Utility Infielder

Week 5 NFL Picks

2007-10-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

8-6 last week, 32-26-4 on the season.

Seattle (+6)
Arizona (-3.5)
Baltimore (-3)
San Diego (+1.5)
GREEN BAY (-3)
HOUSTON (-5.5)
Tampa Bay (+10)
Jacksonville (-2)
Cleveland (+17)
NY GIANTS (-3)
Carolina (+3)
TENNESSEE (+8)
WASHINGTON (-3.5)
BUFFALO (+10)

Does anyone else watching the MLB playoffs think that Cal Ripken looks like Marlon Brando in "Apocalypse Now"? Anyone?

Week 4 NFL Picks

2007-09-28T14:42:00.000-07:00

8-5-3 last week, 24-20-4 on the season. Byes start this week, so there are only 14 games on the docket. Here's my picks for this week, home teams in caps:

Seattle (-2)
Baltimore (-4)
Tampa Bay (+3)
DETROIT (+3)
DALLAS (-13)
Green Bay (-2)
Houston (-3)
Denver (+9.5)
Oakland (+4.5)
NY Jets (-3.5)
Philadelphia (-2.5)
Pittsburgh (-6)
Kansas City (+11.5)
New England (-7)

Week 3 Picks

2007-09-21T13:45:00.000-07:00

I was away from a computer all of last week, and never got a chance to post my week 2 picks, which looked like this:

Seattle -3
NY Jets +10
Houston +6.5
Chicago -12.5
Cincinnati -7
Dallas -3.5
Denver +10
Detroit -3
Indianapolis -7
Jacksonville -10
Green Bay Pk
New England -3.5
Tampa Bay +3
Buffalo +10
San Francisco +3
Philly -7

So I went 7-8-1 for the week, after going 9-7 in week one. 16-15-1 for the season.

Another full slate of games this week, as the NFL has smartly done away with the practice of starting the bye weeks after week 2. Here's my picks, home teams in CAPS:

SEATTLE -3.5
Arizona +8
ATLANTA +3.5
Dallas +3
Jacksonville +3
Indianapolis -6
Minnesota +3
Buffalo +16.5
NEW YORK JETS -3
OAKLAND -3
PHILADELPHIA -6
PITTSBURGH -9
GREEN BAY +5
TAMPA BAY -3.5
WASHINGTON -3.5
Tennessee +4.5

I'm pretty confident in the Washington and Tampa Bay picks; I think both teams have a good shot to make the play-offs in the NFC. I picked Buffalo because I don't want to lay 16.5 points ever.

Week 1 NFL Picks

2007-09-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I started off the prognosticating season on the right foot, as Indy repeatedly torched Jason David (Washington State Alum) to roll to an easy cover, 41-10. It wasn't surprising that the Colts were able to put up a lot of points, but I don't think anyone was expecting them to shut down the Saints offense so thoroughly. I'm not ready to crown their asses, but that was an impressive start to the season.

With the excitement of two full slates of games until the bye week to distract me from the Mariners, on to the picks:

Atlanta (+2.5) over MINNESOTA

Tarvaris Jackson is even worse than Joey Harrington, plus he has that awkward sounding 'r' in the first sylable of his name.

Carolina (+1) over ST. LOUIS

I just don't like this Rams team. I can't quite explain it.

Denver (-3.5) over BUFFALO

HOUSTON (-3) over Kansas City

I think these teams are in for long seasons.

WASHINGTON (-2.5) over Miami

This line is way off. I think Washington's got a good chance to make the playoffs, and Miami's a 5-6 win team.

NEW YORK JETS (+6.5) over New England

I don't think the Jets will win outright, but I think they have a good shot to cover at home. New England's good, but I don't think they're quite as good as popular consensus makes them out to be.

Philadelphia (-2.5) over GREEN BAY

I think Philly could be the best team in the NFC when McNabb is healthy.

Pittsburgh (-4.5) over CLEVELAND

Are these the two fattest fan bases? Discuss.

JACKSONVILLE (-7) over Tennessee

Jacksonville's defense is going to be really good this year. Just my opinion.

SAN DIEGO (-5.5) over Chicago

Not very confident in this pick.

Detroit (+1.5) over OAKLAND

Worst game of the week?

SEATTLE (-6) over Tampa Bay

I always pick the Seahawks.

New York Giants (+6) over DALLAS

Just a hunch, but I think Dallas is really overrated this year. Plus I hate the Dallas Cowboys.

Baltimore (+2.5) over CINCINNATI

I'm very bullish on Baltimore this year.

SAN FRANCISCO (-3.5) over Arizona

Another line that's way off; it suggests that these are equal teams on a neutral field, and I think San Francisco is a superior team.

Well, that's the picks. Give me yr questions, opinions, and anonymous slander in the comments.

The Prodigal Blogger Returns

2007-09-06T15:25:00.001-07:00

It's been awhile, hasn't it? Football season has sneaked up on me, and the first regular season game is currently two hours away. I just haven't had the time to put up a more in-depth NFL season preview, so I'm going to do a condensed version of what I did last year, with my play-off picks and my top-ten picks to either out-play or under-play their Vegas pre-season over/under win totals. I'll also put up my pick for tonight's game.

Without further adieu, here are my top-ten over/under picks, with the o/u wins in parenthesis:

St. Louis (7.5) Under
Green Bay (7.5) Over
Jacksonville (9) Over
Oakland (5) Over
Dallas (9) Under
Kansas City (7.5) Under
Miami (8) Under
Philadelphia (9) Over
Detroit (6) Over
Tampa Bay (7) Over

And for my play-off picks:

AFC Division Champs: New England, Indianapolis, Baltimore, San Diego
AFC Wild cards: Jacksonville and Pittsburgh

NFC Division Champs: Philadelphia, Green Bay, New Orleans, Seattle
NFC Wild Cards: Washington and Tampa Bay

And for tonight's opener I like Indianapolis (-6) over New Orleans. I would lean toward taking the over, but the line (52.5) is a little too high for me to be real confident in taking that pick.

Opening Day

2007-04-02T10:52:00.000-07:00

I am so fucking excited for baseball season. Mariners open today, Felix is on the mound against the A's, it doesn't get any better than that. There's also a ton of games on TV through the day; I just caught the 2nd inning of Yankees-Devil Rays. I must admit to having a silly infatuation with the D-Rays; they're everything you want in a bad baseball team. What I like best about them is that they're interesting to watch: young with a bunch of interesting prospects, amazingly athletic. Their lineup is like a roll call of Baseball America top prospect lists through the years: B.J. Upton, Dioner Navarro, Delmon Young, they're packed with young talent. They also have the craziest man in baseball you may not know about: Elijah Dukes. This dude is intense. Big rap sheet, his father is in prison for murder, came from the same high school as Gary Sheffield, Carl Everett, and Dwight Gooden (there must be something in the water there. Something crazy). He's also 6-2, 250 lbs, and athletic enough to play centerfield, which is insane.

In a related note, my baseball viewing season got off to an auspicious beginning. I turned on ESPN, and proceeded to watch Dukes coax a full-count walk against Carl Pavano, one of those little things a baseball fan loves to see, and then B.J. Upton comes up, runners on first and second, two outs. What proceeds to happen was a double whammy of ethic proportions for a Yankee hater: Upton with a ground ball up the middle, past a diving Jeter! (this was not a very hard hit ball, and Jeter couldn't make two full steps to his left. But who am I to argue with his Gold Glove Defense?) Then, Dukes made what should of been a baserunning mistake, trying to go first-to-third on that ball, then hesitating when he rounded second, but he's bailed out by the girly throwing arm of Johnny Damon! Seriously, Damon had a through of about 120 feet, and he three-hopped the ball, and pulled the third baseman twenty feet off the bag; there hasn't been a worse arm in baseball since Otis Nixon. And you know what, this is what baseball is all about: getting enjoyment out of Derek Jeter's lack of range and Johnny Damon's girly throws. Okay, maybe that's not what baseball is all about, but it's a source of entertainment for me. (Cut me some slack, it's opening day and I'm delirious).

UW basketball, baseball season begins

2007-03-04T13:37:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's win over UCLA was the kind of game I've been expecting from UW all season. This has been a disappointing season, but I think this a very promising team with a lot of young talent, that should be really good next year. I like their chances in the NIT, and they do still have an outside shot at making the NCAA tournament. They enter the Pac-10 tournament with momentum, and I think if they can reach the title game, they should make the field of 64. Even if they don't, I think the Huskies have a good shot at winning the NIT, which would be nice to have on the mantle heading into next year. I don't know much about this year's recruiting class, so I think I'll have to check that out and get back to you. A lot of next year depends on whether Spencer Hawes returns, and I think it'd be in his best interest to come back for at least one more year. He still has holes in his game, specifically his rebounding intensity and turnovers. With the depth of this year's draft class, I think he'd be better off to work on his game for another year, then leave next year as a top-5 pick, most likely.

Baseball is finally here! Not even an awful offseason for the Mariners can temper my enthusiasm. Here's what I plan on doing soon: I'd like to put out player rankings for fantasy purposes and general debate, take a look at the pre-season win over/unders for MLB, like I did for NFL (Gambling!), and maybe put out previews for some teams that I find interesting, surprising, etc. I'll also probably revise the earlier post I did on the Mariners, with the pitching additions. I don't think there will be much change, but it's worth a shot. For what's it's worth, the Mariners over/under is 76.5 wins, they're 100-1 to win the world series, and 10-1 to win the AL West. Actually, that 10-1 to win the west isn't a bad bet; I think the West looks pretty much even. I think Oakland was kind of lucky last year, and they've taken a step back, I'm not sold on the Angels offense, and Texas is Texas. I also like the over for the Mariners wins.

Gonzaga's Josh Heytvelt and some Redshirt Arrested with Marijuana, 'Shrooms

2007-02-10T12:12:00.000-08:00

The World Wide Leader is reporting that two Gonzaga basketball players, Josh Heytvelt and Theo Davis, were arrested last night on suspicion of drug possession, with the Spokane Review confirming the story, and reporting that Gonzaga officials will hold a press conference later today. The fact that two basketball players got arrested on drug possession charges isn't of much interest, particularly the fact that they had marijuana on them, but I'm pretty sure this is first time I've heard of an athlete arrested on possession of psychedelic mushrooms. I must say this greatly improves my opinion of Josh Heytvelt, who has already impressed me this year on the court, particularly the UW game in which he dominated Spencer Hawes for most of the game. The fact that he can do that and also have intimate knowledge of what it feels like to have all the bones in one's arms disappear, or have one's head detach from the rest of his body, is amazing. There's so many questions that this prompts:

-What do two basketball players who happen to be 6-11 and 6-9 do when they want to want to trip balls in Spokane, Washington? Do they go out into the woods? Roll around on the grass in the quad? Do they hole up in their dorm room listening to the Mars Volta? If shit gets too heavy, do they start chain-smoking? Afterwards, do they hug because the experience has brought them so much closer?

