Weak Too Picks

Here's a statement that you're not going to read too often... Opening Week in the NFL, um, kinda sucked. And not just because my Birds stayed to the script of last-second field goal loss where they were the better team and I was there (pay me now, Andy, or I'll start going to more games). But when the defenses are clearly ahead of the offenses to such an extent that most games were beating the under without a second thought, there's clearly something that needs to be done.

First off -- enough with pre-season games. The NFL has enough money now, for heaven's sake, and everyone manages these things as if they were protecting fine china. The end result is offenses that are so not in shape, because they've been used to "vanilla" packages and substitute personnel taking up the coaches' time. Scrap the pre-season, and let coaches tune their teams in private for an extra four weeks without distraction. I guarantee you would see better offenses in the first few weeks.

Secondly, stop spreading the product all over every night of the week. Does anyone really need a late night Monday game? Was the Thursday night kickoff game so meaningful to your existence, especially when it fell apart in the second half and provided little, if any, drama? The dirty little secret of pro football games is that many of the games, especially in the second half, are of little interest to anyone but the fans of the teams and fantasy nerds. Like the NCAA tournament, the NFL works best when there's a little too much going on, like it's just past the realm of things you can process at once. Spreading out the schedule during the regular season gives these games the weight of a playoff or special event, and they are just not. No matter how much hype you load them up with.

Now, having said that, on to hype this week's picks!

Texans cover (6.5) at PANTHERS. Huzzah! The Texans had a QB and a RB and an OL and an actual football team and everything! Yes, but they also had an opponent where the coach eats paste, the RB was too busy spending his off-season reading about how he was going to explode from overwork to go to training camp, and the OL has fallen and can't get up. The Panthers, fresh off an impressive road throttling of the Rams, won't prove to be so accommodating. But it'll be close enough to cover.

Falcons cover (10) at JAGUARS. In our upset of the week, Joey Harrington and the Falcons running game keeps things close against the dramatically inconsistent Jags, who are about two weeks away from a crises of confidence in their coach and QB. Despite superior line talent and a championship level running game, this Jags team has never really achieved to the level that they should, and at this point in the proceedings, the finger can only really be pointed at the coach, Jack Del Rio. To be fair, maybe you can't win with either of the QBs he's had at his disposal... but they've mismanaged their assets. Someone else can win here, and soon, but this year won't be pretty.

Colts (7) over TITANS. "All Vince Young knows how to do is win football games!" Yeah, funny thing about that kind of leadership / mystique / bull poop. It goes poof when faced with cold hard reality, and the reality is that if the Colts defense could make the Saints look silly, what do they do with a team that has no good wideouts at all? Answer: load the box and stop the run, putting Young into third and longs, then go max protection in the secondary and let him try to pick up first downs with short passes against the zone. That adds up to a lot of punting, a lot of Manning, and the Colts grinding out a safe but boring win on the ground. Take the points nervously, but take the points.

RAMS (3) over Niners. Two very ordinary teams, one coming off a win at home, the other a loss. So why am I going with the losers? Because in a pick 'em kinda game from two teams that really haven't shown what they are offensively yet, I like the team that has the extra day of rest and the home cooking... especially when both clubs are way too invested in the success of one star RB to succeed.

Packers (0) over GIANTS. Hopefully, Brett Favre will adjust to the fact that he doesn't have a veteran team with a lot of ability to digest complex pre-snap line calls. The G-Men looked kitteny soft agains the Romosexuals last Sunday night; the only good unit on the field will be the Pack defense. Expect the Giants to keep things on the ground with Droughns and Ward in an attempt to manage the game with hefty lefty Jared Lorenzon. This game has the potential to be cover your eyes awful.

STEELERS (9) over Bills. In the role of who's going to threaten the biggest cheaters in NFL History, things are looking up for the Steelers, who clowned the Browns in one of the few good offensive performances of Week 1. Now, they get a Bills team that can't get the ball to their only good WR, with a rookie RB on the road. If this one's a game in the third quarter, blame Steely McBeam, who will be making his debut in front of the home field faithful. It's an open question who will be in worse shape by the second quarter -- JP Losman from the Steeler blitz, or Steely from the Yinzer faithful.

Bengals (6.5) over BROWNS. When you think about this Bengals team, there's a very real difference of opinion on just how good they are. They just managed to hold on against a Ravens squad that couldn't stop turning the ball over, the WR and RB depth is very suspect, you would think the defense would be better after so many years of Marvin Lewis at the helm, and with so many of them visiting the hoosegaw, they're tough to root for. On the other hand, their skill players are pretty great, and you'd have to think that the special teams blunders and bad luck moments from last year's team evens out.

There is no debate, however, that the Browns really, really, really suck. This is the game where the guy that took Carson Palmer over Peyton Manning in your fantasy league starts to talk a lot of crap. It won't be the last week, either.

Saints (3.5) over BUCS. Classic bounce back game potential for Brees and Company, who get an extra couple of days after the Colts thumping to prepare. Expect Reggie Bush to look unstoppable against the aging by the minute Bucs LBs, and for the Bucs to try to shorten the game with a steady dose of Cadillac Williams. As anyone who has watched the last 20 or so Bucs games will tell you, that really doesn't work that well.

LIONS (3) over Vikings. The winner gets the early lead in the NFC North, as well as the fast early start they need to keep doubts about their talent level at bay. Despite the bad idea that is Tavaris Jackson at QB, I am very scared of the Lions here; this looks like one of those games every year where Jon Kitna reminds you that, good fantasy numbers or no, he's still Jon Kitna. It's a coin and stomach toss of a game.

