Friday, December 02, 2005

Week 13 picks

After this weekend's games, the NFL regular season will be three-quarters of the way through. That means if you climb a high, high mountain, you'll be able to see the first streaks of off-season melancholy faintly visible on the horizon. For now, however, we'll put such mortal thoughts out of our minds and ride shotgun as the season churns along and our story lines wrap around each other like, I don't know, spaghetti, maybe.

The week's biggest story line, of course, was Lions cornerback Dre' Bly, who did to quarterback Joey Harrington the same thing that the Vikings tried to do to a boatload of let's-call-them-ladies a couple months back. And, whoa, this week the Lions host the Vikings! Spooky! Meanwhile, Brett Favre, who has beaten the Bears eight of the last nine times he's faced them, will tow the smoldering wreck of the Green Bay franchise into Soldier Field. There, the Packers will stare into the two faces of the Chicago Bears: the ravenous defense, and an offense that plays like it overindulged at the taco bar right before game time. And that's just the NFC North.

My predictions for all of this week's winners and losers are posted on The Writers' Picks at The Mirl. Do I think the Titans can beat the Colts this weekend? Yes I do. Do I think the Texans can beat the Ravens this week? Yes I do. Am I willing to go out on a limb on either game? Yeah, right. The farthest I'll go is to not make either game the week's Best Bet. Hard cheese. Did I mention I picked Baltimore to beat Pittsburgh a couple weeks back? Make sure to check the standings, as Down and Distance has crawled back into a tie for eighth place out of 31, with a record of 118-58 on the season. For you math majors out there, that's better than two-thirds.

Finally, my entry in the Football Outsiders Loser League -- The Christian Okoye Coalition -- is tied for a respectable 36th place out of 215 entries.

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