NFL Picks, Week One: Football Bulimia

Welcome to another year of relentless NFL pickery, where every single game will be analyzed and scrutinized in ways that, Heaven be praised, actually would have paid some of your minor bills last year. I go against the spread, the way that Jesus would want it, if only the preaching work gave Him enough money to gamble with. And with that opening salvo of blasphemy, let's go into the off-topic opening that shows we're different, dammit, from other pick'em columns...

I don't really want to come off as an old grump, but this Opening Weekend nonsense? I should love it, since it means more football in my life after six months of no football in my life... but I'm sorry, Thursday night games blow. If the game is a dog, as many are, it's a poor snoozy way to start things, and it detracts from the six perfect hours of every football fan's week -- that glorious Sunday afternoon where you hole up in your cave and gorge yourself on so many interweaving games that even if every game is a blowout, it's still exciting, if only for the fantasy game back and forth.

When you spread the product out over non-canonical days, all you are doing is diluting the impact of the Sunday late games and sucking more time out of my life -- and does that ever go triple for the West Coast MNF game travesty. By the time Week One is over, I feel bloated and queasy, like I've eaten my body weight in ribs. No matter how good the ribs are, it's too much, and I can't be trusted to push myself away from the table after so many meatless months. The NFL is promoting football bulimia, and it's going to kill me one of those years. (That, or the Shooter Wife, who sees her husband go hide in the Man Space for the better part of three days.)

And with that, on with the picks! (Selection in CAPS.)

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Tennessee at PITTSBURGH (-6)

Normally the championship team from the previous year has a bit of a hangover going on. Ring ceremonies tend to happen in disquieting defeats, as the paying clientele wonder about the propriety of complaining about this year, and the media continues the offseason mouth job despite any new and obvious problems. But just in case the Steely McBeams had any interest in hitting the snooze button on the season, here's Titans running back and tequila diet enthusiast LemDale White to make sure the team is nice and perky.

'If it happens to be there, I'm going to stomp all over that (pause), man,' White said. 'If there's a towel in the stands, I will stomp on it. I don't care who gets mad. ... If they throw a towel at me, I'm going to kick it and stomp all over it. If they don't want their towel stomped on, keep it out my face.'

Oh, LemDale. You do realize that Steeler Fan's feelings for that towel are along the lines of Bruce Willis's feelings for his dad's watch in "Pulp Fiction"? Seriously, the Yinzer People I Know were bringing up last year's towel indignities in the off-season, when they had, you know, won one of the most exciting Super Bowls ever. They feel righteous in the use of that towel, especially as it has anti-cancer properties. There is no ironic waving of that towel, or hipster chic to it. You mock it at your peril. Hell, even this paragraph has me on their triple secret retaliation radar as being less than properly reverent. Let's just move on.

Getting to the Actual Game Analysis: Tennessee has a healthy Chris Johnson for this game, which helps loads. But they also no longer employ Albert Haynesworth, and the Steelers have had an entire offseason to make their Achilles offensive line less of a problem. Expect enough Willie Parker carries to give his fantasy owners serious wood, at least until he goes down in mid-November and the Steelers get 95% of the same production from Rashard Mendenhall and Mewelde Moore -- and the latter, shh, might be the best of the bunch.

As for the game... it'll be ugly, but I like the champs. Count on Big Ben to continue to be some sort of weird anti-Randall Cunningham, and to make the five plays a game that cause his Steelers to win much more than they lose. And yes, if you think of him as White Randall for the rest of your time as a football fan, I am to blame.

Steelers 24, Titans 16

MIAMI at Atlanta (-4)

The post-Cinderella season begins for both of 2008's surprise playoff teams. In the last meaningful action for both teams, the Falcons were spitting the bit against the for-the-taking Cardinals, while the Dolphins were being turned into mulch by the Ravens at home. This year, both teams will try to avoid regressing to the mean despite tougher schedules, better scouting and obvious weaknesses (for the Falcons, the defense, and for the Dolphins, the skill position players, as you can wait forever for Ted Ginn Jr. to do much of anything).