Cowboys (3.5) over DOLPHINS. For the life of me, I don't know why the line is this way. True, the Cowboy defense didn't look good, and Miami does have a big homefield advantage in late summer heat... but it's not like the Cowboys are dome flowers, and the Fish Stink. Look for my preseason sleeper pick, Patrick Crayton, to break out in this game as the Dolphins double up on Owens.

Seahwaks (3) over CARDINALS. In the development of every NFL quarterback -- or, more importantly, the lack of development as hype and promise fade to the sad reality that not everyone gets to be a star -- there are telling moments. For Cardinals QB Matt Leinart in week one against the Niners, there was such a moment. Faced with a tight game where his running game wasn't awful, his defense gave him chances, and his wideouts should be able to hold their own... he was unable to deliver his team a road win. I'm not saying it's time to stick a fork on him and turn the Cardinals back over to Kurt Warner; we all know that it's more important for the Cards to learn what they have in Leinart than to waste their time on a guy who will be out of the league in another year or so. But I do know this: guys who have long careers in the NFL win that game in their second year. Leinart didn't, and he won't win this week either, against a Seahawks team that looked frisky last week against the Bucs, and is clearly (yawn) once again (stretch) the class of a (eyes... so... heavy) weak division.

New York (10) shocks BALTIMORE. This will (probably) be a Ravens win, but it will also be more of a fight than a 10-point spread dictates. This Ravens team is too prone to putting the ball on the ground, and one suspects that the Jets are better than they looked against a team that's filled with disgusting, abominable, horrific, vile, please rip out their intestines slowly and show them to them before they die... Patriots.

Anyway, take the points.

BEARS (12) over Chiefs. Is Rex Grossman a mental midget? Yes. Is Cedric Benson a gutless pussy? Mais oui. Will the Chargers regret their post-gaem open mic night comedy stylings? Eventually.

Meanwhile, count on the Bears to get off (sorry) early and often against a terrible Chiefs team. This is one of those games where Sexy Rexy puts up huge positive numbers, and the fearless / insane people who have him in their fantasy league will then turn around and try to trade him. (By the way, this was me last year. The Rex Cannon netted me Kevin Jones and the ire of my league mates. Jones got hurt later, I won anyway, and all of you just had your eyes glaze over and skipped to the next game preview. While I've got some privacy, I'd like to share with you my thoughts on coffee and Things My Wacky Friends said.)

BRONCOS (10) cover Raiders. I miss the 2006 Raiders, the punch line to every joke you could ever make about an offense, a team that somehow managed to get on national television three times despite being, quite possibly, one of the worst teams in NFL history. Those 2-14 (and how, again, did they get the two?) players, when faced with a situation like last week against the Lions, would not have fought back to make a game of it. They wouldn't have gained the smallest measure of a moral victory by having Lamont Jordan look less than completely washed up, or having Josh McNown play well enough to be fantasy relevant. No, that Raider team would have folded like a wet noodle, gotten their hapless QB sacked a dozen times, all while "coach" Art Shell did his Easter Island impersonation.

Why do I miss that team? Because I drafted defenses that face them.

Anyway, the Broncos escaped Buffalo last week like Travis Henry's sperm escapes condoms (we are required, by law, to make a Travis Henry's Sperm reference every week; it should be a team name in every fantasy league), and they'll play better at home. Jay Cutler isn't quite ready for prime time yet, but the thing about young QBs is that they always look closer to done at home. Also, there's this: Mike Shanahan treats the Raiders like they once did something bad to him or something.

San Diego (3.5) over NEW ENGLAND. Will the Cheatriots even be able to play football again without their cheating advantage? We kind of doubt it. We're betting that this team goes 0-15 the rest of the way, with 20+ point defeats in every game, and the NFL decides to strip them of every win they've ever had. Patriot games will be attended by 13 people, Bill Simmons will never write about them again, and the league will move them to Los Angeles to try and cover their shame. (And yes, I hate to bet on Norv Turner as a road dog, because he is frankly terrible... but I can't see even New England keeping its focus this week, and the Chargers have a great deal of talent.)

EAGLES over Redskins. Oh, this time, Lucy's going to hold the football, Redskin fans. This time, she's going to hold that football down nice and tight, and you're going to come into Philadelphia with your young QB and your college of coaches and take your rightful place as top dogs in the NFC East. Andy Reid's reign of divisional terror is over! Lord Voldemort Snyder rules the day!

Er, no.

The Skins won, at home, on a field goal over a Dolphins team that's going to win 5 or 6 games this year. The Eagles lost, on the road, to a Packer team that's going to win 8 to 10. The Skins took advantage of Trent Green playing his first game in a new offense with bad weapons (Chris Chambers may be the most overrated WR in the NFL, Ted Ginn Jr. is not a football player, Reggie Brown is getting run out of town by his coach, and they actually miss Randy McMichael -- phew). The Packers took advantage of the Eagles committing monumental brain farts in the punt return game. (Andy, for the love of God, would it have been so bad to have Westbrook go back there and catch the ball in the fourth quarter? Just catch it?)

Here's what Skins Fan doesn't want to know -- the Eagles defense was in Favre's grill all day. They would have pitched a shutout with any kind of help from the offense, or without back to back miracle improv plays by the Big Old Stinky Cheese Man. McNabb will shake off more rust, the defense will force turnovers, and Westbrook will torture the Skins late. There's a reason that Vegas made this a 7 point line, and that the NFC East is Andy Reid's bitch.

But don't worry, Skins Fan. There's always next coach.

Last week: 7-9