Archive for October 2010
Last week: 6-8, making me 47-53-5 on the season. That’s 47% correct against the spread for the season. I don’t think I’ll be taking over the gambling prognostication world anytime soon.
A little late getting these up today, but I did get the Yahoo! picks in on time. There are only 13 games this week, so getting up over 50% is going to be some tricky shiz.
San Francisco -1 Denver (In London! “‘Ello, guvnah, fish and chips, let’s overrate our World Cup team!” (Isn’t that what British people say?))
At Dallas -6.5 Jacksonville
At Detroit -2.5 Washington
At NY Jets -6 Green Bay
At St. Louis -3 Carolina
Miami -1 At Cincinnati
At Kansas City -7.5 Buffalo
At San Diego -3.5 Tennessee
At Arizona -3 Tampa Bay
At Oakland -2.5 Seattle
At New England -6 Minnesota
At New Orleans -1 Pittsburgh
At Indianapolis -5.5 Houston
And in Sam’s 11 Points game — after Brett Favre drunk texted his way into oblivion last week, I’m 5-2 in Sam’s chosen games — I like the Dolphins. That’s unless the refs give the AFC North team a free one again. (Thanks for that last week, btw.)
Last week: 7 correct, 7 incorrect, and one push: yet another 50% week.
For the season, I’m now at 41-45-5, 47.67% correct. This would seem to be pretty bad, yet I’m fourth in my league of 18 people — those oddsmaker types know what they’re doing. Meanwhile, I’m also only one win behind Eric Allen of ESPN, who’s only picking teams to win and not against the spread. If I were Chad Ochocinco, I would eat Corn Nuts in the end zone over Allen’s prone body while tweeting, or something along those lines. Then again, if I were Chad Ochocinco, it’s unlikely I’d be anywhere near an end zone. (Hey-o!)
The picks – a lot of favorites to cover this week:
Pittsburgh -3 At Miami
At Atlanta -3.5 Cincinnati
At Kansas City 0 Jacksonville
At Tennessee -3 Philadelphia
At Chicago -3 Washington
At New Orleans -13 Cleveland
At Baltimore -13 Buffalo
San Francisco -3 At Carolina
At Tampa Bay -3 St. Louis
At Seattle -5.5 Arizona
At San Diego -2.5 New England
At Denver -8.5 Oakland
At Green Bay -3 Minnesota
At Dallas -3 NY Giants
And for the 11 Points game (5-1 so far), I like Minnesota. Favre tends to play well against crappy odds, and his / the Vikings’ odds are pretty crappy.
I know I’m unlikely to update this site until the NFL picks on Friday, so I just wanted this to be the image on my homepage:
Last week: 7 of 14 correct, an improvement over the dreadful Week 4, but still a totally unexciting 50% correct. For the season, I’m now at 34-38-4, 47.2% correct. Considering I’m in pretty bad shape with my pseudo-stats-based picking methods, it’s time to go back to the more fun “screw it, it makes sense at the time” method and bring this record back up over 50%.
San Diego -8 At St. Louis
At Houston -4.5 Kansas City
At New England -2.5 Baltimore (it’d be nice if both lost)
New Orleans -4 At Tampa Bay
At Philadelphia -3 Atlanta
At NY Giants -10 Detroit
At Chicago -6.5 Seattle
At Green Bay 0 Miami
At Pittsburgh -13.5 Cleveland
NY Jets -3 At Denver
At San Francisco -6.5 Oakland
At Minnesota -1.5 Dallas
Indianapolis -3 At Washington
Tennessee -3 At Jacksonville
Pick for the 11 Points weekly game: New England. I’m 4-1 in these games so far. Word.
And as for Roethlisberger’s return: Yes, a starry-eyed, moralistic naïf side of me would have been pleased if the Steelers had traded him, so send me a sandwich board. But anyone who buys into the NFL’s veneer of higher purpose and selfless glory, instead of recognizing that the product is built for entertainment and not for inspiration, is taking a stance that’s always going to be a sad letdown. (It’s just like politics, except sports produce much more moral outrage among the public despite having no meaning or impact on society at large.) Despite my feelings on Roethlisberger the individual, which are exclusively negative and sketched out, I will be cheering for the Steelers’ team this Sunday. No matter how much we wish the opposite were true, and even though the occasional counter-example like Charlie Batch or Troy Polamalu pops up, believing that pro sports will reflect higher principles is a POV that’s been proven wrong again and again and again.
(That said, you’re an idiot if you explicitly defend Roethlisberger, which is common among the dumbest, homer-est ranks of Steeler fans. Those who call in to sports radio at 11 p.m. on a weeknight are a good example: While recently in town for work, I heard one jag call in and say the alleged victim couldn’t be trusted because she’s “a blue-collar girl”. That put the tally of positive vs. negative uses of “blue-collar” by Pittsburghers at 105,000 to 1.)
So go Steelers, and may you live up to the hype.
Ouch.
Last week was hella ugly: only four of 14 correct against the spread, which brought my season ATS record to a literally sub-par 27-31-4. Steelers lose, my 11 Points streak ends, and I was at the bottom of my Pick ‘Em league.
That said, a sample isn’t statistically significant until you have an N of 30 or more, so I’ll stick with last week’s picking formula for another week. Week 4 is always unpredictable anyway, what with the desperate teams trying to catch the last train out of Lost Season station.
(Rationalization is the greatest.)
And finally, while I was initially pissed about blowing the 11 Points Seahawks pick, I have my own site and can keep this pick thang going as long as I want. What. So once Sam posts which game he’s chosen to predict, I’ll post picks for that game on this site in the Twitter-friendly format. Laska the dog is bout to get housed.
Jacksonville 0 At Buffalo
At Cincinnati -6.5 Tampa Bay
Atlanta -3 At Cleveland
At Detroit -3 St. Louis
At Indianapolis -7.5 Kansas City
Green Bay -2.5 At Washington
At Carolina -1 Chicago
At Baltimore -7 Denver
At Houston -3 New York Giants
New Orleans -7 At Arizona
At Dallas -7 Tennessee
San Diego -6 At Oakland
At San Francisco -3 Philadelphia
At New York Jets -4 Minnesota
Update: Sam’s game this week is Chicago and Carolina; I take the Bears – everyone in Chicago seems ready to write them off, but I think Carolina is imploding much more dramatically. (And I know it’s already halftime, but you can consider my ATS pick as obviously pro-Chicago.)
As the web’s foremost self-appointed authority on chicken nuggets (healthy or otherwise), I had to repost this picture from Early Onset of Night (h/t Gizmodo) of chicken-nugget raw material.
If you’re grossed out, you could always picture nuggets as fried strawberry soft-serve. (Or you could use my healthier nugget recipe, which preceded Jamie Oliver’s. Dude needs to stop biting my style.)
And yet I know I’ll still end up eating them.
