True or false: history will eventually look back upon 2008 as the year that professional football began a gradual decline. As is the case with anything in life, we can only base the answer on one thing: the goings on inside our head. That’s our reality, and we say the answer could be true. Fantasy football is hitting a wall (people have played it long enough that most of the exciting patterns and scenarios have played themselves out multiple times and are no longer exciting) and the games themselves interest us much less than they did, say, three years ago. Maybe it’s just a down year. Maybe the local squad’s brand of the game is souring us. But we have a hunch more of you feel the same way. That, of course, won’t stop us from blindly making this week’s picks:

Oakland Raiders at Baltimore Ravens: Only a hard-core gambler could love this game.

Arizona Cardinals at Carolina Panthers: And so begins the Cardinals’ slide.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Dallas Cowboys: And then Wade Phillips is fired.

Washington Redskins at Detroit Lions: Washington becomes the 2003 Vikings by losing to every bad team possible.

Cincinnati Bengals at Houston Texans: Five people are excited about this game.

Buffalo Bills at Miami Dolphins: The Bills are for real in an NFL sense, but what about an existential sense?

St. Louis Rams at New England Patriots: Super Bowl rematch!

San Diego Chargers at New Orleans Saints: Crumpets for everyone except the underachieving teams. Well, then, crumpets for nobody!

Kansas City Chiefs at N.Y. Jets: We’ll take the Jets, but a gamblin’ man would take the 14 points. Seriously, the Jets aren’t very good.

Atlanta Falcons at Philadelphia Eagles: Just because.

Cleveland Browns at Jacksonville Jaguars: Another game nobody cares about.

N.Y. Giants at Pittsburgh Steelers: Big Ben gets KOed.

Seattle Seahawks at San Francisco 49ers: ish.

Indianapolis Colts at Tennessee Titans: Colts should be 1-6, and yes we’re bitter.

Fasola-link! The eyballing game.

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