Both teams will disappoint this year, but the home team will make them hurt first, as shiny new toy Tony Gonzalez will not quite be in sync, and the Dolphins have the defensive line and linebackers to make Michael Turner look ordinary. I also like Ronnie Brown's chances for a big year this year, in Year 2 of his recovery from injury, and am willing to roll the dice on Chad Pennington finally breaking his every-other-year career pattern. At least, until he gets hurt.

Dolphins 20, Falcons 16

Denver at CINCINNATI (-4)

Bronco Fan, you've had a pretty great ride, all things considered. For the past three decades, you've been a fairly consistent playoff performer, a model of stability in the front office, and a genuinely annoying place to visit for opponents.

And, um, it all ends now.

Switching from Jay Cutler to Kyle Orton can't really be put into words, and the Neckbeard isn't even your biggest problem, though make no mistake, he is a big damn problem. It's the fact that when confronted by the problem of a terrible, terrible defense, your reaction was to bring in an prepubescent Offensive Super Genius, and then break the bank on defenders that have so little tread left on the tires, they are more or less riding on rims.

With your new corporate stadium and the hyperconditioning of today's NFL player pool, your home-field advantage has more or less evaporated. Your head coach ran off an asset that no NFL team has ever ran off before -- seriously, if you are looking for a historical corollary of a third-year Pro Bowl QB getting bounced, it doesn't exist -- and is plainly, grossly, and obviously in over his head.

Historically, you'd never get rolled by a toothless Bengals team with Cedric "3 Yards And A Cloud Of Suck" Benson supporting the cursed Carson Palmer. But this isn't your usual Broncos team, and the Bengals had a sneaky good defense for much of last year. I'm seeing some TAInts from Orton, Benson running through osteopathic arm tackles for well over 100 yards, and the Bengals getting well and truly deluded. Oh, and a thorough evisceration of the idea that Orton can help a fantasy team as anything but the opponent for your defense.

Oh, and just in case you think that I'm overselling the idea that the Broncos stink? This line has moved three points since it opened. To the Bengals.

Bengals 31, Broncos 10

MINNESOTA at Cleveland (+4.5)

A great first week matchup for the Favre Hags, who get to feast on the highly suspect stylings of whoever the Browns throw out there at QB, all while stuffing the plodding Jamal Lewis. A solid dose of All Day Adrian Peterson work will reassure everyone who made him the obvious #1 pick in fantasy, and way too much will be made of a couple of short touchdown passes for the Ol' Gunslinger.

And I'd say more about this, but let's face it... this Browns team might be the least relevant team in the NFL, and if they play a meaningful game this year, it'll be an upset. Also, writing about Favre only contributes to the disease. Moving on.

Vikings 27, Browns 17

JACKSONVILLE at Indianapolis (-7)

Usually a difficult matchup for the hometown Colts, and I'm not quite getting why the spread is this large with Bob Sanders on the shelf. The Jags aren't well-regarded after last year's sleepwalk, and I get that their offensive line hasn't been really good for a long time. It's also a home dome game, and the Colts should be better than they were last year, when their own offensive line injury woes made them do it with smoke and mirrors.

But having said all of that, I just can't see this Jags team getting blown out. They've got a fresh and ready Maurice Jones-Drew, the best WR in the Jags' laundry since Jimmy Smith in the freshly imported Torry Holt, and a sneaky good QB in David Garrard. Maybe they don't win this game against Peyton Manning at home, but they'll cover the number.

Colts 27, Jaguars 21

DETROIT at New Orleans (-13)

The big story here is how Detroit has decided there's no time like the present to see how Matt Stafford can fall down. So the potentially frisky Saints defense will get to rear back and attack the newby, which just has blowout all over it...

Or does it? Pierre Thomas is likely to miss this game for the Saints, along with several front line defensive lineman. Billy Miller's also done for the year, so the Saints could struggle in the red zone, especially if they try to force-feed the spent Jeremy Shockey.

Over half of the current Lions roster wasn't here last year, so they might not know how badly they will be slaughtered. And they've got Kevin Smith, perhaps the best player that no one knows about, and the unstoppable catching machine that is Megatron Johnson.

