READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL: Week 3 The Power of One

Four teams, two destinies, one record. Will they meet again in the Championship rounds? Doubtful for a couple, but it's still pretty cool.

AFC North

Week 1 Tie Week 2 Loss Week 3 Win

Week 1 Win Week 2 Tie Week 3 Loss

NFC North

In case you don't remember, each one's tie was against their division rival.

The Running Game: Week Five More Than a Feeling

So Week 5 and Brady is back. Right away, they began to slay the Cleveland Browns. A friend sent me a text saying that he must be angry. Well, I can't blame him. I mean, the only thing that is his fault is not cooperating with the deflategate investigation by not turning over his phone records, but I understand why. He was texting smack talk about other players, which is his right, but no one wants that kind of thing made public.

Angry Brady's "icy stare of death" courtesy of CBS Sports.

In other words, the suspension was for a bullshit reason, and it isn't his fault that his first game back is against the local pee-wee team. Let's see how he fares against... well, I'm not really sure that there is a team truly on par with the Patriots right now. Pittsburgh? Green Bay in Lambeau? Don't get me wrong, I still hate them, but they're damn good. There is no denying that.

The other big story this week is my picks. Once again, my calculation's picks were identical to those of my benchmarks, and I'm not sure what to make of it. Knowing the success rate of those metrics, I made some upset predictions in my Gut picks and am a little taken aback:

	Calc	Benchmarks	Thoughts and Gut pick	Winner
ARI at SF	ARI	ARI	Palmer is out, but Stanton is decent and Larry Fitzgerald. ARI	ARI
NE at CLE	NE	NE	AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA NE	NE
PHI at DET	PHI	PHI	Last week must have stung Detroit, and Philly isn't 4-0 good. DET	DET
CHI at IND	IND	IND	Personally, I think Luck is overrated, but Chicago is Chicago. IND	IND
TEN at MIA	MIA	Split	Miami is not very good, and the Titans have Murray now. TEN	TEN
WAS at BAL	BAL	BAL	I just don't think Baltimore can win this one. WAS	WAS
HOU at MIN	MIN	MIN	Oh, Osweiler, how I love you, but I'm so sorry. MIN	MIN
NYJ at PIT	PIT	PIT	Jets? Yeah, no. PIT	PIT
ATL at DEN	DEN	DEN	Siemian is out, and Matty Ice is on fire. ATL	ATL
CIN at DAL	CIN	Split	Dak Prescott is the new Tom Brady, only more likeable. DAL	DAL
BUF at LA	LA	Split	Buffalo shut out New England, and the benchmarks are split. BUF	BUF
SD at OAK	OAK	OAK	LET'S GO OAK-LAND! OAK	OAK
NYG at GB	GB	GB	PACKERS!!!!	...

What?

Going for Two: Week Eight Interlude

CBS asked the following question just before cutting back to the Tennessee at Houston game:

Can Cleveland be the team that finally puts a dent in the Bengals perfect record?

To which I said, "Nnnnnnooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo," because Cleveland, to use a quote from my dad in years past, can't win a free prize at a pig raffle.

More analysis has been done of my calculation, and along with not really being suitable as a full-season calculation, it had some issues, so it's been improved. It only predicted 9 of 14 games last week, instead of 11, but it has an average through Week 7 of 67%, and it's 2 for 2 so far this week. We'll see.

Back to Football: Week Seven Sunday

Sadly, but perhaps rightly so, karma struck Seattle and gave them their overdue loss on a clearly faulty call (or did it? I have no idea right now, and it's not like I can just look these things up, sheesh). I can't tell you with certainty that the call was wrong, since I did not see it. I did hear plenty of analysis of it from the CBS Football guys, however, while I was doing things on my work computer. I mean, if the football guys say it was wrong, it was probably wrong.

There were so many disappointments this week, but it's a bad week to be from a [geographic region] that starts with the letter C. Chicago and Cleveland really let me down with their losses to Miami and Jacksonville (seriously, Jacksonville?). Chicago is really the more disappointing though - they were at home. I can't be that upset about Cincinnati this week though, because that pick was a real gamble, and perhaps just wishful thinking. Fortunately, one of the teams from a C [location] lost to the Packers.

Seattle and three of the four C losses today leave me at five for nine on the early Sunday games. I've picked Kansas City, Arizona, and Dallas for the late games, and I don't think the Niners have a chance at 5,280 feet.

I took a break from working out my work issues (you have no idea) to work on this post and watch some NFC East action with Dallas and the Giants. I picked Dallas, and they're kind of letting me down. I watched a surreal interception caused by a receiver that fell down as the ball was rainbowing through the air. It was almost in slow motion as the lone defender grabbed the ball and started running the other way. The touchdown that followed was, as Linda Richman would say, like buttah. 

Commercials came on and I was transfixed by a song and image of a large man going to Akron and his old high school. Soon, it was revealed to be Lebron James and I'm still having major feels about this commercial. 

Sh*t, dude, that is some heavy stuff. It also encouraged me to start a weight training regimen again.

But as the subject says, back to football: Dallas came back from their turnover and are going to finish up the half with a tie, instead of down by seven. But really, I should get back to my work stuff, get a meal of sorts, and do more work things.

Sundays are for Football: Week Eleven

On account of me having the National Cold, I slept away the morning, then turned on the TV in time to see, like, half of the early games in overtime. The big upset so far is the Jets over the Rams. I am watching the overtime of the Cleveland Browns and the Dallas Cowboys. In this game, the Cowboys are gonna win. I can feel it.

--Time Passes and the Cowboys won. No other overtime games ended in a flipping tie either, thank you.--

The late game that I'm gonna watch - the only one that I have the option of watching - is the one that I'd like to see. Silver and Black vs Gold and Black, or the Raiders vs. Saints. The Saints are up 14 to nothing, and I predict some good things for the Saints this year, despite their bad start.

--Time Passes--

Halftime has passed, and The Saints are up 21 to 7. Now, technically, ideally, I should want the Raiders to win, because I like Oakland. But let's face it, the only thing intimidating about the Oakland Raiders are its fans. We have a giant bark, but a teeny, tiny bite. We suck at football, and it is okay. Maybe someday, the Raiders will be good, and that will be sweet. Today, however, I want the Saints to make a huge comeback. I also swear that I saw one of the Saints doing Gangnam Style after the last touchdown, and that is just awesome. Except that these Saints keep excessively celebrating, and they need to cut that sh*t out before they get more penalties.

--Time Passes--

Now, at the end of the late games, with two more games to go in the week, all but one of the teams that I picked to win this week actually did win. Several of those teams started out the games behind, and then had to go into overtime, and then won the game. Even if my last two predictions turn out to be wrong, I am at 77% for this week.

I made a last minute change for the Sunday night game, after looking at the teams that the Ravens and the Steelers last defeated. Both have good records, with the Ravens having a slightly better record, but the Steelers seem to have been defeating slightly better teams (like the Giants). They're also at home, so I've changed my gut pick to the Steelers tonight. They better not let me down.

I'm also hesitant about the Chicago Bears this weekend. I didn't like the tie at the end of the 49ers game last week, and am worried that it is going to shake my boyfriend's confidence. However, he will be at home, and on Monday night. The Bears do have a better record, but they are coming off of a loss, at home even.

Here are my two parallel predictions: If the Steelers lose, and the Ravens win, then the 49ers will defeat the Bears. But if the Steelers win, the Bears will win too. In other words, there will be a single team with an 8&2 record at the end of Monday night.