-How many other athletes, across the country, have done shrooms? Any hallucinogen? Marijuana and cocaine arrests are so boring; what players are doing the really cool drugs?

-Why the hell is possession of mushrooms a felony? I could maybe see sale or distribution, due to the dangers of mushroom identification, but why is simple possession a felony? It's the Pacific Northwest, there's trees and there's rain, so there's mushrooms everywhere. Does this go for all mushrooms? What if Heytvelt and Davis had just been foraging for chanterelles or morels? Maybe they're some of those weirdos who forage for mushrooms to sell to restaurants. Is that illegal? How do you draw a line between different varieties of mushrooms? Would one be prosecuted for accidentally picking the wrong mushrooms?

Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how this all goes down. Personally, I'd like to see the players get off scot-free because I like seeing people beat the asinine US drug laws. But that's just my opinion. I'm interested to hear what others have to say about this. Give me your thoughts in the comments.

Huskies over Cal

2007-02-08T21:56:00.000-08:00

Just finished watching the Huskies beat Cal at home, 79-71. It was the first time in a couple games that I've really got to watch the Dawgs closely which was nice. I'm trying to keep this short, so I'll just run through a couple things:

-Good game overall. Cal has given UW a lot of problems over the last couple years, so it's nice to get a win against them, even if they were shorthanded.

-Jon Brockman was an absolute manimal, 22 points and 14 rebounds. He's really holding the team together right now. I tried to focus on watching him on the defensive end, which you should try some time. He's an incredible position defender, and amazing at denying the ball in the post.

-Justin Dentmon made some asinine turnovers. What's annoying about that is that it wouldn't be that hard to fix. If he could tighten up on turnovers, he could be the best point in the Pac-10, but he needs to make the effort.

-Brandon Burmeister got a ton of minutes, and it looks like it was in place of Phil Nelson. I don't mind that at all, as I think Burmeister's a much better defender and rebounder, and probably an equal offensive player at the moment.

-Artem Wallace scored 8 points. I don't know how that's possible. He even made two free throws.

-Since my friend Jeremy pointed it out to me last week, I couldn't help but notice: Ryan Appleby is always the first guy back on defense. Even though he's not a good defender, it's not for lack of effort.

-Spencer Hawes looks like he's almost back to normal.

-Huskies are now 4-1 in their last 5 games. They close out the season with a pretty tough stretch, playing six ranked teams in seven games, but they get most of them at home. Should be interesting.

That's about it. Stanford on Sunday, should be good.

The Death of Vlog

2007-02-06T23:50:00.000-08:00

We have reached the most boring stretch of the year in terms of American sports. There is absolutely nothing of consequence occurring at the moment in the world of sports, so I would like to go on a tangent regarding a recent pet peeve of mine, a pet peeve currently confined to the Internet, but threatening to make its way into everyday discourse.

My issue is with the word "vlog," or rather the fact that "vlog" should not be an accepted new word. "vlog," meaning "video log," falls under a category of words known as blends, similar to compound words in that they are the product of combining two existing words, with the difference between a compound and a blend being that in a blend, part of the combined words is deleted. Examples of English blends are smog (smoke+fog), brunch (breakfast+lunch), and infomercial (info+commercial). It is most likely that "video" and "log" were blended into "vlog" as a means of equating it with the similar and related blend, "blog" (web+log). The major linguistic difference between "vlog" and "blog" lies in the laws of new word coinage; more specifically, that "blog" conforms to these laws, whereas "vlog" does not. The coinage of a new word must conform to possible English sound and spelling combinations, and "vlog" does not fit this profile. This is the reason why I can't make up a word along the lines of "ndbkae" because English words do not start with the combination of "nd" and don't string together the four consonants "ndbk" at any time. "vl" only occurs at the beginning of a word in English in the case of adoptions of foreign proper nouns, usually from Russian, such as the name "Vladimir" or the city "Vladivostok", which do not fall under the category of word coinage, as they already exist in a different language and are merely adoptions. "Blog" conforms to the rules of coinage, such as in words like "block" or "black." It would be reasonable to create a word that conforms to this form, such as "blick" or "bleck," which are possible new words, as long as one attaches a meaning and could get "blick" or "bleck" into common usage. "Vlog," though, should not be allowed to continue functioning as a free morpheme, and most certainly should not be accepted into the English language. Now, if it were to be "v-log" or "vidog" or "vilog," then I could get behind it as a new term, but until this change is made, I'm putting a stop to this nonsense "word." Anyway, v-logs are awful; utterly boring, self-indulgent tripe.

Husky Basketball Mid-Season Report

2007-01-28T14:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's victory over the OSU Beavers marked the halfway point in the Huskies' Pac-10 season. The conference season has been a disappointment to say the least, evident in the Huskies' 3-6 conference record, with the Huskies (hopefully) hitting rock bottom in a blow-out loss to Washington State just over one week ago. Acquiring a bid for the NCAA tournament will most likely require winning six or seven of their remaining conference games, and a strong showing in the conference tournament. The Huskies do have the benefit of having five of the remaining nine conference games at home, where the Huskies have been clearly superior throughout the season, with only one home loss. My intent in this post is to highlight the Huskies' strenghs and weaknesses, both on an individual and team level, through the use of statistics, as a means to evaluate the season performance and to illustrate what must be improved if the Huskies are to succeed in the second half of the Pac-10 season. Being the huge nerd that I am, I've tracked the Huskies statistics, both cumulative and in conference, throughout the season, and in addition to the traditional counting statistics, I've kept some more advanced, and hopefully revealing, metrics. I've kept most of the stats that John Hollinger provides to ESPN.com, including True Shooting Percentage; Assist, Rebound, and Turnover Rate; and also per 40 minute points, rebounds, assists, fouls, steals, and blocks. I wish I was better with Blogger and/or Excel, so that I could figure out how to attach my spreadsheet to this post, but as of now I haven't figured that out yet. For now, you'll have to trust me on the numbers. I swear I'm not lying.

Looking at the team numbers, the Huskies as a team have one real strength: rebounding. For the season, the Huskies have grabbed 57% of all rebounds, a very significant advantage. This number drops to 53.9% for conference games, a total that is still very good. In particular, the Huskies are great offensive rebounders, an attribute that greatly enhances their offensive game. What's interesting is that this advantage is mostly created by one player: Jon Brockman. For the season Brockman has a Rebound Rate of 19.7, meaning that he grabs 19.7% of all rebounds while he's on the court. By comparison, the next closest Husky is Artem Wallace, with a Rebound Rate of 12.9. Brockman's rebounding really carries the team, as Spencer Hawes has been a fairly inferior rebounder for a college seven-footer, though Brockman does receive some help from Justin Dentmon and Adrian Oliver, both of whom are very good rebounders for guards. Also of note is the complete lack of rebounding that the Huskies get from Ryan Appleby, who's posted a season Rebound Rate of 3.7. Dentmon and Oliver have accumulated rebounds at a rate of roughly 2.5 times better than Appleby.

The Huskies have also had one glaring weakness this season: defense. This has been a real source of disappointment, due to the early season emphasis from the coaches and players on the importance of defense. What's more, there doesn't seem to be a real obvious cause for this deficiency. The Huskies aren't clearly athletically inferior to their opponents, and they have plenty of size. If I had to venture a guess, I would blame a lack of communication and continuity, which is an issue with such a young team, though it is an issue that more commonly manifests itself on the offensive side of the ball, which has been one of the Huskies' strengths, though their offensive performance has been far from perfect. The defensive issues have been readily apparent in conference play in particular. In conference games the Huskies have yielded an opponent's True Shooting Percentage of 60.3%, which is an astronomical figure. True Shooting Percentage adjusts shooting percentage to account for three-pointers and free throws, and from personal observation, it does seem as if the Huskies have been victimized by the three point shot, with the Arizona game really sticking out in that regard. It seems like the Huskies yield an inordinate amount of wide-open three point attempts, with the main culprit being slow defensive rotation, which also is apparent in the amount of easy lay-ups and dunks they give up. This is one place where it seems like the Huskies have missed Joel Smith and the departed Harvey Perry. The Huskies' perimeter defense would really benefit from one or two more athletic bodies to add to the rotation. I also think that the Huskies increased reliance on the scoring of Ryan Appleby in conference play is a detriment to the defense, as Appleby doesn't strike me as a particularly adept defensive presence. I don't think it's in the best interest of the team to have Appleby on the court for 30+ minutes a night, but with the offensive contributions of Quincy Pondexter and others limited in conference play, Romar's hand is forced. I don't mean to denigrate Appleby's talents, as his offensive play in conference play (TSP of 66.3%, high assist and low turnover rates) has been a great aid to the team, but he does have holes in his game (defense and rebounding) that leave him best suited to a complementary rather than leading role. Whatever the cause may be, the Huskies have defensive issues that must be fixed if they wish to improve in the second half of conference play.

With the team strengths and weaknesses addressed, I'll move onto the individual players, and see what the stats have to say about their performance thus far.

Spencer Hawes: The Huskies best scorer has seen his performance drop off slightly in conference play, though through fault of his own. A bout with the flu and an ankle injury have limited him, and he still seems to be trying to get back to full strength. As much as I like his scoring repetoire and passing ability, he does have some holes in his game, much of which stem from a slight lack of aggressiveness and average athleticism. His rebound rate of 12.2 for the season and 11.1 in conference are very low for a seven-footer, and his shot-blocking abilities have dropped off in conference with the increased level of competition. I have one qualm with his offense: he doesn't go hard to the basket enough. In eight conference games he's only attempted 22 free-throws, compared to 101 field goal attempts. As good a foul shooter as Hawes is, if he could get that ratio closer to one free-throw attempt for every two field goals, it would really increase his scoring and overall offensive efficiency.

Jon Brockman: One of the few Huskies to raise the level of his game in conference. He's increased his offensive efficiency by hitting his free-throws more frequently, and he's also cut down on turnovers and fouls while taking a more prominent role in the offense. On a completely unanalytical level, he's an absolute joy to watch play, and I'm happy that he's the type of player who will stick around for four years.

Quincy Pondexter: His drop off in conference play has been pretty disappointing, but he also set the bar fairly high early season. His drop in scoring looks like one of the reasons for the struggles in conference, and he's been very turnover- and foul-prone in conference, which has led to less playing time. The Huskies need him to play better, because he's one of the best players on the team at creating his own shot and getting to the free-throw line, where's he's a bery good foul shooter. I wish he'd take more three-point attempts because he's been very accurate on three's all year.

Justin Dentmon: His level of play has risen from that of a season ago, but he's been erratic. Too often he's out of control, taking bad shots and making turnovers, which leads to a low TSP and a high turnover rate. He does seem to have figured out that he's not a very good three-point shooter, and has scaled back his attempts in conference to just one a game. Like Pondexter, when he's on, the team really benefits because of his ability to make his own shot and create easy looks for everyone else.