I don't see them making the upset _ there is just too much talent to overcome. But hanging close, getting a cover and feeling real good about their progress? Sure.

Saints 27, Lions 24

DALLAS at Tampa Bay (+6)

If you ever wondered how much the NFL is in the tank for Jerruh Jones, look no further than this sleepy opening week. Why be at home, when people are paying attention to the launch of every season? Instead, let's make sure that your gihugic fishbowl TeeVee and monument to yourself gets full attention later, as well as the Super Bowl in 2011, because every highroller dreams of being in Dallas in February. Fah.

This week, America's Reality TV Team gets the Learn By Doing Bucs, who joined the crowd of NFL franchises who are letting everyone know this year will be a turd sammich early by canning the offensive coordinator before the games even count. Yeesh.

I want to give this new Bucs org some time and all, but they aren't making it easy. When they won the Derrick Ward Sweepstakes in the offseason, I was excited to project him into the third or fourth round in my roto draft rankings, and see what he could do when he finally got the prime spot. Instead, the Bucs have resurrected never healthy mediocrities like Earnest Graham and Cadillac Williams to split the carries and make the team unownable, as well as unwatchable. And no, your Antonio Bryant play isn't safe either, not with the time it with a sundial release of the statuesque Byron Leftwich warming the QB seat until first-round pick Josh Freeman loses his new car smell. Buzzkill, thy name is Bucco.

Expect a ton of yards for TE Jason Witten, effective running from Felix Jones, Marion Barber and Tashard Choice, and lots of people thinking that Dallas is a lot better than they are. That's what you get when you have an ancient offensive line and a turnover-prone QB; good Septembers and terrible Decembers. It's been a lovely century to be a Cowboy hater.

Cowboys 24, Bucs 13

Philadelphia at CAROLINA (-2)

Hoo boy, I'm not a fan of this as my laundry's first week matchup. A road game against a physical defense that has historically had their number, facing the superfresh Deangelo Williams, rather than the November version that will be leaking oil from overwork? Yuck. Even the presence of Jake Delhomme under center is not making me feel all warm and cozy about this.

I'm relatively certain that Asante Samuel and Sheldon Brown will keep Steve Smith and Moose Muhammad quiet, but that might just mean the home team will have even more patience with the running game... and that's not a win either.

On offense, I suspect that Emperor Andy will unleash a fully functioning Brian Westbrook Death Star, but it's not in the Suet Lord to play ground ball and patience, and this O-line is making me assume the fetal position right now, especially against Julius Peppers. Add in Andy's wrinkly Week One record, and you've got one of the uglier games on the docket this week. At least Philly Fan can't scream for Michael Vick for two more weeks.

Panthers 16, Eagles 13

Kansas City at BALTIMORE (-13)

There's a really simple way to pick this game, and it goes like this: do I think the Ravens will score over 13 points? Because, well, I'm just not seeing this truly awful Chiefs team, with a banged-up starting QB, a promising young coach for future douchebag watchers, a washed up Larry Johnson at RB and no recent history of vertebrae, to actually show up and score points in the carrion's nest. If you liked the early '70s, this is the game for you; you'll see 80 running plays, and if it weren't for television timeouts, the game would be over in two hours.

I like this Ravens team, but not as much as many folks; they are doing too much cuteness with the running game by de-emphasizing LaRon McClain and failing to develop any kind of consistent deep threat at the wideout level. But those problems will crop up later in the year, rather than now.

Ravens 24, Chiefs 6

NY Jets at HOUSTON (-5)

Meet the new Arizona Cardinals. The Texans have been a trendy dark-horse pick for years now, ever since Andre Johnson emerged as the best WR not to aspire to infamy, and since the NFL is now such a regression to mean league, everyone expects every downtrodden team to break through once in a while. The trouble for the Texans is that they might play in the toughest division in football, against a relentlessly consistent Colts team, and a Titan team that, even when they aren't very good, hit you in the mouth enough that your pretty little offense is wrecked for subsequent weeks.

