Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Week 2: 96 points, none of them interesting

CORRECT PICKS
Pittsburgh 26, Buffalo 3
Jacksonville 13, Atlanta 7
Indianapolis 22, Tennessee 20
Green Bay 35, N.Y. Giants 13
San Francisco 17, St. Louis 16
Dallas 37, Miami 20
Detroit 20, Minnesota 17 (OT)
Chicago 20, Kansas City 10
Baltimore 20, N.Y. Jets 13
Denver 23, Oakland 20 (OT)
New England 38, San Diego 14

INCORRECT PICKS
Houston 34, Carolina 21
Arizona 23, Seattle 20
Cleveland 51, Cincinnati 45
Tampa Bay 31, New Orleans 14
Washington 20, Philadelphia 12

HIGHLIGHTS OF SELECTED GAMES
Pittsburgh 26, Buffalo 3
Another dominating performance (outside the red zone, at least) by the Steelers, who wore throwback uniforms from the glory days of the 1970s when the franchise was located in San Diego and was known as the Padres.

Indianapolis 22, Tennessee 20
The most disturbing thing for Colts fans this week was not that their team struggled against the Titans. They always struggle against the Titans. It was that the Saints looked so awful against the Buccaneers, calling into question whether Indy's opening night victory was really the accomplishment we all thought it was.

Green Bay 35, N.Y. Giants 13
There's something terribly wrong with the New York Giants, and for once, it isn't Eli Manning. Tiki Barber has pissed all over Manning and the coaches from the top of Rockefeller Center, but when is he going to shoot a stream at Michael Strahan and the rest of the defense? I'd settle just for Strahan, who sat out just about all of training camp giving handjobs to Jared from Subway and is now playing exactly like a guy who skipped all of training camp. Unfortunately for Strahan, Brett Favre was too busy carving up the Giants 10 yards at a time to gift-wrap a couple sacks for him.

San Francisco 17, St. Louis 16
Arizona 23, Seattle 20
First team to 8-8 wins the NFC West.

Cleveland 51, Cincinnati 45
Browns quarterback Derek Anderson surely learned his lesson last week when Charlie Frye, who had won the starting job in camp, was benched, then traded after one bad half against Pittsburgh. Trolling through the Internet on Monday morning, I came across a page that listed Anderson among the fantasy football "stud QBs" of the week for his 328 yards and five touchdowns (trailing only the Bengals' Carson Palmer, who had 401 yards and six TDs). Oh, Anderson had a hell of a game, but if you're in a league with someone dumb enough to even have Derek Anderson on his team, let alone start him, you should encourage that idiot to ride Anderson as long as he possibly can. In fact, I think I'm gonna start a brain-dead "fantasy" feature to compete with all the other sites out there that encourage fantasy "owners" to run to the waiver wire and claim whatever scrub had a career day. I'll even sell ads for BoDog! That way I can suggest that you unload LaDanian Tomlinson and his measly 5.8 fantasy points and snap up Anderson with his muscular 44.4. I'll be wrong, but so is everyone else. Notice that I'm not saying anything about the game. Three years ago, these same two teams played a 58-48 shootout that was the most ridiculously entertaining game I'd ever seen. This one was, believe it or not, just boring. Maybe I'm just over the Bengals. They didn't beat the Ravens last week; the Ravens beat themselves with six turnovers, and God (and physics) helped beat them with injuries. This week, the fershlugginer Cleveland Browns simply held onto the ball, and the Bengals were pussycats. Toothless, clawless, fixed pussycats. Browns fans can go ahead and rejoice, because they don't get much chance to do so anymore, and besides, its just nice to see Jamal Lewis leave cleat marks on a team other than the Browns.

Tampa Bay 31, New Orleans 14
And it wasn't even as close as the score indicated. You see something like this, especially after last week's debacle in Indianapolis, and you start to think that maybe last season really was a miracle. As in, maybe God really did intervene to lift the fortunes of the Saints and the spirits of New Orleans. God, however, only stays involved through the divisional round of the playoffs. Once you make it to the conference championship game, he's made it clear that you're on your own. Further, if you aren't sufficiently grateful -- for example, coming off as "America's Team" rather than "God's Team" -- well, God might just send his Cherubim and Seraphim down here to start working miracles for someone else. Like, maybe healing Cadillac Williams' bruised ribs enough for him to score two touchdowns, Yes, as the Bible makes clear, he's a jealous God, but he has every right to be. He's God.

