Well….that was interesting.
Last Sunday was the first time in quite a while where I was able to sit down, crack open a fine craft beer, grab some nachos and actually watch football, as opposed to reading recaps on ESPN the next day on the bus.
And I watched a lot of conventional wisdom explode a la Death Star.
Seriously, who thought Denver would collapse at St. Louis, of all places? A few folks thought the Chiefs would trounce Seattle, but I wasn’t among them, and my faith in a Seahawk return to the playoffs is waning. What happened to the Saints this season? Sheesh. And we all know Washington is bad, but really, we didn’t know it was get-trounced-by-the-Bucs bad.
Meanwhile, the Arizona Cardinals are sitting pretty with the league’s best record, and the Patriots, written off weeks ago, are on a rampage. So…well, all right then. I was wrong. I only take solace in the fact that others were just as wrong.
So with my utter wrong-ness in mind, here are this week’s picks. (Winner in italics.)
Kansas City at Oakland: The hapless Raiders can’t catch a break.
Cleveland at Atlanta: Oh, Browncoats. Come on. I hate picking against you, but I just can’t avoid it here. Shape up.
Tennessee at Philadelphia: Good news for the Eagles — the Titans are not the Packers.
Detroit at New England: Remember the rampage? It continues.
Green Bay at Minnesota: With or without Adrian Peterson, this is an easy Pack win. And Asgard weeps yet again.
Jacksonville at Indianapolis: Does anyone else want to see Colt McCoy take a snap or two for the Colts? Anyone? Just me, then? Fine. I like symmetry.
Cincinnati at Houston: We can no longer predict when the Bengals will act like the Hulk and when they’ll revert to being puny.
New York Jets at Buffalo: Dude, all that snow. No way the Jets are ready for that.
Tampa Bay at Chicago: You beat a bad team, Bucs. Don’t get cocky.
Arizona at Seattle: I can’t believe I’m picking this, but I am. It’s Bizarro world. Remember that Bizarro guy from Superman? Yeah, it’s that weird.
St. Louis at San Diego: I was just in San Diego last week. Really nice city. Also, the Rams aren’t consistent.
Miami at Denver: There is no way Manning drops two in a row. Right? Right?
Washington at San Francisco: Oh, man. If the owner wasn’t basically Jerry Jones’ Mini-Me, I’d start feeling bad for D.C. The team name isn’t helping, either.
Dallas at N.Y. Giants: Dallas is coming off the bye. The Giants are coming off a disaster.
Baltimore at New Orleans: Home Sweet Dome isn’t so sweet. The Saints are in crisis.
Bye: Pittsburgh and Carolina start Thanksgiving early. Only one of them has any right to be thankful.
Last week’s record: 8-6. It felt worse than it was.
Season record: 104-56
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Michael J. Martinez 