England and 2 weeks later Philly beat them by 28 points.

Monday Night, St. Louis at Seattle
SEAHAWKS

One of the worst Monday Night games in a while.

Back with a NFL blog after that quick one last week, it was not good. 4-9. So that shows what happens when I write a short blog.

Washington at Buffalo, in Toronto. As a Redskins fan I’m not going. This is part of the problem with the Bills in Toronto series. They overpriced it at the start and are stuck with prices that are crazy. Only chance of me seeing a Redskins game in the forseeable future but 2 things stopped me from going there. Price is first. Secondly is it a horrible atmosphere. Stadium not made for NFL football. Heck my sister went to an Argos game and it was not much better.

Reason for the prices is Rogers got cocky and are now stuck. They overpaid with a 5-year, $78 million deal with the Bills. From Globe and Mail.

—
The deal has already paid off for the Bills. They get about $9.75 million per game in Toronto, more than twice than they generate at Ralph Wilson Stadium. The Bills have also reported a large bump in season-ticket sales from fans across the border, who now represent about 15 percent of the team’s base.

The downside has proven to be a general lack of interest the Bills have received in Toronto. They play in a domed facility that’s better suited for baseball, with the stands further removed from the playing field. Overpriced tickets — a majority of them more than $200 — have made it difficult to draw fans to the 54,000-seat facility. And many who have shown up are either NFL fans, who root for other teams, or are there to see the opposing team.
—

Bob McCown of FAN590 has pointed out over the years it was even worse than that says. And he’s on a Rogers owned radio and TV station. Although he gets more leeway than most to give his opinion and not face any grief. At first they were arrogant enough to say people couldn’t buy single game tickets. That people had to buy a package for all 5 years worth of games, including preseason. Insane amount of money. Which people didn’t buy. Rogers had to backtrack from that silliness. Only a few did buy, one of which Gord Kirke appears on the show from time to time. His stories of being stuck at bad preseason games is worth a laugh. Since he was one of the few who forked over that kind of money.

Which put Rogers in a bind. They paid Buffalo so much money they can’t lower the ticket prices to what people would be willing to pay. None of the games have been soldout, and they’ve had to fill seats with papered tickets (giveaways). I compare the problem to movie theatre prices. If you go to a 3D/IMAX movie they charge a price which the average person has come to accept. Imagine going to a small one screen theatre and them charging you even more than that. That’s the Bills in Toronto issue. Over-charging for an experience that is viewed as ‘not the real thing’.

Miami 0-6 (Road: 0-3) at NY Giants 4-2 (Home: 2-1)
GIANTS

Apparently Miami coach Tony Sparano was talking to a ref during the Dolphins/Broncos game. About using a timeout to review a call. “If I don’t call timeout we’re all (explicit). Now I’m getting fired.” Coaches talking about the fear of being fired DURING a game is not a good sign.

Jacksonville 2-5 (Road: 0-3) at Houston 4-3 (Home: 2-1)
TEXANS

Houston I can’t put my finger on. And Jaguars performance on Monday Night was strange. Defense played out of their mind. Don’t see that happening 2 weeks in a row.

Arizona 1-5 (Road: 0-3) at Baltimore 4-2 (Home: 3-0)
RAVENS

Baltimore gets a team with only 1 win after that bad game on Monday night, should be an easy rebound.

New Orleans 5-2 (Road: 2-2) at St. Louis 0-6 (Home: 0-3)
SAINTS

62-7 win last Sunday night. I did see the 4th quarter since I was at work. New Orleans did not throw once in the quarter and still scored. Now the Rams might be without Sam Bradford this week. So maybe a 49-10 win.

Minnesota 1-6 (Road: 0-3) at Carolina 2-5 (Home: 2-2)
PANTHERS

Battle of rookie QBs, although Cam Newton has played all season so might not be a fair fight.

Indianapolis 0-7 (Road: 0-4) at Tennessee 3-3 (Home: 2-1)
TITANS

Colts offense being bad without Manning, OK that makes sense. But for an entire team to lay down like last week was embarrassing.