Ryan Appleby: Along with Brockman, Appleby has been one of the players to raise his game in conference. Appleby is a player who really benefits from the evaluative ability of TSP. Because he takes so many three-pointers, his field-goal percentage will tend to be lower than one would think with his shooting ability; with TSP though, his three-pointers are accounted for, and due to the fact that he's hitting a ridiculous 50% of his threes in conference, his TSP sits at 66.3% in conference. He's also a very good passer and rarely turns the ball over.

Phil Nelson: This guy can really frustrate me. It seems like he forgets that he's 6-8. Over half the shots he takes are threes, but he's only hit 29.4% on the season. Also, in 349 minutes this season, he's only attempted 3 free throws, which is really a pretty amazing ability to avoid getting fouled, and has not attempted a single free-throw in Pac-10 play in 183 minutes. His mid-range game looks to be pretty strong, but he doesn't use it enough. He has trouble asserting himself on offense, and seems content to let the game come to him.

Adrian Oliver: Intriguing. Another player who's improved with the start of the Pac-10 season. He's not a very good scorer or shooter, but he's a very good penetrator and passer, with the best Assist Rate on the team for the season and during conference play, where he leads by a wide margin (Assist Rate measures how many of the possessions that a player uses that end up as assists). In addition, he has the best assist-to-turnover ratio on the team in conference. He's a good rebounder despite his size, and one of the better defenders on the team, but he's very foul-prone, leading the team in fouls per 40 minutes on the season. I think he could be a beast in a couple seasons if his shooting improves, and he has improved his shooting in conference play, though he's also not taking shots as frequently.

Artem Wallace: Wallace has been playing more minutes as of late, though I'm not quite sure why. He can do one thing, rebound, especially on the offensive end, but lacks any other discernible skills. No offensive game to speak of, and every time he attempts a free throw an angel dies. If Romar ever sent in a player just to make really hard fouls in an attempt to injure opponents, ala John Chaney, Wallace would be the odds-on favorite.

Hans Gasser: A sentimental favorite of mine, due to his earnest expression while setting screens, and the fact that he once flipped off my ex-girlfriend at Earl's on the Ave. A decent rotation guy, he basically does what Mike Jensen did last year, stretching the defense with his ability to step out and hit the three, not really rebounding, and setting lots of screens. He doesn't turn over the ball, and he's a decent passer.

Brandon Burmeister: He's kind of been forgotten in conference play. All he does is shoot threes, though he does have good size for a guard and looks proficient rebounding and playing defense, but it seems like he's been the odd man out recently.

So that's the player-by-player breakdown. If I had to offer a solution for improving play in the second half of conference play, it'd be better defensive play, which should hopefully come with experience, and possibly the return of Joel Smith. Also, a number of players will have to pick up their level of play, most notably Quincy Pondexter and Phil Nelson, and Justin Dentmon has to be more consistent, which is going to be the result of an active choice by him to play more within his means. The Huskies will have to win the rest of their home games, including UCLA and Washington State, and then hope to get a couple road victories, with their easiest games coming at Arizona State and Oregon State, and may also have to win the game at Pittsburgh in three weeks. It's not impossible, but it won't happen unless improvements are made on both a team and individual basis.

Any other input is welcome. Drop your knowledge in the comments.

Husky Basketball Stats

(I'm pretty sure I figured out how to display the stats. Hopefully this link works. If not, I will have proved once again to be hopelessly inept when it comes to computers.)

NFL Playoffs: Conference Semi-Finals!!!

2007-01-11T18:58:00.000-08:00

Well, I went just 1-3 in the Wild-Card round, but I guess it could of been worse. I'm actually fine with the picks I made, and would probably make them again. It's kind of hard to predict that the Colts would come out and stuff Larry Johnson all day, while Trent Green decides to have one of the worst games of his life. The Eagles were in position to cover nearly all game long, but decided to let the Giants stick around and nearly make a comeback. As to the Seahawks, I'm just happy they won. I've come to the conclusion that they're kind of shitty, yet lucky, which I guess isn't that bad. Better lucky than good, right? I did nail the Jets-Pats game. I was annoyed early on when the Jets were keeping the game close, because I didn't want to see them get a cheap cover, but the Pats came through, thus ending the season of one of the least impressive 10-6 teams of all time.

The Jets had a lot of luck this season due to scheduling, etc., but I believe luck plays a much bigger role in the NFL than some would like to admit, and I believe the Jets have a young nucleus that could be very good in the future, if they play their cards right. Their offensive line is very talented and had two rookies on it this year, I like their receivers, and I think Chad Pennington will continue to win games if he's healthy. I like to make fun of how weak his arm appears to be, but at the same time I think that arm strength is one of the more overrated aspects in a quarterback. I thought it was funny when Jay Cutler's draft stock went up so much last year as the result of him having the strongest arm in the draft, based on velocity. How frequently does a quarterback throw a pass as hard as he possibly can in a game? Michael Vick has one of the strongest arms I've seen, but it doesn't matter when he's skipping passes to his receivers and forcing balls to Alge Crumpler in triple coverage. I'd rather have an accurate quarterback who makes good decisions as to when to throw the ball any day, and that's the category that Pennington falls into.

I really like this slate of second-round games. Every game is intriguing. I think Patriots-Chargers will be a great game, I love the combination of the Ravens defense and the Colts offense, I think Saints-Eagles could go either way, and I think Bears-Seahawks could be a strong upset possibility. The Bears seem to be moving backwards, while the Hawks seem to be improving, and they seem to have luck and momentum on their side. They also have experience playing in bad weather, which is important. Anyway, let's get down to the match-ups, with lines from Bodog.com, over/under listed after the teams:

Indianapolis (+4) @ Baltimore (42)

Best defense in the league against the best offense. What's more, Baltimore might be the best team against the run AND the pass, while Indy combines the best pass attack with one of the best run games. A definite unstoppable force versus immovable object game. I think what will be underlooked though, is the other main match-up, the Baltimore offense against the Colts defense. I think this is what will ultimately decide the game. Baltimore isn't great on offense, but they can do enough to win. Indy's defense, on the other hand, won't be able to do enough to win, in my opinion. I believe their defensive success in the first round against KC was mostly due to awful coaching by Herm Edwards, rather than their defense turning a corner. I think Baltimore will be able to grind the ball against Indy, and do enough through the air with play-action to keep Indy from stacking the front, as they were able to do against KC. My money's on Baltimore

New England (+4.5) @ San Diego (47)

I think this could be a great game. It seems like no one knows what's going to happen, even Vegas, which has given the official "We have no clue" spread, 4.5. San Diego's the best offense outside of the state of Indiana, but New England has a strong defense. I think the weakest of the four main units in this game is San Diego's defense. They're pretty strong against the pass, due to a great pass rush, but they have holes against the run, and the Pats are a strong running team. My pick all week long has been Whale's Vagina, but I've started to waver. It's the Marty Schottenheimer factor. He terrifies me. He's choked so often in the play-offs over the years, going way too conservative on offense to win. At the same time though, I don't know if he's had a team as strong as this one, and LaDainian Tomlinson is at the peak of his game. I'm going to stick with my initial reaction of Chargers, but I think this is my shakiest pick.

Philadelphia (+6) @ New Orleans (49)

This line has moved quite a bit this week; I think it opened at either 4 or 4.5. They've played once this year, with New Orleans winning 27-24 at home. I get the feeling that this game might come down to a field goal, so I would take Philadelphia and the points. I think either team could win this outright, and six points is just too large of a line. Both teams are really good offenses, and I think Philadelphia might have actually improved with Donovan McNabb out, not because Jeff Garcia's a better quarterback, but because it makes the offense more reliant on Bryan Westbrook. Philly could be scary next year with McNabb in, as long as Andy Reid remembers to get the ball to Westbrook more often. As good as Philly is, the Saints are probably their equal on offense. I do think Philly is slightly better defensively, though losing CB Lito Sheppard to injury really hurts them. I think New Orleans can have a lot of success in three and four wide receiver sets, though they have injury issues of their own, as Joe Horn may not play. I think there's going to be a lot of points in this game, and it'll be exciting as hell. Definitely watch it if you have the chance. I think it'll come down to a field goal.

Seattle (+9) @ Chicago (37)

As I mentioned last week, I am a shameless Seahawks homer. I don't think I'm irrational when it comes to them, but I may be a tad over optimistic in my evaluations of them. That said, I think they have a legitimate shot in this game, and I think they're a great pick to cover. I have worked to suppress the first Bears-Hawks game from this season, and ultimately, I don't think that examining that game is a very good method of looking at this one. These are very different teams than they were in week 4, when they first met. Chicago is not nearly as scary on defense with Tommie Harris and Mike Brown out, and Tank Johnson's various, ahem, distractions. The loss of Harris creates a cascade effect through the entire defense; they don't get as effective of an initial surge up front with him out, which hurts against the run and the pass. Without as strong a pass rush from the front four, they need to blitz more, which leaves them susceptible to the run and to big plays passing. On offense, Sexy Rexy Grossman has lost his confidence, and their passing game has been scaled back significantly, which actually benefits a Seahawk defense that is prone to giving up big plays. I was pretty impressed by the Seahawk defense last week, which really only gave up 13 points (Dallas returned a kickoff) to a very strong offense. They reminded me of the defense of last year, good at bending but not breaking, clutching up in big situations, pressuring the quarterback, and swarming to the ball. I think that the impact of losing Marcus Trufant and Herndon is overstated, because neither corner played very well at any point this year. As a team, the Hawks have been much more consistent the last few weeks, and they seem to be steadily improving. I think they should, at least, be able to keep this game close, and I think they could win it outright. Plus, there's a good chance it snows, which makes any game much cooler and important looking. Seahawks and the points!!! And I like the over!!!

Well, there you go. I plan on being firmly planted on the couch all weekend, drinking America's finest beer of 1893, Pabst Blue Ribbon. I think this could be a memorable weekend. Now, if only Sexy Rexy Grossman could take some pointers on "gunslinger's mentality" from Tony Romo.

Projecting the Mariners in 2007

2007-01-06T15:10:00.000-08:00

Hello there. I have been trying to avoid the Mariners as a subject of discussion as of late, due to the saddening ineptitude of their front office this offseason, but with the recent struggles of the UW basketball team, and the absolutely atrocious KC-Indy game on right now, I have turned to my trusty companion, the Interwebs, in an attempt to find solace regarding the prospects of the upcoming baseball season for the M's. One of my favorite aspects of the offseason is making projections for the upcoming season, and a simple search of the webs reveals that there is clearly no shortage of widely available forecasting systems for MLB. Of course, the gold standard for forecasting systems is PECOTA, published by Baseball Prospectus, but alas, it is yet to be unveiled for this upcoming season, and due to the proprietary nature of its formuli, I would feel squeamish about reproducing too much of its data in this freely available forum. The good news, though, is that there are a number of freely available forecasting systems that are also quite good, among them ZIPS, from Baseball Think Factory, Tango Tiger's Marcel, and a new system I've discovered this year, Chone, produced by Blogger's own Chone Smith, who has really done some impressive work this offseason, despite being an Angels fan. Chone ran r-correlations for the various forecasting systems about a month ago, and came up with these results for offensive projections for these three systems: ZIPS, .684, CHONE, .677, and Marcel, .664. Earlier research by Tango Tiger revealed that the strongest r-correlation a projection system can have is about .73, and all three of these systems come reasonably close to that figure.

