Week Three Picks, Random Ruminations

 About halfway through last Thursday's game, watching the Bills clearly outplay the Miami Dolphins, I looked at my picks for the week and thought I had a budding disaster.

Well, sort of. I don't put money on these things, which tends to limit the damage.

But I picked Miami and gave 2 1/2 points, so that one went south pretty fast. Then it dawned on me why the Packers were three-point underdogs against the Colts.  Starting QB Jordan Love was injured. I saw the play where he got hurt, the light from the TV struck my retinas and it registered in my consciousness and everything.

Then, days later, I made my picks. And I forgot Love was out, and that Malik Willis, awful with the Titans last year, would be starting. I forgot because I'm an idiot, apparently.

Should I change the pick? The game was still days away. I make my own rules here, it's my damn blog, and nobody is reading it, anyway. What's the harm? The game hasn't started.

Nope. I'm not going to change anything past the beginning of the first game of the week, usually Thursday, so as to leave the date & time of the post as it was. I rode with the Packers pick, and surprise, I won. Or they won, in another, more accurate way of looking at it.

Not only was the week not a disaster, but I went 10-5-1 against the spread (ATS) to up my record for the year to date to 19-11-2. Had I bet $110 to win $100 on each game this year, I would be up $690. So far, I've done well, beating experts at major websites and people who charge money for their insights. Suck it, experts! 

No, I am not going to bet real money on this stuff. Part of being smart is understanding how much you don't know, and every week, there will be much I don't know. The one thing I do know, however, is that I can't afford a disastrous week, like say that 4-9 week of picks I put up last year. A couple of those could do some damage with real money on the line.

Nor would I recommend, at this point anyway, that anyone put up real money based on my picks. Unlike certain celebrity politicians, I am capable of feeling guilt. I do not want the responsibility of losing some poor fool a bunch of money, unless, of course, I am the beneficiary.

So, as always, take these picks with a grain of salt. Bet no money! Gambling used to be a sin, and may be again someday!

Oh, who am I kidding. Nobody's reading this. I bet there isn't one bastard still out there, is there.

Is there?

Thursday

Patriots +6.5 vs. Jets

Sunday

Giants +6.5 vs. Browns

Bears +1.5 vs. Colts

Vikings +2.5 vs. Texans

Saints -1.5 vs. Eagles

Chargers +2 vs. Steelers

Buccaneers -6.5 vs. Broncos

Packers +3 vs. Titans

Raiders -5.5 vs. Panthers

Dolphins +5 vs. Seahawks

Cardinals +3 vs. Lions

Cowboys +1 vs. Ravens

49ers -7.5 vs. Rams

Falcons +4 vs. Chiefs

Monday

Bills -5.5 vs. Jaguars

Commanders +8 vs. Bengals

Last week: 10-5-1

Season to date: 19-11-2

Week Two Picks, Thoughts on Week One If I Think of Any

Week two of the NFL season arrives tonight, so I'm just going to keep this somewhat short and sweet in order to leave plenty of time to lay around and nap and so forth today, as any retired person should aspire too. One is never too old to have aspirations.

Week one went pretty well for me, especially considering I don't watch preseason games or read up on injury reports or even think much about the games before I make the pick. This makes that first week or two especially perilous, although it probably helps that I buy a season preview magazine every year and am aware of major trades and free agent signings. In the past I have avoided the early weeks when making picks, as well as avoiding the final week of mostly meaningless games (which I intend to do again this year). 

Anyway, I went 9-6-1 against the spread in week one. That earns me $240 in imaginary money (imaginary like Monopoly money, I mean, nothing to do with the square root of -1). Or maybe it's more like my own cryptocurrency exchange, which I have decided to call DickCoin. 

Spell check has helpfully informed me that "DickCoin" is not a word.

So how do I make my picks? I look for teams that I think are over or under valued by the public, as the oddsmakers, in their attempt to bring in equal amounts of money on both sides, will weight the point spread toward over valued teams and away from under valued teams. I tend to pick teams that got blown out the week before, assuming that these people are professionals and will play better the following week. Unless, of course, the team simply sucks (looking at you, Panthers). Also, since I believe my guidelines work slightly more often than not, I pick all the games, because the more chances I have, the more likely it is that my slight statistical advantage will show itself. That's just math.

Point spreads over a touchdown make me very nervous; picking the favorite in those games, I feel, leaves me too open to the dread "back door cover," where the loser scores a late, meaningless touchdown to cover. I forgot this in week one when I picked the Bengals, though since they lost anyway, somehow, inexplicably, to the Patriots, it didn't really matter.