Detroit 5-2 (Road: 3-0) at Denver 2-4 (Home: 1-2)
LIONS

I thought Detroit would lose last week. Little drop off after a great start. Denver barely beat a winless Miami team last week.

Washington 3-3 (Road: 1-2) at Buffalo 4-2 (Home: 3-0)
BILLS

In Toronto so a neutral site game. On Twitter I mentioned it’s good I didn’t plan on going. Running Back, Hightower out for the season. Tight End, Chris Cooley out for the year. Santana Moss, surgery on hand is out almost 2 months. And neither of the QB’s is someone to write home about.

Cincinnati 4-2 (Road: 2-1) at Seattle 2-4 (Home: 1-1)
BENGALS

The tape of Browns/Seahawks game will be buried at sea.

Cleveland 3-3 (Road: 1-1) at San Francisco 5-1 (Home: 2-1)
49ERS

The tape of Browns/Seahawks game will be buried at sea. Had to type that twice, it was that bad.

New England 5-1 (Road: 2-1) at Pittsburgh 5-2 (Home: 3-0)
PATRIOTS

Pats handle the Steelers. Pittsburgh has not beaten Tom Brady in 7 years.

Dallas 3-3 (Road: 1-2) at Philadelphia 2-4 (Home: 0-2)
COWBOYS

NBC gets a good game again after a couple of bad weeks. Not sold on either teams. Expecting Dallas to win this just on a hunch.

San Diego 4-2 (Road: 1-2) at Kansas City 3-3 (Home: 1-1)
CHIEFS

Monday night and Kansas City has come back from the brink.

10-3 right last week. Still on a roll. On the upset pick side I got 49ers and the Raiders correct. My ‘pick against the Eagles’ idea will keep going.

St. Louis 0-4 at Green Bay 5-0
PACKERS

Have to be crazy to pick the Rams.

Buffalo 4-1 at NY Giants 3-2
BILLS

Two of the NY teams battle it out in New Jersey. Always a bit strange that the Bills are the only team who play in New York State.

Indianapolis 0-5 at Cincinnati 3-2
BENGALS

I find it funny when commentators say about winless or undefeated teams, ‘well they won’t lose/win every game this season’. We had a 0-16 Lions team and Patriots 16-0 in back to back years.

Carolina 1-4 at Atlanta 2-3
PANTHERS

Falcons seem ‘off’ this year. Things not clicking and Carolina playing quite well for a 1-4 team. They keep barely losing. This week I they play a divsion rival so I think Panthers will win.

San Francisco 4-1 at Detroit 5-0
LIONS

Game of the week, I’m not kidding. Look at the other games and this is the best one.

Philadelphia 1-4 at Washington 3-1
REDSKINS

‘Pick against the Eagles’.

Jacksonville 1-4 at Pittsburgh 3-2
STEELERS

Steelers should handle Jacksonville, even with Pittsburgh having a up and down season when it comes to how good they are playing. Barely beating the Colts, getting smoked by the Ravens.

Cleveland 2-2 at Oakland 3-2
RAIDERS

Browns at .500 which sounds like a typo. Oakland might overlook Cleveland. Especially a week after the big emotional game against the Texans.

Houston 3-2 at Baltimore 3-1
RAVENS

I picked the Raiders to beat Houston last week. This week I think another loss is in order. With Titans being a surprise Texans might have a fight in hand for the AFC South.

New Orleans 4-1 at Tampa Bay 3-2
SAINTS

Bucs got destroyed last week by the 49ers. I see a Saints win but not by that much.

Dallas 2-2 at New England 4-1
PATRIOTS

With the Cowboys, who knows which team shows up? As others have pointed out, they could be 4-0 or 0-4.

Minnesota 1-4 at Chicago 2-3
BEARS

Sunday night game and I’m not entirely sold on the Bears. Since it’s at home I’m picking Chicago.

Miami 0-4 at NY Jets 2-3
JETS

We know Miami is not going to be a playoff team. NYJ might not be either. If Dolphins get an upset a 2-4 record for NY will be a tough hole to get out of.

