Thursday, September 17, 2009

NFL 2009: Week 2 Picks

Summary of Week 1:

Not a bad week for my predictions. And a great first week of football with so many close games and nail-biting finishes. In the first week of NFL, nothing should come as a surprise. Till then, only speculation dictates who is "supposed" to be good or bad. Still, we definitely had a few oddities this first week.

Surprises: Who would have expected that tipped catch and TD run by Shockley to steal the game for the Broncos from the Bengals in the waning moments of the game? What about Jake Delhomme maintaining his playoff form of last season with 7 turnovers? The Packers-Bears offensive game: miserable O line for Packers, topped only by Jay Cutler's recklessness with the ball with 4 INTs. The Ravens offense seems to be for real. To end the week, the Patriots and the Chargers got off to cold and slow starts to begin their season against the Bills and lowly Raiders. Oh and do I need to mention the Raiders' showing up against the Chargers?

Not-so-much-a-surprise: Big Ben taking the Steelers on a game- winning scoring drive....again. Drew Brees throwing 6 TDs against the Lions. Adrian Peterson running all over the Browns. Indy and Peyton taking care of business as usual. Rex Ryan carrying over his exotic defensive schemes to the Jets. Ray Lewis leads the Ravens on D anyways without Rex Ryan. the Rams struggle to score. No sophomore slump for Matt Ryan or Joe Flacco (at least not yet). And Brady is back to his winning ways at end of games. Finally, the Bills lose in dramatic fashion against all odds on Monday Night Football allowing 12 points in last 2 minutes (Note that this last one is not in my "surprise" list because the Bills have made a habit of doing such things on Monday Night Football these last few years.)

Madden Curse update: One half of the Madden Curse has already come true with Troy Palamalu's injury, making him miss 4-6 weeks. The watch is still on monitoring Larry Fitzgerald of the Cardinals. But, this is the first time the Madden cover had 2 players. So will be interesting to see how the curse pans out this time around.


My Week 2 Picks:

This week on, I am going to include the spread for each match up too. The line may change by game-time, as it constantly does. The ones here are at the time when I write this post. But note, I am not doing my picks taking the spread into account. My picks are just for win-loss category, but for some picks am going to give my over/under prediction (not gonna keep track of it though) too just to keep things interesting.

Panthers (+6.5) at Falcons:
Will Jake rebound after his miserable outing at Philly? At least the fans booing are not gonna be his home crowd. I think he is not going to be so bad, but not good enough to beat Matt Ryan and the Falcons, who are yet to unleash Micheal "the burner" Turner.
My Pick: Falcons

Vikings (-10) at Lions:
Last week the Lions D struggled to contain Brees. This week they will struggle to contain Adrian Peterson. And Favre will get to his milestone of 271 consecutive starts breaking the record held by some former Vikings DE.
My Pick: Vikings

Bengals (+9.5) at Packers:
The Packers have spent the entire week trying to clean up their offensive line protection problems, which broke down their offense last week against the Bears. I am sure there will be an improvement, but I do not expect the pre-season like display from them. It will be interesting to see how last week's tragic (for the bengals at least) last minute TD by the Broncos will affect them. Will they be devastated or fired up. We know how the Packers are preparing.
My Pick: Packers

Texans (+6.5) at Titans:
The Texans can possibly never play upto their potential. Definitely not against the Titans on the road. They might cover the spread though.
My Pick: Titans

Raiders (+3.0) at Chiefs:
I like the Chiefs' chances against the Raiders if Matt Cassel plays. But if he does not, which is likely, I do not see Brodie Croyle beating the men in Silver and Black.

Update:
Looks like Cassel is indeed likely to play, so I change my pick to the Chiefs
My Pick: Chiefs

Patriots (-3.5) at Jets:
Have the Patriots offense shaken off the early rust through the first 58 minutes of the Bills game? Even if they have, its going to be a tougher task to move up and down the field against the Rex Ryan scripted defense. But I think Belichik, even though he has a young an inexperienced defense personnel, will come up with enough schemes to rattle the young Mark Sanchez.
My Pick: Patriots

Saints (+1) at Eagles:
Interesting matchup for Brees against the Eagles secondary. Its not going to be as easy as against the Lions. But Brees would not have to score a whole lot, especially with McNaab probbaly not starting for the Eagles.
My Pick: Saints

Rams (+10) at Redskins:
The Redskins offense may be anemic. But it should score enough to beat the Rams. Not sure if they cover the 10 pts though.
My Pick: Redskins

Cardinals (+3) at Jaguars:
The Jaguars seem inept at offense (from last week's showing against the Colts). If Warner can take care of the football I see the Cardinals coming out of Jacksonville with a win.
My Pick: Cardinals

Bucs (+5) at Bills:
Trent Edwards should be able to score enough against the Bucs D, maybe involving TO a little more to avoid his tantrums rather early in the season.
My Pick: Bills

Seahawks (+1) at 49ers:
Seahawks looked good last week. But that was against the Rams.....does not count for much. This again is a NFC West rivalry that is closely fought the last few years. I see the 49ers winning this at home.
My Pick: 49ers

Steelers (-3) at Bears:
The Steelers should take care of business at Soldier Field. Jay Cutler is facing a more complex and better version of the 3-4 scheme defense than he faced against the Packers and we know how well that went. The Steelers, meanwhile, will try get their running game going. They might have a chance with Urlacher out.
My Pick: Steelers

Browns (+3) at Broncos:
This could end up like the Broncos - Bengals game last week. With hardly any offense on both sides and maybe a mistake here or there (or some tough luck) could decide the game. Toss up for me, but am picking the home team.
My pick: Broncos

Ravens (+3) at Chargers:
The Chargers managed to salvage a win last week. But with Tomlinson not his usual self, the onus will be on Philip Rivers to carry their offense. Sproles might have a burst here and there, but will be shut down by Ray Lewis and the Ravens D for the most part of the game. The key matchup in my opinion is if the Chargers D can shut down the Ravens offense, which has found new life this year.
My pick: Ravens

Giants (+3) at Cowboys:
This is going to be a tough one as it always is between these two teams. But I think Dallas is going to have that little more energy to pull through in their first regular season game in their new stadium.
My pick: Cowboys

Colts (-3) at Dolphins
If the Colts can stop the Miami run and their Wild Cat sets, they should comfortably take care of business and head out of South Florida. If not, its going to be a long night for Indy, because Miami can very easily keep Peyton out on the sidelines by running the clock with their ground game.
My pick: Colts

Record:
Last Week: 13 - 3
Year to date: 13 - 3

1 comment:

  1. Good job my friend. Keep writing. You have a regular now
    Vishnu

    ReplyDelete