With the individual player forecasts available on these sites, it's fairly easy to make a reasonable projection of a team's preformance for next season, particularly an offense's performance, just by making some predictions for playing time. A team's cumulative OPS corresponds amazingly well to their runs scored; i.e., a team with an OPS of 750 will score about 750 runs, within 10% in either direction. Last season, the Mariners' OPS was 749, and they scored 756 runs. The Giants produced an OPS of 746 and scored 746 runs. 15 teams in MLB last season had OPS and runs scored figures that differed by less then 20. This measure works really well for middle-of-the-pack offenses, which is where I figure the Mariners to be. This measure does not work as well when predicting a team's pitching performance, but it can still be used to make a rough estimate of runs allowed, and with the runs scored and runs allowed figures, one can estimate a team's Pythagorean record (explained here for the uninitiated). As it currently stands, I would expect the Mariners line-up for next season to look something like this, with my predicted PA's for each player in parentheses:

CF Ichiro (700)
3B Adrian Beltre (650)
DH Jose Vidro (500) (goddammit)
LF Raul Ibanez (650)
1B Ritchie Sexson (600)
RF Jose Guillen (500)
C Kenji Johjima (500)
2B Jose Lopez (600)
SS Yuniesky Betancourt (600)

This seems about right, though I have no clue what they plan on doing with Ben Broussard. I hope they don't plan on playing Vidro at 2B because he's useless in the field at this point. There was some discussion about him playing first, which makes me think they'll move Broussard for nothing, as Bavasi seems to enjoy doing that. Here's how I figure the bench distribution of PA's will look, if they keep Broussard:

Broussard (300)
Rene Rivera (ugh) (150)
Willie Fuckin' Bloomquist (200)
Mike Morse (100)
Jeremy Reed (150)

These are complete guesses, as they will probably make another terrible move that will alter the bench, most likely involving Reed or Broussard, but I can't predict the future. These estimates give the M's 6200 total PA, about what they had last year. Now, here's the projected OPS figures for each player, by CHONE, ZIPS, and Marcel:

Ichiro: 770, 789, 794
Beltre: 811, 779, 833
Vidro: 780, 726, 761
Ibanez: 762, 800, 812
Sexson: 842, 824, 854
Guillen: 795, 776, 800
Johjima: 785, 771, 774
Lopez: 775, 737, 739
Betancourt: 695, 697, 739
Broussard: 792, 805, 811
Rivera: 643, 545(!), 726
WFB: 697, 607, 665
Morse: 696, 715, 800
Reed: 741, 728, 725

Each system basically agrees on Ichiro, Johjima, Broussard, Sexson, and somewhat surprisingly, Reed. More variance on Beltre, Ibanez, and the young guys not named Reed. So here's the team OPS for each projection system: CHONE: 771, ZIPS: 757, Marcel: 784. The three systems come up with pretty similar numbers. The Mariners can be expected to score between 700-850 runs next season. Out of the three projections, I think the ZIPS numbers seem too pessimistic, and the Marcel numbers a bit optimistic. Marcel is the least sophisticated of the three systems, as it is just a three-year weighted average regressed to the mean, and adjusted for player age, and I think it may be a bit bullish on Beltre, Sexson and Guillen.

These run figures aren't too bad when you consider the scoring environment of Safeco. I don't think the Mariners problem will be offense. It's too bad they'll feel compelled to throw a bunch of AB's at Vidro, and the bench is going to be ugly, but the M's should be able to score enough to win. The biggest problem I see is the lack of depth. An injury to one of the big guys would really kill the offense.

My methodology for the pitching portion of the projection will be different than the hitters' portion. Because OPS allowed doesn't correlate to runs allowed the same way as OPS does to runs scored, I'm going to take the projected ERA figures by the three forecasting systems, then create innings pitched projections for each pitcher, and finally, add on the average unearned run figure for American league teams from last season (60). I'm going to err on the side of caution on the innings pitched figures due to injury concerns, etc.

Starting Pitchers (ERA by CHONE, ZIPS, Marcel), and innings projected by me:

Felix Hernandez (3.34, 3.71, 3.95) 190
Jarrod Washburn (4.14, 4.45, 4.47) 180
Miguel Batista (4.58, 4.62, 4.47) 180
Horacio Ramirez (4.85, 5.13, 4.54) 140
Cha Seung Baek (4.58, 6.02, 4.38) 100
Jake Woods (4.54, 4.73, 4.61) 100

Wow, that's an incredibly mediocre rotation. If it wasn't for the presence of Felix, I'd be tempted to call it a contender for worst rotation in the league. Even with Felix, it won't be very good. The worst part is that they had to pay good money to acquire two of these guys, then had to trade Rafael Soriano to get another. Washburn and Batista are basically league average starters with durability, while Ramirez is a little worse than that and injury prone, and Baek and Woods are replacement-level. The bullpen should be pretty good once again, mainly due to the presence of JJ Putz, but the lack of Rafael Soriano and the uncertainty about Mark Lowe means the unit probably won't be as strong as last year (projected ERA by CHONE, ZiPS, Marcel), and innings projected by me:

JJ Putz (2.84, 2.88, 3.66) 70
George Sherill (3.24, 3.40, 4.31) 50
Chris Reitsma (4.35, can't find his ZiPS, 4.99) 60
Eric O'Flaherty (4.88, 4.35, 4.50) 50
Julio Mateo (4.11, 3.97, 4.35) 60
Sean Green (4.41, 4.79, 4.50) 50
Justin Lehr (4.46, 5.11, 4.88) 70
Sean White (no projection, 5.45, no projection) 50
Mark Lowe (4.61, 4.44, 4.10) 30

I used the ZiPS figure across the three systems for Sean White, and used a midpoint between CHONE and Marcel for Reitsma's ZiPS figure. I suspect these nine to get almost all the bullpen innings this season, barring injury. I guess I should throw in Jon Huber, too, but I'm going to be lazy. I don't really know what to expect with Lowe. Information on his injury has been incredibly hazy. I would guess he'll be able to pitch around the All-Star break. This only adds up to 1380 innings, and most teams pitch about 1440 innings, so I'm just going to tack on 60 innings of last years' league average ERA. This isn't exactly a scientific process, and there's a good chance that these innings could be at a much higher ERA, but they could also be lower, due to variance in performance in small samples. So here's the runs allowed projections, by system: CHONE: 740, ZiPS: 783, Marcel: 769.

Runs scored, runs allowed, by system:

CHONE: 771, 740
ZiPS: 757, 783
Marcel: 784, 769

With these numbers we can calculate expected Pythagorean wins:

CHONE: 84.3
ZiPS: 78.2
Marcel: 82.6

These numbers aren't nearly as bad as I thought they would be (that could be the Mariners 2007 slogan: "not nearly as bad as you thought"). Things working against the M's: Mike Hargrove, susceptibility to injury, lack of a bench, lack of minor league depth, inability to make in-season moves, inability to beat the A's, irrational Willie Bloomquist love. I think when all is said and done, the M's will be about .500, and be fairly boring in the process. I love this team!

NFL Playoffs

2007-01-04T15:51:00.000-08:00

The first week of the NFL playoffs will soon be upon us. I closed out the NFL season on a pretty strong run of picks, riding nearly all underdogs to an 11-5 week 17, after going 8-8 in week 16. My final regular season record: 135-119-2. Sixteen games over .500, for a winning percentage of 53.1%. In addition, I predicted the winners of six of the eight divisions; I doubt anyone alive hit more than that, because no one thought New Orleans would win the NFC South over Carolina, the consensus preseason Superbowl pick, hardly anyone picked the Eagles in the East, and no one thought Baltimore would be as good, or Pittsburgh as mediocre, as those two teams were.

I think I started to figure this year out by the end of the season, as in the last four weeks I went 39-25, hitting nearly 61%. Not too bad for my first full season of picks. Here's the thing: if I had theoretically placed twenty dollars on every single game of this NFL season, here's how much money I would of won: $185, barely ten dollars a week. Unless you can consistently hit at least 55% or more of all games, betting on everything is definitely not a good strategy. It's much better to pick your games and capitalize on skewed lines, such as is the case with the pre-season over/under lines, which tend to be routinely off, where I ended up hitting 7 out of the 10 picks I recommended, with the help of the late season collapse of the Dallas Cowboys (I loved, absolutely loved, to write that sentence). Or just pick every underdog, if it's another year like this one.

Now that the playoffs are here, it's time to really prove one's mettle. These are the games that count. I'm starting to sound like Joe Theismann. Here's my picks for the first round match-ups, with the glorious return of extended commentary!!! (Lines from USA Today):

Kansas City (+6.5) @ Indianapolis (51)

I like this game's potential a lot. It'll be built up as Peyton Manning versus Larry Johnson, but there's a lot more going on here. Indy still has the best offense in football, and it seems like they have for a long time now, but their defense has severely regressed this season, especially against the run. Kansas City isn't quite as good on offense as they have been in the past, but they still have Larry Johnson, arguably the best running back in football not named LaDainian Tomlinson. It's a shame that Herm Edwards has so stubbornly handed LJ the ball 416 times on the year, basically guaranteeing a catastrophic injury next season, but we'll talk about that when next season comes around. Indy's defense is about average against the pass, and maybe the worst in football against the run, while KC is good running or passing the ball, though they probably don't throw the ball enough. KC's defense is fairly mediocre against the run and the pass, while Indy is the best passing team in football, and one of the better running teams, though this fact is often overlooked. I think there's a number of possible outcomes to this match up. I could see KC run the ball effectively and keep the game close, or maybe even sneak out a win by effectively shortening the game and keeping the Indy offense off the field, or I could see Indy be too overwhelming for the KC defense and win easily. I get the feeling that Indy's sand-bagged at times this year, and may have some tricks up their sleeve, but on the otherhand they've been unable to stop the run even when they know it's coming. I don't think I'm comfortable taking Indy and laying the points when they can't stop the run. KC might not win outright, but I think it'll be close. Kansas City

Dallas (+3) @ Seattle (46.5

Really, you can stop thanking me for predicting the collapse of Tony Romo. I don't have anything against the guy per se, but we live in a time when there's just too much media hype (as evidenced by this blog) to fairly evaluate players, especially young players who get the phenom tag. Because outlets like The Worldwide Leader feel the need to push storylines for the sake of ratings, rather than offering evenhanded analysis, you end up with the short-lived phenomenon of Tony Romo, greatest quarterback to ever live. Ever. In History. The same thing happened with Rex Grossman, certified gunslinger, earlier in the season. Of course, the storylines end up being false, because no one alive can live up to the hype the media has created, the scouting reports and defensive schemes around the league get caught up to date, and the players end up crashing back to Earth. Full disclosure: I am a shameless Seahawks homer; I have picked them in every single game this season, which has frequently been to my prognosticating detriment, but I like their chances in this game, even with no one around to play cornerback. Dallas may have a very good offense, but they're regressing at the worst part of the season, and they're on the road against one of the best home-field advantages in the game with a mistake-prone young quarterback. On defense, I think the Hawks should be able to throw against the Dallas secondary, which just isn't very good against the pass, and should be able to grind it out against a front seven that's having injury issues. Anyway, I think the Hawks are due to finally play up to their potential, at least for this game. Seahawks!!!