Detroit 20, Minnesota 17 (OT)
Remember last week, when our local CBS affiliate (KCCI) passed up the Patriots-Jets contest and brought us the epic Chiefs-Texans collision, with all its putative local interest? This week, it was the Fox affiliate's turn in the barrel -- or, rather, its turn to put viewers in the barrel. KDSM passed on both Packers-Giants, the week's top NFC game, and Cowboys-Dolphins and instead carried Vikings-Lions. And carried it with its usual grainy, bleached-out UHF signal. Thank God for the Sunday Ticket. What I saw of this game only confirmed that Tarvaris Jackson is, hands down, the worst starting quarterback in the NFL today. In two games, he's 30-of-56 for 329 yards, 1 touchdown and 5 interceptions. And more than one-quarter of those "passing" yards are actually rushing yards by Adrian Peterson after taking two dumpoff passes. (Take out those two plays, and Jackson's 40.0 QB rating falls to 25.6.) Sure, Jackson had a 1-yard touchdown run, but only after Peterson got him all the yards up to the 1. I'm afraid to look at what Vikings fans are saying about the team this year, because, after all, Minnesota is 1-1 and could be 2-0 if they'd gotten a break in overtime Sunday, right? Well, yes, but any team that, in order to appear competitive, has to count on the defense scoring touchdowns, or the opposing QB throwing interceptions in the end zone, or the opposing QB getting hurt and being replaced by future sports-bar magnate J.T. O'Sullivan for two quarters, or starting the season with games against the Falcons and Lions, is in more trouble than you can imagine. Lions fans also may be tempted toward giddiness over their team's first 2-0 start since 2004 (when they finished 6-10), but they might want to cool it, too. For all Jon Kitna's grit in Sunday's game -- and he is a tough litttle bastard, no doubt -- the guy has thrown end-zone picks two weeks in a row. (Carson Palmer did that a lot, too, the first couple years of his career; now I know where he got it.) He's also not going to stay healthy if he continues to take the kind of beating he's recieved so far in this very young season, and all the team has under heat lamps in the back is O'Sullivan and perpetual project Dan Orlovsky. One more thing about Detroit: First-round wideout Calvin Johnson, who is happily not a bust after all, has taken a certain amount of shit in recent days over his offhand comment that he's been having success because he is "just kind of a natural athlete." What kind of fucked-up world do we live in when a football player gets ripped for recognizing that he has God-given talent and that some things come easy to him? The kind that's overpopulated by Around the Horn media retards, obviously. Same as always.

Chicago 20, Kansas City 10
If I were a Bears fan, I'd have enough to worry about with Rex Grossman turning in another stellar 1-touchdown, 2-interception performance and with Chicago needing a Devin Hester punt return touchdown to win their home opener. Just about the last thing I would need -- if I were that hypothetical Bears fan -- is to read running back Cedric Benson's comment after the game: "This was a statement, a statement for the team." That statement, unfortunately, appears to be: "The Kansas City Chiefs, right now the worst team in the NFL (or at least in the AFC), can come into our home field, where we're playing our first real game since the Super Bowl, and essentially play us even." When a team like the Patriots really feels the need to make a statement, they go and kick the crap out of a 14-2 team. When the Bears need a statement, their offense comes out of the tunnel and fucks itself in the earhole for four quarters while waiting for the defense and special teams to bail it out. That statement is getting awful repetitive.

Baltimore 20, N.Y. Jets 13
Huh. Nobody's videotaping, and yet the Jets still can't win. Yes, their starting quarterback was out. So was the Ravens'.

Denver 23, Oakland 20 (OT)
Two weeks, two victories over marginal-at-best opponents squeaked out at, literally, the last second. Also, two times that Jason Elam has been crowned as the ice-water-in-his-veins hero even though the only reason the Broncos needed him to win the game at the end was because he missed field goals earlier. I hate that shit.

New England 38, San Diego 14
The week's biggest game is discussed in nauseating detail here.

Washington 20, Philadelphia 12
On three separate occasions during the preseason, I heard announcers discuss the pronunciation of Eagles backup quarterback Kevin Kolb's name. The L is silent, so it's pronounced "cob" rather than "cole-b." This is critical because when 70,000 fans are chanting it in unison at the Linc in mid-October, it's important that they get it right so Andy Reid understands what they want: Kevin Kolb to come in and take sacks because his receivers can't get open and his line can't protect him.



KA-POWER RANKINGS AFTER WEEK 2
Down and Distance's exclusive KA-POWER RANKINGS are back for their third year. The product of a simple formula, the rankings have predicted 10 of the last 17 Super Bowl winners. Further, 14 of the last 17 Super Bowl winners finished the regular season No. 1 or No. 2 in the KA-POWER RANKINGS system. Unlike with other, lesser rating systems, no opinion is involved in formulating these rankings. None. Teams are ranked on a centigrade scale, with 100 representing the NFL's strongest team and 0 its weakest. Don't like where your team is ranked? Blame science. (Key: WK2 = This week's ranking. WK1 = last week's ranking. POW = KAPOW-ER centigrade score)
WK2WK1TEAMPOWWK2WK1TEAMPOW
1 3Steelers 100.001710Bengals45.12
2 7Patriots 80.391823Ravens 44.58
3 2Texans 74.42 18Cardinals44.58
4 5Colts 72.112029Bears 42.92
513tPackers 69.772130Browns 32.68
6 1Vikings 66.402224Raiders 30.61
712Cowboys 59.872319tEagles 30.58
8 9Lions 59.4324 4Chargers 29.96
913tRedskins 58.572525Rams 28.63
10 6Seahawks 56.952619tDolphins26.53
1122Jaguars 49.992721Giants 25.18
121549ers 49.012826Jets 16.28
1316Broncos 48.892917Bills 12.47
1427Bucs 47.853028Saints 5.78
1511Titans 45.773131Chiefs 5.05
16 8Panthers 45.393232Falcons 0.00

PICKS
THIS WEEK: 11-5
SEASON: 24-8 (75.0%)
(2006 through Week 1: 21-11, 65.6%)
(2005 through Week 1: 18-14, 56.3%)

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