13-3 last week. Oh yes, I did that well. Picked the wrong ‘trap game’, leaned towards Titans over Ravens but couldn’t bite the bullet. Went with Miami over Houston instead. That was 2 of the wrong games I picked so was a really good week. This week will not be better than that.

San Francisco at Cincinnati
BENGALS

Got the Broncos/Bengals game wrong. Oh well. This is similar. Which bad team do I think will win? West Coast team traveling East, so I will go with Cincinnati.

Detroit at Minnesota
LIONS

Vikings 0-2 and Lions 2-0. Easy choice.

Denver at Tennessee
TITANS

Titans better than I thought they would be so far. Not sure they can catch Houston in the division. This week will show how far along the Texans are.

Miami at Cleveland
DOLPHINS

Miami has a horrible record at home lately. Luckily for them this game is in Ohio.

NY Giants at Philadelphia
EAGLES

Giants faking injuries againt St. Louis? How the mighty have fallen. Theatrics to beat the Rams in a bad game. Picking Eagles even though not sure who will be QB. Back up Kafka did well on Sunday night. Only 1 pass was incomplete and that’s because the guy dropped it.

Houston at New Orleans
SAINTS

Now the Texans move up. Games before was like playing easy level on the Madden video game. Saints is “All-Madden” level. As long as they stay competitive I’ll be impressed.

New England at Buffalo
PATRIOTS

2003 was the last year Buffalo beat New England. Just think what wasn’t around in 2003. Was a year before Facebook was created at Harvard. That’s a long time. 2003 was before the NHL lockout. 2003/04 season was also last time the Leafs made the playoffs. Sorry to mention that Toronto fans.

Jacksonville at Carolina
PANTHERS

I’ll pick Cam Newton to get a win. Don’t get carried away with his first 2 starts. Top 3 Rookie Debuts in NFL history.

2011 Cam Newton Panthers
1950 Otto Graham Browns
1987 Ed Rubbert Redskins

Otto Graham an all time great, Ed Rubbert? I’m a Redskins fan and I don’t even remember him. Jags are starting a rookie QB too, Gabbert with his 1st start. So Newton will have more experience than his oppostion. Weird. Onto the 4pm games.

Baltimore at St. Louis
RAVENS

Baltimore should be in a bad mood after the Titans loss. St. Louis would be in tough even without their injuries.

NY Jets at Oakland
JETS

Hmmmmm, Jets 2-0 but I’m still iffy on them. Now they lost Nick Mangold their centre. Can’t pick Oakland though.

Kansas City at San Diego
CHARGERS

The Chiefs have fallen off a cliff. They won their divison last year. That team has disappeared.

Green Bay at Chicago
PACKERS

Chicago hosted the NFC Championship game against Green Bay. Why would I think this be any different?

Arizona at Seattle
CARDS

I don’t want to spend any more time on this than you do.

Atlanta at Tampa Bay
FALCONS

Atlanta to get a divsion win in Tampa.

Sunday night

Pittsburgh at Indianapolis
STEELERS

NBC had a good run of games to start the season. That comes to a crashing halt. Steelers at Colts. Later in the season NBC can change Sunday night games ahead of time. Betting they wish they could do that this week.

Monday night, Washington at Dallas. Good ole Cowboys vs Redskins.
REDSKINS

Romo should play and for this pick I will assume he does. Washington in a close game.

I did say Week 1 is the hardest week to pick. Going into Monday night I had 7 right and 7 wrong. Luckily I picked Pats and Raiders to finish at 9-7. Things start to settle down after Week 2. You find out if some teams just had a bad game or if it’s a trend. Steelers aren’t going to have 7 turnovers again for example. Colts looked horrible but they get the Browns this week which should help them.
Onto this week’s games.

Oakland at Buffalo
BILLS

Both teams are 1-0. I think the Bills are a bit better. Throw in Oakland playing Monday night at 10pm EST and turning around to travel to Western New York for a 1pm kickoff on a Sunday. That usually doesn’t bode well for the road team.