Other quick thoughts: the NFL needs to do a better job vetting the fields in these international games. The game in Brazil was played on a hockey rink. The two dumbest franchises in the league right now seem to be the Panthers and the Browns, both of whom made very bad decisions at the quarterback position and may be set back for years to come. The Panthers traded what ended up being the first pick in a quarterback-rich draft for a guy roughly my size in a draft not so rich, and the Browns traded three first-rounders and gave a huge, fully guaranteed contract to a guy who didn't play for most of two years and is a total creep.

Incidentally, that makes eight first round picks the Browns have spent on quarterbacks in 26 drafts since they re-entered the league in 1999. None has worked.

Okay, not so short and definitely not sweet. Enough, then. Picks for week two:

Thursday

Dolphins -2.5 vs. Bills

Sunday

Raiders +8.5 vs. Ravens

Chargers -6 vs. Panthers

Saints +6.5 vs. Cowboys

Buccaneers +7.5 vs. Lions

Packers +3 vs. Colts

Jaguars -3 vs. Browns

49ers -5.5 vs. Vikings

Patriots +3.5 vs. Seahawks

Jets -3.5 vs. Titans

Giants +1.5 vs. Commanders

Rams +1 vs. Cardinals

Bengals +5.5 vs. Chiefs

Steelers -2.5 vs. Broncos

Texans -6 vs. Bears

Monday

Falcons +6.5 vs. Eagles

Last week: 9-6-1

Year To Date: 9-6-1

NFL Predictions for 2024

 In the interest of filling the many idle hours of my retirement, I have decided to bring my old sports blog back to life and write about this NFL season, on a regular, weekly basis, assuming my general lack of self-discipline and laziness and other personal flaws allow.

In the past, I have used this blog solely for Onion-style fake sports stories, intended as humor, and while I reserve the right to write more of those, I'm going to play it straighter here. Hey, sports is serious stuff, amiright? Also, I have another outlet, really, for my humorous stuff (see killedbyfish.blogspot.com).

I still have some work to do to clean up the silly stuff here, like the Ken doll that sort of resembles George W. Bush, to give myself a ghost of a chance of being taken seriously. I mean, who's going to pay attention to a guy who thinks he's a Ken doll who thinks he's George Bush?

Yeah, this is serious stuff. I'm going to start with my predictions for division winners, playoff teams, and the Super Bowl, and (at least for now, as I write this paragraph), make picks vs. the spread on all the week's games. Full disclosure: I never actually bet actual money on any of these games, because 1. I really hate stress, and just being right/wrong provides plenty of excitement and motivation, and 2. I don't have any actual money. Also, 3. gambling was widely considered to be sinful and a sign of depravity before it became the wholesome family activity we know it as today.

Also full disclosure: I've been a Kansas City Chiefs fan since 1968.

So without further ado, let's start with my predictions for the season.

AFC Division winners:

Buffalo Bills, Baltimore Ravens, Houston Texans, Kansas City Chiefs

wild cards: New York Jets, Cincinnati Bengals, Los Angeles Chargers

NFC Division winners:

Dallas Cowboys, Detroit Lions, Atlanta Falcons, San Francisco 49ers

wild cards: Philadelphia Eagles, Green Bay Packers, Los Angeles Rams

AFC Championship: Baltimore over Buffalo

NFC Championship: San Francisco over Dallas

Super Bowl LVIV (if I got the stupid Roman numerals right):

BALTIMORE OVER SAN FRANCISCO

Just so you know: I've been making Super Bowl predictions since 1986. That's 38 years, and in that time I've correctly picked the winner four times (10.5%) and correctly picked a conference champion 15 times (19.7%). I was much better at it the first ten years, hitting on two winners and seven conference champions. The last decade or so has been rather lean.

And now, my picks vs. the spread for week one. You can pretty safely disregard these, assuredly, since I'm not even confident enough, you might say, to put one red cent on any of them.

Thursday:

Ravens +3 vs. Chiefs

Friday:

Eagles -2.5 vs. Packers

Sunday:

Falcons -3 vs. Steelers

Bills -6.5 vs. Cardinals

Titans +3.5 vs. Bears

Bengals -8.5 vs. Patriots

Colts +3 vs. Texans

Jaguars +3.5 vs. Dolphins

Saints -4 vs. Panthers

Giants +1.5 vs. Vikings

Chargers -3 vs. Raiders

Broncos +6 vs. Seahawks

Cowboys +2.5 vs. Browns

Buccaneers +3.5 vs. Commanders

Lions -3.5 vs. Rams

Monday:

49ers -4 vs. Jets

And that is that. As Dak Prescott would say, "here we go!"

I will be tabulating the results from week to week, counting up right and wrong picks, as well as pretending that I have $110 to wager on each game (winning $100 for a correct pick, losing the $110 for each incorrect one). Again, this will provide me with plenty of motivation to put a few minutes of thought into it, as I hate being wrong, hate stress, and, frankly, my make-believe money is roughly as real to me as cryptocurrency.

Thank you, enjoy the games!