New York Jets (+9) @ New England (37.5)

I've noticed this line creeping downward since it opened, which I think is just asinine. I think the Jets are lucky to be in the playoffs, which is mostly the result of their easy schedule. I like Chad Pennington, but I just don't think the Jets are in the same class as the Pats come playoff time. The Pats are one of the most balanced teams in the league, and should be able to run the ball all day against the Jets. New England

New York Giants (+6.5) @ Philadelphia (46.5)

I have a feeling that this may be a bad week for New York football fans. The Giants have been one of the more schizophrenic teams in the league this season, looking both great and awful at times, but mostly awful lately. They're a terrible team to wager on in the playoffs: shaky quarterback, prone to really stupid penalties, Tom Coughlin seems like the type who would be the first person to bring up the possibility of cannibalism if trapped somewhere with a group of people, etc. They're not a bad team, especially the offense when it's clicking, but the seem like the exact opposite of the kind of team that comes together for a playoff run. Plus, they killed me in that first round game against Carolina last season. That was absolutely brutal. Not going to let that happen again. I'm a big fan of the Philly offense; Jeff Garcia works in that system, and I think they've benefited by relying on the run more with Donovan McNabb out. Philly

There's my picks for the first round of the playoffs. feel good about them, though I'm a little wary picking three favorites after an entire season of underdogs killing. I like the over for both NYJ-NE and NYG-Philly.

Anyway, UW-Arizona tonight, at Hec Ed. Watch it. Hopefully the Huskies will continue their home dominance. We'll see.

Husky Front Court Dominance/Random Notes/NFL Picks, Week 16

2006-12-22T20:59:00.000-08:00

If you're a UW basketball fan, your mood has lifted substantially in the last week. With Wednesday's 88-72 win over LSU and tonight's 80-51 win over Weber State, the Huskies have done a lot to dispel many of the concerns created by last week's thrashing at Gonzaga. After that lackluster loss, the Huskies have responded with two very complete games, playing strong defense, while Jon Brockman and Spencer Hawes have led consecutive dominant performances by the front court. After combining for 42 points and 26 rebounds on Wednesday, Brockman and Hawes came back with 41 points and 19 rebounds tonight against an overmatched Weber State team. Both players seem to have made significant strides forward since the Gonzaga, especially Hawes, who's seemed to have overcome some early season inconsistency with his last two games.

Hawes has exhibited a breathtakingly versatile offensive repertoire, both with his back to the basket and squaring up to the hoop, and using both hands for a variety of hook and jump shots. At one point against LSU, he banked in a turnaround jumper high off the glass with Glen Davis in his face, a shot I think only one other player in basketball today could make: Tim Duncan. I don't think Hawes is the same kind of overall player as Tim Duncan, but I do think he has the kind of complete offensive game that you see in a post player only a couple times a decade. One of the things that separates Hawes from Duncan as a total package is rebounding, something Duncan is very good at, while Hawes is merely average. He's not a bad rebounder by any means, but he appears impassive, willing to let other players collect rebounds he could grab. Any deficiencies in Hawes' rebounding in the last two games, though, has been picked up by Jon Brockman, who's had 26 rebounds in the last two games.

At times last year I thought that Brockman was a little disappointing, in comparison to the reputation he carried as an incoming recruit, appearing overly tentative and unable to create his own shot. Any disappointment I had with him has dissipated this year, as he has made great strides in his game, while also taking on a leadership role with the team. In roughly the same minutes per game as last year, Brockman's increased his scoring by nearly four points per game, while grabbing three and a half more rebounds per game. His offensive game still isn't very advanced, and his free-throw shooting has seemingly regressed, but he makes up for it with aggression and toughness, and has shown a willingness to create his own shot this year, while exhibiting greater range on his jump shot. The strong points of his game are rebounding and defense, and his rebounding this year has been excellent. His Rebound Rate, a stat created by John Hollinger which measures the percentage of total rebounds collected by a certain player, is 22.46 through the first ten games, meaning Brockman grabs 22.46% of all the rebounds, offensive and defensive, while he's on court. For the sake of comparison, if he were in the NBA, Brockman's Rebound Rate would lead the league. Though he obviously would not be able to rebound as well in the NBA as he can in college, I believe Brockman's rebounding is an NBA-level skill, and I don't see why he couldn't be as effective as someone like Reggie Evans or Eduardo Najera in the NBA, with more offensive upside.

The breakout performances of Hawes and Brockman in the last two games has really increased my confidence in the Huskies chances this season. There aren't many post presences in college basketball like the combination of Hawes and Brockman, and their presence also makes the Huskies less reliant on outside scoring, a skill which is much more subject to variability in performance. A team is much more likely to have an off night if they rely on 3-point shooting than if they can consistently score in the paint. I'm still wary about the Huskies lack of experience on the road heading into the conference season, but Hawes and Brockman should help out the transitional process.

Random Notes:

If you didn't get a chance to see Gilbert Arenas put up 54 points tonight against the Suns, you really missed out. I can't think of a more interesting player, on and off the court, as Arenas is right now.

Last night's Minnesota-Green Bay game was absolutely brutal to watch, especially if you had Green Bay and laid three and a half points. Every gambling rule in the world said take Green Bay: Rookie quarterback starting on the road in his first start, Brett Favre's maybe, kinda, last start at home, dome team in a cold weather city in winter, etc. So what happens? Minnesota, despite an absolutely awful performance from Tavaris Jackson (10-20 for 50 yards), get bailed out by a blocked field goal and another field goal rejected by the upright, and a Brett Favre pick-six. At least Minnesota lost, guaranteeing they hit their "under" for the season, as I had predicted.

Here's the NFL picks: Kansas City (+4) over OAKLAND, Tennessee (+4) over BUFFALO, NEW YORK GIANTS (-3) over New Orleans, ATLANTA (-7) over Carolina, Washington (+3) over ST. LOUIS, Indianapolis (-9) over HOUSTON, Baltimore (+3) over PITTSBURGH, CLEVELAND (-3) over Tampa Bay, DETROIT (+6) over Chicago, JACKSONVILLE (-2.5) over New England, SAN FRANCISCO (-3) over Arizona, Cincinnati (+3) over DENVER, SEATTLE (+3.5) over San Diego, Philadelphia (+7) over DALLAS, and New York Jets (+1.5) over MIAMI.

Season Greetings; by the way, this is also my first post written from my home computer since the power came back on this morning. It's a Christmas miracle!

Power Outage!

2006-12-20T14:42:00.000-08:00

I wasn't able to post my picks this week because my power's been out since last Thursday night. Yes, my power is still out, for nearly one week at this point. I went 10-6 on the week, bringing me to 116-106-2 on the season, and 20-12 the last two weeks. It's pretty damn hard to do much better than .500 on the season, so I'm happy that, barring a disastrous last two weeks, I should finish above .500.

NFL pro bowl picks have been released. Seahawks Walter Jones, Mack Strong, Julian Peterson, and Lofa Tatupu made the team. I think the Mack Strong selection is a little dubious, as I don't believe he's been nearly as good this season, and is partly responsible for the drop off in the Seahawk run game. I don't get too worked up over the so-called "snubs," because I believe the whole Pro Bowl/All-Star game process is incredibly flawed and mostly a popularity contest, but why is Tony Romo on the team? Has anyone watched him play the last two games? I realize that it's not exactly a stellar year for NFC quarterbacks, but Tony Romo is a Pro Bowler after playing five good games and two and a half bad ones.

With the NFL season winding down, I think it's about time to look at my preseason predictions, and see how I've done. I went through the preseason over/under lines and picked the teams I thought were good shots to go either over or under, and I also made my playoff predictions. I arrived at these ten teams as good bets to differ significantly from the preseason lines: Tennessee (5.5), San Diego (9), Chicago (9.5), Minnesota (8), New Orleans (6.5), Dallas (9.5), Philadelphia (8.5), Seattle (10.5), Arizona (8) and St. Louis (7). I liked the over for Tennessee, San Diego, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Seattle, and the under for the other five teams. As it currently stands, the Tennessee, San Diego, Chicago, and Arizona picks are already correct with two games to go. I'm already wrong on the New Orleans under pick and the Seattle over pick. If Minnesota loses one more game and Philly wins one more, those picks will be correct. My Dallas pick will be incorrect if they win one more. St. Louis is still up in the air. I think they'll most likely push. So assuming these scenarios play out, I'll probably go 6-3-1 on the preseason over/under picks. Not too bad. You'd make a lot of money hitting two-thirds of your picks. Looking at my picks, the one I missed by the furthest is New Orleans. I thought they'd be under 6.5 wins, and they currently have 9 wins. I was way off on the Saints, and I'm not afraid to admit it. The other picks I have or most likely will miss on: Seattle and Dallas. I made the Dallas pick at a time when Drew Bledsoe was their quarterback, and I think they'd definitely would've gone under 9.5 wins if he'd started all season long. I think I've overestimated Seattle all season. You can't really predict the injuries they've sustained, but I thought they'd be a much better defensive team then they have been. At this point in the season, I think it's safe to say that they're not the elite team I thought they'd be.

Here's my preseason playoff picks: for the AFC, Pittsburgh, Indy, New England, San Diego, Kansas City and Cincinnati. For the NFC, Chicago, Carolina, Seattle, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Washington. If the playoffs started today, Indy, New England, Baltimore, San Diego would be the division winners in the AFC, Dallas, Chicago, Seattle, and New Orleans in the NFC. The AFC wild cards winners will most likely be two of these teams: New York Jets, Cincinnati, Jacksonville and Denver. The NFC wild card winners will most likely be Philadelphia and one of the current 7-7 teams: the Giants and the Falcons. I'll most likely hit four or maybe five of the AFC teams, five if KC can sneak in to the playoffs, and three or maybe four of the NFC teams. The teams I've been furthest off on are Washington and Pittsburgh. Washington lost LeVar Arrington, and has had some injury issues with Clinton Portis and Shawn Springs, but to drop from a playoff team to 5-9 seems pretty drastic. I thought Pittsburgh would be much better than they've been, though I think they've been hit with some bad luck. Or karma. Just saying. Everyone alive missed the boat on Carolina. Preseason, some people were ready to hand them the Superbowl. I guess that's why you actually play out the season. My preseason Superbowl pick, Seattle over San Diego, may end up being just half right. San Diego looks like the real deal, though I think it would be a stretch for the Seahawks to return to the Superbowl. Remember though, you heard it here first, all the way back in August, San Diego Chargers Superbowl bound.

