This, presumably, is the week the other shoe drops. When it comes to picking games, we’re normally about as useless as [redacted] on a bull. Somehow, some way, we’ve managed to go 13-3 each of the first two weeks, which is good enough to give us a top 100 national ranking out of nearly 100K participants in the U Pick’em contest. We’re also a combined 5-1 in our three fantasy leagues (RandBall: Ask us about our fantasy team). We’re not ready to go on a hilarious, profanity-laced tirade about fantasy conversation etiquette, but we don’t mind talking about it from time to time. The mock and ridicule for taking Peyton Manning No. 5 overall will be, we are sure, a consistent theme throughout one particular league in which we are 2-0. That’s fine. We’re fully prepared to fail.  For now, we’re planning our work and working our plan. Let’s start right now:

*Arizona at Baltimore: The Cardinals still hurt themselves with too many mistakes, and they hurt others with their words. We’ll take Baltimore until the hurting stops.
*Buffalo at New England: The Patriots have intercepted a signal. It’s J.P. Losman holding his palms up, wondering what to do next. NE wins tidily.
*Detroit at Philadelphia: Interesting game, one of those deceiving 2-0 vs. 0-2 types of things. Detroit, the 2-0, is a 6-point dog. We’d run from that line in Vegas; here, we’re just picking winners and Philly gets on the board.
*Indianapolis at Houston: Another interesting game. Houston has figured out that having a competent QB can do wonders, but we’ll still take Indy.
*Miami at N.Y. Jets: Chad Pennington appears healthy enough to play for the Jets; hence, we’ll take the Dolphins. Can you hear the Meadowlands boos already? No? They’re being drowned out by cries for Kellen Clemens that are more desperate than cries for ice water in hell.
*Minnesota at Kansas City: A classic matchup of, um, er, two teams that under the right circumstances might have combined for 78 yards passing. We hate to say we’re being swayed by a guy the Vikings didn’t start the preseason with, but we’re guessing Kelly Holcomb is going to start at QB. We’ll be homers and take the Vikings. Notice, too, that the over-under line is 33. That’s tiny. We have a feeling the over will hit. Just a hunch.
*San Diego at Green Bay: This game is legit, and Green Bay — we’ll say it, Local Quipster — is better than we thought. But they still haven’t proven they can consistently run the ball, and they’re giving up 4.4 yards per carry on defense. LDT has to break out sometime. This is his week. Chargers win.
San Francisco at Pittsburgh: SF, our sexy sleeper pick, gets its [redacted] handed to it this week. Steelers in a rout.
*St. Louis at Tampa Bay: We thought TB was terrible until the Bucs routed the suddenly awful Saints. We knew the Rams were terrible, but nobody would listen. St. Louis is in disarray, pointing fingers and calling names. Bucs go to 2-1.
*Cincinnati at Seattle: Shaun Alexander can fall forward for his 100 yards, but we still don’t care much for the Seahawks. Let’s roll the dice with a road underdog and take the Bengals.
*Cleveland at Oakland: We have little to say. Oakland, at home and coming off a gritty effort and getting [redacted] against the Broncos, get the call. Raiders.
*Jacksonville at Denver: We picked the Broncos to make the Super Bowl in a beverage-induced “bold predictions” post a few weeks back. We’ll keep rolling with Denver, even if they kind of remind us of the annoying rich kid who always gets his way and never gets his comeuppance.
*Carolina at Atlanta: Both teams kind of smell like feet right now. We’ll take the Panthers.
*N.Y. Giants at Washington: Washington is this year’s Minnesota — good start, tough finish (we’ll say 3-0 leads to 7-9). For now, though, we’ll take them.
*Dallas at Chicago: Best game of the week. Wow, and in a stunning upset it’s on Sunday night. Nice deal, NBC. Try harder, ESPN. We’re sensing one of those “Good Rex” games against a Dallas pass D that looked pretty shaky when we saw them against the Giants. Yeah, let’s tie this pick to Rex. Good thought. Bears.
Tennessee at New Orleans: New Orleans can’t be that bad. Right? Let’s try the Saints one more time. We can quit whenever we want. Honestly.

Your thoughts, of course, are encouraged. Don’t forget to make your U Pick’em picks, and remember: if you haven’t signed up yet, the contest throws out your worst four weeks at the end of the year, so there’s still time. Also, the week-to-week group winner gets a free guest post. So, one more time: Click here. Sign up for our group. Group name: RandBall. Password: Gooses. Pick some games. Knock us off our high horse. It’ll be fun.

Mystery link! Via Roughkat, who is as obsessed with the Patriots cheating as we are.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 21st, 2007 at 8:07 am and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.