Friday, January 12, 2007

where slack-jawed yokels and sex bombers go down.

Colts @ Ravens (-4) - Peyton Manning blows against actual defenses that can get to him, and the Ravens are one of them. It pains me to pick them because of the pomposity of Brian Billick and Ray Lewis' styling by SI as "God's Linebacker," but Baltimore's defensive line will make Peyton see dead relatives.

Eagles @ Saints (-5) - It's been a nice run for Jeff Garcia and the Eagles, but this is the week where he remembers he's Jeff Garcia. New Orleans' defense is spotty and Philly's is rendered spotty by injury, so you go for the shoot-out and take the home team.

Seahawks (+9.5) @ Bears - Sexy Rexy slings enough rapid-fire cumshot passes in bad areas to make the most subpar of cornerbacks look like Pro Bowl fodder, so this is the game most likely for an upset. The problem is that everyone's taking the Seahawks with that line, even with their patchwork secondary, and they won by the grace of Tony Romo's bad hands last week, not because of anything they did on offense. It's asking a lot to pull that luck two weeks straight, but the foot of Seattle kicker Josh Brown will do it.

Patriots @ Chargers (-5) - Hardest game to try and pick, but the Pats did lose to a Plummer-led Broncos last year, and no Rodney Harrison makes the defensive woes worse, which means Fantasy Jesus gets a chance to run all over the place. Schottenheimer's due to stop fucking up, and this is the team that's stacked enough to do it with, as long as Philip Rivers doesn't get the jitters.

2 comments:

The Almighty Ajax said...

Re: Seattle/Chicago, of course I'm going with my Bears. But this isn't a game that's going to be decided by the things that are getting covered in the national media. (I.e. "Will Rex Grossman choke?")

The weather will be shitty in Chi-town, so as I see it, which team gets the lead is going to be determined by the running game and who manages to get short fields. 80-yard bombs on 2nd and short will not signify in that situation.

1) Alexander couldn't run for shit against Dallas last week -- he had 65 yards total on 20ish carries, and a lot of that was from one 20-yard scamper once every Dallas player's testicles had gone into the up-and-locked position after the Romo Incident -- and the Bears are stout against the run in the early parts of games. (They do slacken up when they have a lead and don't mind you running out the clock on yourself, so you can generally disregard the "X, Y, and Z had a 100-yard game" stat.)

2) Seattle's OL < Chicago's DL. Hard to run in that situation. My only real concern is 3rd and long passing downs, where the secondary hasn't managed to close the deal lately and get off the field. That gets the guys up front tired, and can throw the game up for grabs.

3) The Bears D is turnoveralicious, and the special teams are runbacktastic. Rex Grossman is money when he only has a 40-60 yard field to work with. Let alone a fumble or a pick in the opposing team's red zone, which happens a lot in Bears games.

--- Ajax.

Signal to Noise said...

I want to see how stiff the Bears D-line actually is with Tank Johnson back. All your points are completely and utterly valid (esp. weather and run), but for some reason this is the one home team I think will falter. Hasselbeck has defined "inconsistent" for the whole year and Alexander had a Madden Curse season, but I think the Hawks are bearing down and refuse to lose.