Anyway, I'm spent. Here's my pick for the Thursday game: GREEN BAY (-3.5) over Minnesota. Minnesota's starting a rookie quarterback (Tarvaris Jackson) on the road, and I don't think Jackson's very good anyway. Green Bay should win easy. And watch LSU-UW tonight; it will (hopefully) be a good game.

Mariners Continue to Slowly, but Surely, Kill Me

2006-12-14T10:52:00.000-08:00

If you don't know yet, the Mariners have traded Chris Snelling and Emiliano Fruto to the Washington Nationals for Jose Vidro, pending the physical. This is just about as bad a trade as you can make. It does not make any sense. It reminds me of Johnny Cochrane's famous Chewbacca defense: Why would a Wookie, an eight-foot tall Wookie, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! This trade just does not make sense. There is really no defense for making a trade like this. None. My initial reaction is confusion and disbelief. How can Bill Bavasi possibly be this inept? How does this man have a job as General Manager of a Major League Baseball team? Why, God, Why? What have Mariner fans done to deserve this fate? It does not make sense. It doesn't address any of the issues the Mariners have. They don't need a second baseman, and Vidro really can't play the position anymore, so they traded for a designated hitter who's not particularly great at hitting. I could possibly understand trading Chris Snelling if you have major concerns about his tendency to get injured, but Vidro also has an extensive injury history, so you're not trading for the reassurance of durability. Once again, it does not make sense. This trade also severely hampers your outfield flexibility. Do they plan on playing Jose Guillen every single day? How about 36-year old Raul Ibanez? I guess this means they keep Jeremy Reed around, who Mike Hargrove has absolutely zero confidence in. That's sounds like a good idea. Was this trade made for financial reasons? No, because they're agreeing to take on $12 million of Vidro's contract for the next two seasons in exchange for two players who would have made close to league minimum next season. It doesn't make sense. Is it part of a youth movement? No, because they acquired a 32-year old DH for a 25-year outfielder and a 22-year old reliever. Well, maybe they're expecting a better performance from Vidro than they would have gotten from Snelling. But once again, no. Snelling last year: .250/.360/.427. Vidro last year: .289/.348/.395. Snelling outhit Vidro last year. He has better power and better plate discipline, and his average should improve next year. It doesn't make sense. Chris Snelling is very likely to outhit Vidro in 2007. Both players are injury-prone, but Snelling is coming into his prime, while Vidro is in the decline phase of his career. Chris Snelling is cheap, while Vidro is not. And, hey, while we're at it, how about throwing in an interesting relief prospect? Let's just throw away one of our only commodities, power bullpen arms. That's a great idea. And don't do anything do fix the DH/1B log jam. In fact, add another player to it.

The worst part of this trade, in my opinion, is that it's not the end of the offseason manuevering. Another trade is coming. They still have to do something about Sexson, Broussard, et al. and they're looking for more starting pitching. It's absolutely terrifying to know that Bavasi is out there trying a make another trade. Anything's possible at this point. I wouldn't bat an eyelash over Felix Hernandez, Jeff Clement, and Adam Jones for Kenny Rogers. Or Corey Koskie. Maybe Bavasi could coax Mo Vaughn out of retirement. It disgusts me how set this team is on being mediocre. They're perfectly content to settle for 75 to 81 wins as long as assholes from Microsoft continue to throw away money for Terrace club seats. Here's what I would suggest to true M's fans: stay away. Don't give the M's a dime, as it's a tacit acceptance of this bland, mediocre product. Sometimes the machine becomes so odious that you must throw your body on the gears to make it stop. Let's blow up the good ship Mariner. I'm goddamn sick of this front office fucking up this team, while simultaneously bogarting the future. Honestly, it may be time to adopt another team. It's not worth the effort of trying to care for this terrible product. What's the point in trying to muster the energy, time and money required to support this team? Wouldn't I be better off just ignoring them? How much better would my quality of life be if I didn't subject myself to watching 60 combined starts by Horacio Ramirez and Miguel Batista? Or 300 Willie Bloomquist at-bats? Or 180 Ritchie Sexson K's? Or Rene Rivera's .184 OBP? Or Julio Mateo home run allowed? It does not make sense. I'll still support Felix, and the continued brilliance of Ichiro!, and I'll marvel at the defense of Beltre and Betancourt, but this team is not worth the effort required of true fandom. Thank you, Bill Bavasi, for making me just not care. The only positive consequence of your continued ineptitude is that it will guarantee that you never have another GM job. It would be criminal for you to be allowed to alienate another fan base. It would not make sense.

By the way, I like the Seahawks in tonight's game, -10.5. For some reason.

Huskies-Gonzaga: Yeah, that didn't go so well

2006-12-10T14:38:00.000-08:00

The UW-Gonzaga game last night, well, it didn't go so well. The overall impression that I received was that the Huskies were just not ready for the game. It's a lot to ask of a young team to play their first road game against a team like Gonzaga, and it was pretty obvious that the Huskies weren't prepared for a road game of that magnitude. One of the major issues with the Huskies so far has been their slow starts to games, and that's an issue that will be compounded on the road. The biggest surprise for me was how poorly the Huskies played on defense. I expected the turnover problems and general sloppiness, but the Huskies were just awful on defense last night, especially in the first half. They were really slow on defensive rotations, which resulted in a ton of easy lay-ups for guys like Matt Boldin, and kick-outs for open threes by Derek "the Weasel Boy" Raivio. The only players for UW who impressed me were Jon Brockman and Quincy Pondexter, due to their overall composure. No one else appeared to be prepared for the game. Justin Dentmon was absolutely brutal, a real nightmare game for him. Adrian Oliver was in foul trouble and couldn't do much. Ryan Appleby was invisible. Spencer Hawes, even though he ended up with a good stat line, looked like he had forgotten how to play basketball for the first fifteen minutes of the first half; he was called for two traveling violations and an offensive foul, and also attempted two bank shots that didn't even draw rim. Gonzaga's Josh Heytvelt thoroughly outplayed Hawes. Hans Gasser didn't bring his normal gusto for setting screens, which was part of the reason why the shooters couldn't get open. That was a pretty difficult game to watch as a Husky fan; I felt like the Huskies issues were really exposed, and you have to wonder if they'll be able to get their game together before LSU comes here, and before conference play starts. I still have a lot of confidence in this Husky team, and I think they'll be really good by the end of the season, but I hope they turn it around soon and don't dig themselves a hole they can't get out of.

Also, just because I happen to be at the computer when I normally wouldn't, here are some NFL observations: do you think think Mike Shanahan would like to take back the Jay Cutler experiment about now? Hmm, yeah, in hindsight it wasn't the past decision to pull your starting quarterback during the middle of the stretch drive to the playoffs and replace him with a rookie who had yet to take a snap in an NFL game. What surprised me about that decision was how many pundits where prepared to crown Cutler's ass, to paraphrase Denny Green. Rookie quarterbacks just don't perform well, even the one's who turn out to be good quarterbacks eventually. And there's a definite difference between the situations of Matt Leinart and Vince Young and Cutler's situation. Leinart and Young have no pressure on them; they're rookie quarterbacks on shite teams, and they're not expected to do much. Cutler was put in with the expectation that he'd give Denver a better chance to reach the Superbowl, which is a completely unreasonable expectation; if you look at rookie quarterbacks in the last twenty years, Ben Roethlisberger is the only one to have even a modicum of success, and that was in a situation where he was heavily protected by a great run game and great defense. Cutler's situation is somewhat analogous, but at the same time it isn't: Roethlisberger was inserted into the starting lineup in week 2 or 3, if I recall correctly, and that was as the result of an injury to the starter and back-up. Cutler's promotion was purely elective, and come's at a crucial junction in the season. Just not a good decision by Shanahan.

Indianapolis must be the worst good team in quite some time. Jacksonville absolutely killed them today, running all over them. Anyone can run on them, and the entire league knows it at this point, and it's the perfect remedy for the Indy offense, by keeping them off the field and making them unable to get in a rhythm. I don't see Indy being able to win in the playoffs. They've still got a good shot at a first-round bye, and could possibly win their second-round game, but do they have any chance when the conference championship comes around? San Diego and Baltimore would destroy Indy, and so would New England if they get another shot at them. Cincinnati would be the only potential AFC playoff team against whom I'd give Indy the edge.

I wonder if Sports Illustrated is regretting picking Carolina-Miami for the Superbowl? There can't be a more disappointing and underachieving team than Carolina, and the "Jake Delhomme as good quarterback" ship has sailed.

I think we'll soon enter be entering the "Vince Young as overrated quarterback" era; he's just not a very good passer yet, but his running prowess covers it up. I must admit that his run to beat Houston today was absolutely awesome, though. I actually think he could end up as a more successful running quarterback than Michael Vick, due to his size. Vick just seems like he'll eventually suffer a horrific injury, and he also seems much more reliant on his running than Young, to the detriment of his passing game.

Well, I've got to finish watching the potential Hawk comeback. This team is really killing me. Seahawks just blew it. God I hate this team.

End of Short Period of Mariner Optimism subsides; and NFL Picks

2006-12-09T14:02:00.000-08:00

I should of known it was too good to be true. Everything was shaping up so well for the Mariners going into the Winter Meetings; I should have taking it as a sign that they'd mess it up somehow. There's just too many morons running the organization, from Howard Lincoln and Chuck Armstrong up top, and down to Bill Bavasi and Mike Hargrove, for this offseason to go perfectly. In the span of a couple days, the Mariners went from rumors of acquiring Manny Ramirez from the Red Sox or Tim Hudson and Adam Laroche from the Braves, to getting Horacio Ramirez from the Braves for one the M's top potential trading pieces, Rafael Soriano, and letting Jason Schmidt walk right by them and sign with the Dodgers. Now, I'm not privy to any special insider info on a trade like this; it may be possible that Soriano's elbow and shoulder will burst into flames six months from now, or that he's terrified to walk on grass since getting hit by a Vladimir Guerrero line drive, or that Ramirez has had a number of bionic limbs installed since his last mediocre season and now consistently throws effortless triple digits strikes for nine innings at a time. Somehow I don't find these scenarios to be that likely. Anyway, if Soriano does have substantial injury concerns, it would appear during his physical and the trade would be voided, and the M's would be stuck with damaged goods. I think it's more likely that Bavasi has once again undervalued one of his players, while simultaneously overvaluing an opponent, and has once again made a very poor trade. The Mariners have shown an ability all offseason long to acquire potential back of the rotation starters for free; they already have Cha Seung Baek and Jake Woods, picked up Justin Lehr as a minor league free agent, traded for Sean White in the Rule 5 draft, could still potentially acquire John Thomson, unless they had an issue with his injury profile. My point is, one doesn't have to give up anything to acquire these kinds of players; to give up a valuable pitcher like Soriano is asinine. Last season, Soriano was about twice as valuable as Ramirez, and only pitched 60 innings to Ramirez's 76. 2005 was the only season in the last three in which Ramirez was as valuable as Soriano was last season; the caveat in this fact is that Ramirez had to throw 202 innings that year to be as valuable as Soriano is in 60 innings. This was just not a good trade. What makes it even worse is the fact that all the information I've heard about Mark Lowe's elbow injury is very scary. There's the possibility that it's career ending, and even if it's not, he'll most likely be out until mid-season. The Mariners went from having one of the best end of the bullpen groups to having a very suspect one. Get ready for another 78 win season.

