Interesting thing when looking at this week’s slate: All of the home teams are favored to win, except for the Green Bay Packers, who happen to be playing the best team in the NFL.
I’m not sure I remember a week where 15 out of 16 home teams were favored.
Couple of quick items before I get to the picks.
As I’m sure you know, we do the NFL Power 10 every Wednesday morning. If you’re looking for a decent compliment to the Power 10, Dan Boone writes his Sad-Sack Seven every week. It’s a great read, and I highly recommend it.
Bleacher Report also posts their own full-fledged NFL Power Rankings. Shaun Ahmad does a great job putting them together. A bunch of your favorite NFL writers here at Bleacher Report contribute, so make sure you check it out next week.
(Home teams in CAPS)
ATLANTA (-5.5) over Kansas City
Three quick reasons why Kansas City is going to get blown out by the Atlanta Falcons:
1) There’s nobody on that defense that can stop Matt Ryan to Roddy White.
2) I’m still not sure what a Tyler Thigpen is.
3) Herm Edwards is to offensive football as the McCain campaign is to telling the truth.
Seriously, Herm Edwards is a terrible head coach.
He has one of the best running backs in the NFL, but for some reason, he feels the need to not play him.
He concocted some insane injury story that the team can’t seem to keep straight because he hates Damon Huard and didn’t want to take the heat for playing Thigpen over him.
He’s probably the second worst clock-management head coach in the NFL, behind Cleveland’s Romeo Crennel.
He gives great press conferences though.
BUFFALO (-9.5) over Oakland
The Bills were favored, but just barely, over the Seahawks. They were underdogs against the Jaguars. This is the first time that they’ve been expected to win a game.
Not only are they expected to win, but they’re expected to win rather easily.
It’ll be interesting to see how the young team reacts. Sometimes young teams let up in games they think they’re supposed to win. I’m not predicting this will happen; but it’s something to keep an eye on.
The Raiders are in a tough situation. When Al Davis wakes up from his nap, he’s going to fire Lane Kiffin. He could wake up this week. He could wake up next week. He could wake up at halftime on Sunday.
But eventually, he’ll wake up and the head coach will be gone. Until that happens, I’m not sure you can expect much from this team.
TENNESSEE (-4.5) over Houston
Kerry Collins, my fantasy football team’s new starting quarterback, is officially the starter in Tennessee for the foreseeable future. Which means they’ll have someone who can, at the very least, hit a wide-open receiver every once in a while.
I really thought coming into the season that Houston was going to be pretty good. I’m not so sure anymore.
NEW YORK GIANTS (-13.5) over Cincinnati
If I rounded up 21 of my closest friends, went out and bought football pads, hired Rod Rust to devise a foolproof gameplan (Rod Rust is still alive, right?), and replaced the New York Giants for this week’s game against the Bengals, we’d still have no trouble covering a 13.5 point spread.
That’s how bad the Bengals are.
Arizona (+3) over WASHINGTON
Kurt Warner really, really enjoys playing with Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin. I understand that they’ve played a crap schedule thus far, but did anyone expect Warner to look as good as he has?
The Redskins’ upset of the Saints last week (technically not an upset, I guess) would have cost me a TON of money were gambling legal.
Thank God for Republicans.
NEW ENGLAND (-12.5) over Miami
Joey Porter will never, ever learn. Ever.
He was a loud-mouthed moron when he was in Pittsburgh, but his teams were usually good enough to back him up. He’s still a loud-mouthed moron in Miami, but now I almost feel bad for him.
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