Kansas City at Detroit
LIONS

Chiefs were rolled last week. Detroit did something good teams do, win on the road even when playing sloppy.

Baltimore at Tennessee
RAVENS

I picked Baltimore last week to somehow pull out a win over Pittsburgh. Wasn’t expecting it to be over by halftime. This could be the classic ‘let down game’ where after a big win you look past the next opponent. Just don’t think the Titans will do that.

Cleveland at Indy
BROWNS

Michael Irvin on NFL Network pointed out something about the Colts debacle at QB. With not having a young backup ready to go these beatdowns are ‘wasted beatdowns’. When Peyton Manning and Troy Aikman started as rookies the team finished with a horrible record. But, those losses were a learning process for them. This season for the Colts could be a lot of losing and nothing gained.

Tampa Bay at Minnesota
BUCS

2 teams looking at 0-2 start with a loss here. I’ll go with Tampa Bay.

Chicago at New Orleans
SAINTS

Rematch of an NFC Championship game from years ago. When Rex Grossman got the Bears to a Super Bowl. We’ll talk about him later. Going with the Saints since they looked as good as you can in a loss against Green Bay.

Jacksonville at New York Jets
JETS

Jets at home again, even with the Giants hosting Monday Night Football. I think usually they try to spread out their home games. I look at Jets/Cowboys like a game Dallas had won and lost. Dallas had never lost a game when up by 14 points or more in the 4th quarter. NEVER. NYJ good enough to beat Jacksonville though.

Seattle at Pittsburgh
STEELERS

Rematch of Super Bowl 40. Which was not a classic game. If you know a Seahawks fan just ask them about the refs in that game. Be prepared for a long rant. In that case it is warranted. Last year one of the officials from that game admitted they screwed up. Good to be honest, although doing it years later was a bit weird. Like pouring salt in an old wound. This year’s Seahawks are not sniffing any Super Bowl appearance. And with Steelers atrocious performance last week they will not be in a good mood.

Arizona at Washington
REDSKINS

Rex Grossman with a win last week. He was known as Good Rex/Bad Rex in Chicago. Great games and then a horrible performance. Never knew what you were getting. I was more impressed with Redskins defense. Can’t guage Washington yet. Giants have lost more than a few guys to injury so far. The G-Men had beaten my team 6 times in row, so it was good to stop that streak. NFC East is up for grabs. Not sold on the Eagles and who knows what Giants/Cowboys/Redskins are like yet.
Oh, Arizona almost lost to a rookie QB last week. I’m picking the Skins.

Green Bay at Carolina
PACKERS

Mentioning that rookie QB, Cam Newton. Impressive to get that many yards in your 1st game. Lot of that was Cardinals defense. Don’t see many low scoring Arizona games. Now, he gets a real defense in Green Bay.

4pm EST

Dallas at San Francisco
COWBOYS

When Regis Philbin feels the need to talk about how bad you played, that is not good. Yes, on Monday morning he said Dallas will never win with Tony Romo as quarterback. Ouch. Any other week I might not pick them, this is the 49ers we’re talking about.

Cincinnati at Denver
BENGALS

I think if the Bengals were hosting I’d pick Denver. Broncos fans are getting wacky with chanting for Tim Tebow and one guy trying to buy a billboard about wanting him as QB. Tebow has played and not shown much. There’s a reason he’s on the bench. Plus the fact the previous regime picked him and the current staff is stuck with him.

Houston at Miami
DOLPHINS

Now this is what I think will be the ‘let down game’. Texans roll over the Colts and look past Miami.

San Diego at New England
PATRIOTS

Waiting to see what the Chargers might be this year. Maybe their streak of slow starts has ended. Not enough to win in New England yet.

Philadelphia at Atlanta
FALCONS

Michael Vick returns to Atlanta. I remember him at a home game in the Georgia Dome flipping off fans as he walked off the field. They’ll probably forget that in all the TV coverage.

St. Louis at New York Giants
GIANTS

A pick em. I’ll go with the home team.