Here's the NFL picks: Baltimore (+3) over KANSAS CITY, Atlanta (-3) over TAMPA BAY, Minnesota (+1) over DETROIT, Tennessee (+1) over HOUSTON, New York Football Giants (+2.5) over CAROLINA, New Orleans (+7.5) over DALLAS, Buffalo (+3.5) over NEW YORK JETS, Indianapolis (pk) over Jacksonville, WASHINGTON (+1) over Philadelphia, CINCINNATI (-10.5) over Oakland, New England (-3.5) over MIAMI, SAN FRANCISCO (-4.5) over Green Bay, Seattle (-3) over ARIZONA, SAN DIEGO (-7.5) over Denver, and Chicago (-6) over ST. LOUIS. I like the over (43.5) for SF-GB, over (37) for NE-Miami, over (40.5) for Philly-Wash, and the under (42) for Tennessee-Houston.

Detritus

2006-12-05T16:56:00.000-08:00

The winter meetings have started for MLB, and all the rumors I've heard suggest that the Mariners will potentially be very active. It wouldn't surprise me if they sign Jason Schmidt in the next couple days, and from what I've heard, all the Manny Ramirez rumors floating around are in fact true, though not very likely. The Red Sox number one target for Ramirez is the LA Dodgers, due to their absolutely stacked minor league system. The Mariners sound like more of a back-up plan at the moment, and any trade involving the Mariners would most likely be a three way deal involving either the SF Giants or Atlanta Braves. What I've seen is that the Sox would want Adam Jones, another prospect, and either Putz or Soriano for Ramirez. Acquiring Ramirez would necessitate dumping Ritchie Sexson's salary, which is where the Giants come in, taking Sexson and giving the M's Noah Lowry. I believe the Giants would also probably send a prospect to Boston. This would be...interesting. I'm not really sure what to like about this deal. I really like Ramirez, but I don't know how much I want him and a massive contract into the future. I'm also not sure about Lowry, who was pretty bad last year, though he had success the two previous years. I don't really want to lose Putz, who was one of the best relievers in the league last year, and who will stay cheap for a few more years. I also believe Adam Jones is a future stud, the kind of guy who you'll regret losing in a couple years. I think I need some more time to digest this, and I also need to keep in find that it won't likely happen.

I recently alluded to a secret project I was working on, and I figure it's time to unveil it. I just finished writing an initiative about genetically engineered foods, and I've started another blog around the initiative and the process in getting it onto the ballot for next year's election, called Food Democracy. I don't plan on neglecting this blog for that one; rather, I'll be pulling double duty. If you have any questions, feel free to ask, or just check out the other blog, which should have pretty regular updates for at least the next month or so.

Remember, there's another NFL game this Thursday, Cleveland (+7.5) @ Pittsburgh. I really like Cleveland's chances in this game. They've been one of the most improved teams in the league the last couple weeks, and I think they can surprise the Steelers, or at the least, keep the game close. My pick is Cleveland.

The Broncos-Seahawks game last week was an odd one. I knew going into it that the Hawks had a really good chance, mostly due to the fact that everyone alive was grossly overrating Jay Cutler before he had thrown an NFL pass, but I can't help but feel that the Seahawks just aren't very good, despite beating a good team on the road. If it wasn't for all the fumbles and Cutler handing the Seahawks a touchdown on that Plummeresque floater he threw to Darryl Tapp, the game wouldn't have been close. The Hawks couldn't stop the run for most of the game, had trouble moving the ball against Denver's D, and overall, I think they were a little lucky to escape with a win. There are definitely signs that the team is improving, and they are now 5-0 when Hasselbeck and Alexander are both starting, but they could very easily be 6-6 or worse right now if it wasn't for Josh Brown. I am happy with the improvements being made, namely that the offensive line is looking a lot better, despite Sean Locklear and Robbie Tobeck still being out with injuries. Rob Sims has looked really good in the playing time he's been given, and Chris Spencer gets better every week it seems, while Tom Ashworth isn't as awful as he was earlier in the year. I love that Nate Burleson has found his niche on punt and kick returns, vastly improving our return game, an important area of the game that is often overlooked. The Hawks have been an awful return team for several years in a row, and I was angry when they cut Willie Ponder earlier in the season to make room for the return of Gibran Hamdan, because Ponder was really good on kick returns. I want Burleson to succeed, and he's been really great on returns since being inserted there, and it's nice that the Hawks don't need to take up extra roster space with a return specialist. I also think the pass defense has looked a lot better the last couple weeks, not giving up so many long pass plays, but at the same time the defense is really getting torched by the run, especially giving up long runs. I wonder if they lack the size on the defensive line to be good against the run, which is where Marcus Tubbs' injury hurts them, and as good as Julian Peterson is as a pass rusher, I think they sacrifice against the run when he's used as a down lineman. What's good for the Hawks is that they still have time to gel before the playoffs, and they'll be able to coast toward the end, as they've got the division basically wrapped up. They have a legitimate shot at a first round bye, also, and a home playoff game, which would almost guarantee a conference finals berth, considering the Hawks home field advantage. All in all, not too bad, considering they've had Hasselbeck and/or Alexander out for seven games this year.

NFL picks+Bloomquist rant

2006-11-30T17:42:00.000-08:00

I can't believe I forgot to mention this yesterday, but I didn't mention that the Mariners gave Willie Fuckin' Bloomquist a contract extension. Why? I just don't get the fascination with his decidedly mediocre brand of local white guy scrapiness. There's hundreds of minor leaguers who can play several positions poorly will not hitting and stealing some bases, and do it for the league minimum. I know they're not paying him too much, but I just don't see the 700,000 dollar premium we pay him for being from Port Orchard.

The Mariners actually made a semi-interesting signing today, Justin Lehr, picking him up on a minor-league contract. He pitched pretty well for Nashville in the PCL last year. He's a sinkerball pitcher who'll get some strikeouts, has good control, and keeps the ball on the ground. He has some difficulty keeping the ball in the park, but Safeco's the perfect place for pitchers like that. He should be in the running with Baek and Woods for the four and five starter spots. Due to the ridiculous free agent market, I wouldn't mind seeing the M's go into next year with a couple pitchers like this, rather than crippling themselves with huge contracts for players who aren't that good. I do think it's important though that they improve their outfield defense by bringing in someone other than Raul Ibanez to play leftfield. I like Raul's offense, but at this point in his career he's much better suited for DH or first. Safeco has possibly the largest leftfield in baseball, which makes it very important to have a good fielder out there to take away extra-base hits. I'm still holding out hope for the M's to trade Ritchie Sexson, most likely to Baltimore, mostly to move salary, but to also possibly snag a pitcher or two.

Okay, I wrote the last two paragraphs a couple days ago, and there's been a lot of activity from the Mariners since then. Today they've signed Jose Guillen, and they're also close to signing John Thomson; the M's are currently reviewing his medical files. Both of these contracts are one-year deals with options for the second year, which I really like. I hate being attached to long term contracts with a lot of money tied up in them, because it seriously hinders your roster flexibility. The M's may get serious bargains if either of these players has the kind of season they're capable of, and if either guy sucks, you can cut him and not have to worry about wasting too much money. I actually mentioned Thomson in my post on what the Mariners should do this offseason, lumping him in with guys like Bruce Chen, etc. who are coming off bad years or injuries and who can be had for cheap and possibly be serious contributors. Thomson's ideal contribution is probably of the highest level of the guys I mentioned. He's a groundball pitcher who should benefit from the Mariners excellent infield defense, he can still get strike outs, and has pretty good control. His major issue is injury, but he can be reasonably expected to give you 100-150 innings of pretty good pitching, and possibly more, while increasing the overall organizational depth.

Jose Guillen is in a very similar situation to Thomson. He's coming off Tommy John surgery, and played terribly last year. He's definitely a flawed player, but he's got good power, plays good defense and has a tremendous arm, one of the best in the league. I could see him hit .270/.330/.450, which would be a pretty good season at Safeco, especially for a guy with defensive value. An outfield of Guillen, Ichiro, and Chris Snelling would cover a lot of ground while being nearly impossible to run on. The only issue I have with this deal at the moment is that it creates a serious log jam of corner outfield/first base/designated hitter types. I'm hoping this means that the M's move either Ben Broussard or Ritchie Sexson. Otherwise, I get the feeling that Mike Hargrove's irrational love of veterans will result in Chris Snelling being the odd-man out, which would suck because he's an absolute hitting machine, and one of the Mariners' only serious OBP threats. I would like the end result to be Guillen in left, Ichiro in center, Snelling in right, Ibanez at DH, and either Broussard or Sexson at first, with one of them traded, preferably Sexson due to his enormous contract. So far though, I really like what the Mariners have done so far this offseason, with there still being a strong chance that they sign Jason Schmidt. A rotation of Schmidt, Felix, Washburn, Thomson, and Lehr/Baek/Woods would be a pretty good one.

With the prospects of the 2007 Mariners looking brighter every day, let's get on to the NFL picks, abridged version: Minnesota (+9.5) over CHICAGO, PITTSBURGH (-7.5) over Tampa Bay, Arizona (+6.5) over ST. LOUIS, Indianapolis (-7.5) over TENNESSEE, MIAMI (Pk) over Jacksonville, NEW ORLEANS (-7) over San Francisco, WASHINGTON (-1.5) over Atlanta, CLEVELAND (+5) over Kansas City, Detroit (+13.5) over NEW ENGLAND, San Diego (-6) over BUFFALO, GREEN BAY (+1) over New York Jets, NEW YORK GIANTS (+3.5) over Dallas, OAKLAND (-3) over Houston, Seattle (+4) over DENVER, and Carolina (-3) over PHILADELPHIA. I like the Indianapolis-Tennessee over (47), Kansas City-Cleveland over (35.5), St. Louis-Arizona under (46.5), and NYJ-Green Bay over (42.5).