I'm not buying the idea that this will finally be the Texans' year, mostly because I'm not buying the idea that Matt Schaub will play over 13 games, and the backup is (ha ha!) Sexy Rexy Grossman, who beat out Dan Orlovsky in a training camp battle for the ages. If you are a Texans fan, I hope you were taking careful notes about Grossman-Orlovsky, because that's one you are going to want to share with your grandkids later.

The Jets begin the Rex Ryan era with Matt Sanchez at QB, Bart Scott at LB, and such a desire to be the Ravens that I keep expecting them to carpetbag the franchise and move to Los Angeles. And far be it from me to rag on a makeover, but honestly guys... if you're trying to model your franchise on a successful rival, why not go for one with more than one Super Bowl championship that caused massive retinal damage, eight years ago? If it were my club, I'd just hire Steely McBeam, have my fans wave rainbow flags and scream Oz-like profanities, and have a truly unique and intimidating home-field advantage. Besides, it'd sell papers. (Papers? They were... never mind. I'm very old.)

Look for the Jets to try to keep this game on the ground, but fall behind due to the truly explosive Texan Triplets, and for Dirty Sanchez to throw a late TAInt that makes the final score look worse than it was.

Texans 27, Jets 16

Washington at NY GIANTS (-6.5)

A classic NFC slobber... um, sorry, I nearly passed out from boredom in writing the lede there. The fact is that the 'Skins have fallen so far in the Snyder Era that they've become the New (St. Louis) Cardinals -- aka, the NFC East team that doesn't really have that big of a rivalry with its opponents, despite playing them twice a year, because the personnel changes so much and so often that it's hard to work up a fine lather of hate for them. That, and because styles make fights, and these are two highly similar teams, with the only difference being that the Giants are just a little bit better in about every way.

The NFL's best offensive line will give Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw more than enough room to rip up five yards a carry, making Eli Manning and his breathtakingly overpriced contract look tolerable on elementary play-action throws to Domenik Hixon, The Other Steve Smith and Kevin Boss. On the other side, expect Clinton Portis to struggle through one of those 20 carries for 50 yards kind of days, which will put too much pressure on Jason Campbell and his Not Ready For Playing Time wideouts. So long as the G-Men don't turn the ball over, I can't see them losing this game. Or wanting to watch it.

Giants 20, Redskins 13

San Francisco at ARIZONA (-6.5)

The laziest prediction in the NFL this year is how the Cards are going back to the slop from which they came. Kurt Warner is old! The coordinators are gone! There is no more Rod Hood! (Well, ok, no one outside of the Hood Home says that.) They lost the Super Bowl, which always brings sodomy, pestilence and plague! Etc., etc.

It's all missing a few things.

1) Um, Warner is pretty damn good. No one wants to give the Jebus Man credit, but the accuracy and yards after catch is top-drawer, and he's in a division with sieve teams and middling pass rushes.

2) Warner still has tread on the tires. Yes, he's old, but it's fake old, since he got a late start with the Arena League work. It's not a slam dunk that he fails or gets hurt this year; his 38 is more like 34. And if you want to compare him to a boxer who has done jail time, say for killing a man with his bare hands while on a meth high? That'll just tickle you in a good way, really.

3) They can't be worse on defense and the running game than last year. I'm not sold on Beanie Wells as the new Earl Campbell, but he's young, powerful, and has a pulse -- three things you could not say about Edge James last year. Tim Hightower and the line will be better, and the defense didn't lose anyone good. The coaches are competent now.

4) They actually have a home field advantage with the Pink Taco. And since no one was a Cards fan a year ago, that fan base is young, loud, and has hope. When it comes to crowd noise, you want young and dumb, not old and bitter.

And this week, they play one of the worst organizations in football.

The homecoming friendly Niners spent the summer making their good fortune at falling into Michael Crabtree into a flaming bag of dog poo, when they weren't averting their eyes from the Shaun Hill / Alex Smith QB battle. (The winner: Hill. The loser: Humanity, Dignity, Eyesight and Taste. But don't feel bad, all of those guys were taking the pipe if Smith had gotten the gig.)

