Sunday's Divisional Picks

Can a hobbled Rodgers lead the Pack past the Cowboys?

Yesterday continued my solid playoff run, improving my record to 5-1 against the spread & 6-0 overall. I even got the margin of victory right in both games, though my over/under skills remain lackluster. Kudos to the Patriots & Ravens for giving us our second great playoff game of the year, with the Patriots becoming the first playoff team to come back from a deficit of 14 or more points twice in the same game. That was a thrilling piece of theater. Anyway, I was out late last night for a friend's 21st birthday, & the Green Bay-Dallas game is about to start, so I'll keep this quick.

On to the picks... (Home teams in caps)

2014 NFL Preview

Can Seattle become the first team to repeat in 10 years?

I love college football. It's fantastic, & this year there's even a playoff! With that said the highlight of my fall weekends is the Christian, not the Jewish*, Sabbath. In the NFL you actually know who all of the players are. Unless you're a Raiders fan, every season you can talk yourself into believing your team is going to make the playoffs &, after the recent playoff runs of the Giants, Cardinals, & Ravens, that means they've got a chance to win it all! Does it help that my team, the Giants, have won 2 of the last 7 Super Bowls while the Arizona Wildcats have never made a Rose Bowl? Absolutely! But that's exactly my point: The NFL is what people want to believe America is like –– a place where if you plan right & work hard you can lift yourself from the bottom to the top of society –– while college football is what America really is –– a place with a giant divide of haves & have nots where the occasional surprise success story provides the illusion of hope. That's why I prefer the NFL, even with moral questionability of the entire enterprise, so I'm super excited for another season of madness that will surely make many of my following picks look shockingly foolish.**

*If we're being totally honest Judaism has it right. Christianity sold out the Sabbath, & a bunch of other things, for converts.

**But not all of them! Unlike any of ESPN's 36 experts last season I correctly predicted the Panthers to get the 2 seed in the NFC, in addition to predicting the Chiefs to make the playoffs, the Falcons to fall off (though not that drastically), & the Seahawks to win the Super Bowl. Does it matter than I also had the Giants & Bucs in the playoffs? Yeah... I know it does.

Saturday's Divisional Picks

After thinking about it for 2,821 days will Aaron
Rodgers finally get his revenge on the 49ers?

We've once again reached the best weekend of the NFL season when the 8 best teams in the league face off over two days & today I'll run through the Saturday games & hopefully recover from my horrible 1-3 record against the spread last week (thanks for saving me Seattle!) & pedestrian 2-2 overall.

Saturday's Divisional Picks

Can Tebow & the Broncos run past the Patriots?

It’s time for the best weekend of the NFL, the divisional round. We get to watch the 8 best teams (well, 7 & the Broncos) play in 4 games over 2 days. It should be awesome (unless the Giants lose, then all of life is pointless). Interestingly 3 of the 4 matchups are rematches from the regular season, 49ers/Saints being the lone exception. Not surprisingly the team that won the previous matchup is favored in each game, & at home, so one may well be inclined to just go with the favorites in all 3. However if you really think I’m that lazy with my picks (or smart, depending on your point of view) you don’t know me. & speaking of my picks I went 3-1 against the spread & 4-0 overall last week, my best week ever. Does this mean I’m finally figuring the NFL out, or that I just got really lucky? This week we’ll find out!

NFL Wild Card Picks

Can Calvin Johnson & the Lions dive past the Saints?

The NFL playoffs start today, which of course, means it’s time for my wild card round picks. Now before I get to them I’m going to offer a bit of honesty. I love to talk about how I have correctly predicted 3 of the last 4 Super Bowl teams in the pre-season & nailed the Packers over Steelers-coming within 6 points of the actual score & saying: “Rodgers asserts himself as a truly elite quarterback & Green Bay wins the Super Bowl in Brett Favre’s last season (I think).” However what I don’t like to mention is how terrible I am at predicting playoff games. Despite going a solid 6-5 last year my combined record over the last 3 years is an embarrassing 13-20. In fact last January was the first time I managed to avoid an 0-4 weekend. Hopefully this year will be different but, just in case, I’d like to apologize now for picking your team.

I would also like to add, before getting to my picks, that Sunday will mark the anniversary of the shooting that robbed 6 people of their lives, including 9-year-old Christina Taylor-Green, and injured Representative Gabriel Giffords and 12 others. While I stand by my original position that one of the best ways to honor the victims of that day is to cherish every moment of our lives, and if your like me that means watching football this weekend, I think it would benefit us all if we took at least some time out of our weekend to think about and pray for the victims, the shooter, and their families, as well as thank God that that day was not worse and for the blessings that are our lives and the people we love . And I think we should all strive to “[re]commit ourselves as Americans to forging a country that is forever worthy of [Christina’s] gentle, happy spirit.”

10 Terrible Predictions & the AFC Playoff Picture

Tim Tebow's blowing up my 5-11 Broncos prediction.

Thanks to my inability to manage my time I’ve been on hiatus from the blog for about 2 months, & haven’t posted anything about sports since September 24, well it’s time to rectify that. In order to atone myself for the many horrible predictions I made in my NFL Preview I’m going to now correctly* predict how the last 4 weeks will unfold and who will make the playoffs. First though, for a good laugh, let’s take a look back at some of my horrible predictions.

*Yea, I don’t really believe that either but it’s possible. I got the Super Bowl right last season!!! Remember? You don’t? Well it happened, & I’m going to cling to that till the day I die.

My 10 worst predictions in descending order:

10.  Prediction: Bears 6-10

        Reality: They’re 7-5 & with the injuries to Cutler & Forte they’re unlikely to finish strong, but before that this was the third or fourth best team in the NFC & the biggest threat to the Packers undefeated season. This team was much better than I expected.