Cardinals 31, Niners 17

St. Louis at SEATTLE (-8.5)

Two bounce-back candidates with hope, even though there's a great chance of both teams tanking. Have to love Opening Week!

Seattle has a presumed healthy Matt Hasselbeck throwing to shiny new toy TJ Houshmanzadeh, while the Rams have the good wishes of many stat honks for pleasing mediocrity. They also have a functioning Steven Jackson, who has been at the scene for many of their moments of competent footballery in the past few years.

If you combined these teams, you'd have something great, and you wouldn't have to look at Julius Jones and the Ram WRs who aren't named Donnie Avery. Unfortunately, you still wouldn't have very much of a defense.

Anyway, I actually like both of these teams to be watchable this year. And maybe this is just the ether talking, but I think we see some competence in the NFC West this year, at least for three out of four teams, so long as the starting QBs are playing.

In this game, I have to go with the Hawks and their actually existing home field advantage, one of the few cases where such a thing exists. The Rams didn't travel well even in their heyday, and while they are on the way back up, it's still a long way to go.

Seahawks 31, Rams 21

CHICAGO at Green Bay (-3.5)

Probably the best game of the weekend in terms of matchup and excitement. I'm expecting a shootout, as neither team has the secondary or pass rush necessary to keep the QBs down for long, along with scads of yards for do-everything backs Joe Forte and Ryan Grant.

If you drafted Jay Cutler in your roto league and listened to some honk talk about how he was gonna stink without weapons this year, this will be the first of many Ha Ha moments... Simply because the Pack secondary is old, old, old, and the front seven don't get to the passer nearly enough to hide that fact. Also, Devin Hester (shh!) is going to be the guy that people think Eddie Royal will become. Because, um, the quarterback matters. That's why really good ones don't get traded. Bronco Fan, the only way this doesn't taste bad for the next decade is if someone spikes Cutler's insulin.

Bears 34, Packers 31

Buffalo at NEW ENGLAND (-10.5)

The first of two deadly dull MNF squashes, assuming you don't have money or fantasy money on the line, or don't particularly enjoy watching tanks versus spears. The Bills are going to be an unmitigated disaster -- when your best offensive weapon is a 35-year-old head case possession receiver with suspect hands, that's not a recipe for success -- and the Patriots are going to return to their 2007 Overlord Hatefest Ways. If you don't want to get cute with your suicide pool, this is where I'd be going, because I honestly believe that we're going to see enough of Trent Edwards' TAInt here to make the line coverable just from defensive scores.

And just to extinguish the last embers of hope for Bills Fan, there's the fact that Fred Jackson isn't 100%, and Domenic Rhodes showed so little in camp that they cut him. So you don't have the backs to keep Tom Brady off the field, which works, because you don't have the line to run effectively with, either. Not that you're going to do that anyway, since you're going with the no huddle offense, too. I can't like the Patriots enough in this game; I think they are going to cover 24. Easily.

New England 45, Buffalo 16

SAN DIEGO at Oakland (+9.5)

How easy will it be for the Chargers to win this division this year? Put it this way: if they win this game, I think they'll have it clinched. Oakland showed moments of friskiness late last year, with that Gruden-crushing win in Tampa as the main point, and JeMarcus Russell was impressive enough in training camp for the team to part ways with free agent stopgap Jeff Garcia. But they also quit during preseason (wow) against the Saints at home, and were desperate enough with their lack of run defense to mortgage the future for a (so far) non-reporting Richard Seymour.

The Chargers have their very own distractions to deal with, thanks to Shawne Merriman's need to be involved with a reality TV star, and I don't like any team's long-term prospects with Norvalicious at the helm. But Norv is a veritable Desert Fox compared to what the Raiders run out there, and LaDanian Tomlinson well and truly enjoys making the silver and black his personal chew toy. I also really like Antonio Gates's chances for major damage here, as the Raider backers aren't much good in coverage either, and even Philip Rivers is bright enough to avoid Nmandi Asomugha. The Raiders might be a .500 team this year -- such is the state of the AFC West -- but that won't stop this from being the usual blowout.

Chargers 31, Raiders 17

Last year: 137-119-7 (Up $260)