Weird Thursday NFL games messing up my internal gambling schedule

2006-11-29T23:46:00.000-08:00

I don't know what to think about these new Thursday NFL games. It throws off my internal clock, and I can't even watch the games as a non-NFL network subscriber. Hmm. I don't know. Anyway, tomorrow's CINCINNATI (-3)-Baltimore, two teams that have been erratic, but generally good, especially Baltimore, who've recovered from an early funk to play really great the last few weeks. I went 10-6 last week, 9-6-1 the week before, and I've been riding underdogs pretty hard. I'm going to go with Baltimore. Cincinnati's defense has been pretty bad at times, and Baltimore's been running the ball well. I think Baltimore wins it outright. Rest of the picks later this week. 89-85-2 on the season.

Huskies won again tonight, looking pretty good in the process, but against Idaho at home, not exactly a tough matchup. The Dawgs have one more home tune-up against Southern Utah before heading to Spokane to play Gonzaga. Should be a good game. Adrian Oliver really picked up his game beginning with the Eastern Washington game, and he's been added to the starting line-up in place of Ryan Appleby. I like the move because Oliver's a much better defensive player, while I like bringing a shooter as good as Appleby off the bench. It looks like Joel Smith will be out for up to two more months after re-injuring his foot. Too bad for him, though it does ease the UW rotational crunch. It looks like Harvey Perry is going to be the odd man out, right now.

This week continued the bad contract cavalcade in Major League Baseball. Here's my candidate for the worst of the week: Danys Baez to Baltimore for $19 million over 3 years. There's not a middle reliever alive worth that much, and Baez isn't even particularly good anymore. I think the Kei Igawa posting fee by the Yankees was pretty ridiculous. It's twice the posting fee the Mariners paid for Ichiro, for an unproven pitcher. I guess they can do what they want. There was actually two good signings this week: David Dellucci to the Indians for 3 years/12 Mil and Gregg Zaun re-signing with the Blue Jays for 2 years/7.25 Mil. These are contracts that might actually be worth the money. Imagine that. I'm starting to think the Mariners would be better off not signing anyone big, so as not to lose draft picks as compensation, let Meche walk so they can pick up the compensation pick, and start investing heavily in the draft and international signings. One of the effects of the new CBA is slotted bonus figures for draft picks, which should bring down signing bonuses overall. If the free-agent market will continue to be insane, often your best bet is to completely opt out of the system, rather than following the insane GM's of the world.

NFL Picks/Continued MLB INSANITY!!!

2006-11-24T13:19:00.000-08:00

It was a good Thanksgiving, both in terms of the holiday and my picks, as I went 3-0 and hit the under for the KC-Denver game. In the world of MLB, the insane contract bonanza rolled on, with Carlos Lee receiving $100 million over six years from the Houston Astros. Remember, the Astros could of spent that same amount roughly two years ago and would've been able to keep Carlos Beltran around, someone who would actually be worth that money. Last year, Carlos Lee and Raul Ibanez were basically equally valuable players, by about every advanced metric available; Lee was worth about ten more runs by VORP, Ibanez was worth about 8 more runs by Runs Created, Lee had a .293 EQA, Ibanez .288. Neither player is good on defense and both are borderline defensive liabilities. I guess you could give a very slight advantage to Lee. Now, would you want to pay Raul Ibanez $17 million dollars for the next six years? No way in hell. I just don't see how MLB GM's don't see how crippling it is to give massive, long-term contracts to players who aren't that good. Your roster flexibility is sacrificed, you block young players, who are the most valuable players in baseball due to the inequitable financial situation for players before they reach free agency. And does Carlos Lee seem like the type of player who will age particularly well? There's been a lot of success in the market for aging fat guys. Anyone remember Mo Vaughn? he aged like a fine wine. This offseason is going to be infamous within a year or two.

With this off my chest, at least until the next terrible contract comes along, on to the NFL picks. Once again, I'm going with the abridged versions. Anyone who wants clarification on any picks can ask in the comments. Here we go, home teams in CAPS: Jacksonville (-3) over BUFFALO, Houston (+5.5) over NY JETS, BALTIMORE (-3) over Pittsburgh, Cincinnati (-3) over CLEVELAND, MINNESOTA (-6) over Arizona, San Francisco (+5.5) over ST. LOUIS, New Orleans (+3) over ATLANTA, WASHINGTON (+4) over Carolina, Chicago (+3) over NEW ENGLAND, INDIANAPOLIS (-9) over Philadelphia, New York Giants (-3) over TENNESEE, SAN DIEGO (-13) over Oakland, and SEATTLE (-9.5) over Green Bay. I really like Chicago over NE, and Jacksonville over Buffalo. As far as the over/unders, I like the over (36) on Carolina-Washington, the over (42.5) on Cincinnati-Cleveland, and the under (43) for San Diego-Oakland. I've been killing on the over/under lately, hopefully I can keep it up. Happy football weekend, and watch the Husky basketball game tonight if you get a chance. Rodney Stuckey for Eastern Washington is a pretty remarkable talent, and the Dawgs are awesome.

Husky Basketball Preview

2006-11-24T01:20:00.000-08:00

I know that previews are typically done before the season, but I feel like doing my Husky preview four games into the season. Anyway, early non-conference play isn't that important. After watching the Huskies basketball team’s first four games, I’m going to say something that could be viewed as premature or rash: this is the most talented team in UW history. I’m not saying they’re the best UW team ever (yet), but this team is absolutely stacked. What Lorenzo Romar has done in his tenure is nothing short of amazing. In the four years I’ve been at UW, the team has been transformed from a laughingstock to a powerhouse, a truly elite program that is here to stay. Their rotation this year goes twelve men deep. They’ve gone from a team that didn’t have anyone taller than 6’8” to one with six rotation players 6’7” or taller, without having to sacrifice athleticism, and still being able to play their signature up-tempo style. Everyone on the team can shoot; Ryan Appleby, Justin Dentmon, Phil Nelson, Harvey Perry, Quincy Pondexter, Adrian Oliver, Joel Smith and Brandon Burmeister have legitimate three-point range. Even Spencer Hawes and Jon Brockman have 17-foot range, and Hans Gasser can step back and hit a three, while also providing unlimited unintentional comedy with his overly-earnest setting of screens (you kind of have to see him to understand what I’m saying). The only non-shooter, Artem Wallace, is an undersized five who’s an absolute beast on the boards. Combined with Hawes, Brockman, Gasser, and Pondexter, this is the best rebounding group Romar has had, and even Dentmon is a great rebounder for an undersized guard. On defense, their length and quickness allows them to trap and overplay on passes, and they have the first dominant shot blocking force with Hawes since Todd MacCulloch.

As far as the incoming freshmen group, Pondexter and Hawes have been really impressive thus far. Nelson and Oliver seem to be works in progress. I’ve heard a lot of comparisons of Pondexter to Bobby Jones, but I don’t know how apt that comparison is. They have similar body types and athleticism, but Pondexter is a much more accomplished offensive player than Jones ever was in college. Jones didn’t have three-point range until his junior year, and really didn’t have any game off the dribble until his senior year. Pondexter already has both of these aspects in his offensive repertoire, plus a lot more confidence on the offensive end than Jones had.

Hawes already has a good complement of post moves, and his passing ability as a center is astounding, the best I’ve seen from a college center since Andrew Bogut. Early on it actually seems that he’s looking to pass too much, which has resulted in a lot of forced passes and turnovers. This is something that will be easily alleviated with experience. I’ve been really surprised by just how nimble he is, and how confident he is handling the ball. On the defensive end, he’s a dominant shot-blocker who also manages to stay in position well and doesn’t get into foul trouble. These are very rare traits to have.

Nelson and Oliver have shown talent, but both have been erratic so far. Nelson is a very good outside shooter and surprisingly athletic, but has looked tentative on offense, and kind of lost on defense. Oliver is a good penetrator and very active on defense, but prone to trying to do too much and forcing plays on offense, rather than letting the game come to him. He’s also very good at grabbing rebounds in traffic for a guard. My initial impression is that Oliver will get more minutes in the rotation than Nelson, backing up Dentmon for 10-15 minutes a game. I think as the season gets going and the rotation gets set at nine or ten players, Nelson, Burmeister and Wallace will get squeezed for minutes.

Because of their youth, this team will no doubt struggle at points this year, especially early in the season, and we've already seen this with the struggles early in the game against Northern Iowa and Sacramento State. Though it seems like a bad omen to be struggling against Northern Iowa and Sacramento State, one must remember that Northern Iowa is a returning NCAA tournament team that will most likely be back again this year, while Sacramento State is a team with a lot of talent and athleticism, albeit somewhat raw. Both teams also have a lot of experience, and are teams very reliant on a “system,” especially Northern Iowa, and those kinds of teams give young teams problems. What’s important is that the team gets time to gel before they hit conference play, and I think their schedule will allow for that, even with tough games against Gonzaga and LSU on the non-conference schedule. By the end of conference play, I think this team will be pretty damn good, and peaking at the right time of the year. This should be a sweet sixteen team again, and a team with enough talent to keep up that level of play into the future.

Thanksgiving football picks/More awful MLB signings

2006-11-23T00:02:00.000-08:00

It's technically Thanksgiving right now, so "happy Thanksgiving" to anyone who may read this. This is my favorite holiday, by far, and I'm looking forward to doing some overeating. Not to brag, but I'll put my mother's Thanksgiving meal up against all-comers. It would definitely be my last meal if I was on death row.

Last week's picks went pretty well: 9-6-1, taking me back to .500 for the season. I'm just going to put up my picks for the Thanksgiving games right now; Friday or Saturday I'll have the rest of the picks up. An extra game's been added this year to the Thanksgiving slate. In addition to the games Detroit and Dallas always play, Kansas City-Denver is also playing. Apparently KC's owner got screwed over with regards to the Thanksgiving game back in the 70's, and this is a correction of such an egregious injustice.

Here's the picks: Miami (-2.5) over DETROIT, DALLAS (-11) over Tampa Bay, and KANSAS CITY (Pk) over Denver. I like the under (38) for KC-Denver. Detroit is just awful, while Miami looks a little better each week; I'm going reverse psychology on Dallas because they kill me everytime I pick against them, and I think KC can slug it out with Denver and win. They've got one of the best home-field advantages in the league.

By the way, I was debating which contract was worse, Soriano, 136 for 8, or Juan Pierre 45 for 5, when along comes Gary Matthews, Jr. to trump them both. 50 million dollars over 5 years for a player who's had one good season, and did it while playing in the best offensive environment in the American League. The only difference between Gary Matthews, Jr. last year and previous years when he was merely a good fourth outfielder was a completely unsustainable jump in batting average. In 2005 Matthews hit .255. Last year he hit .313. Looking beyond the deceptive stat of batting average, it becomes clear that Matthews was basically the same player in 2005 and 2006. In 2005, in 526 PA's, he hit line drives 16.8% of the time, struck out 17.1% of the time, walked 8.9% of the time, and homered 3.2% of the time. In 2006, in 690 PA's, 18.8% line drives, 14.3% K's, 8.4% BB's, and 2.8% HR's. He hit 2% more line drives, didn't strike out quite as much, walked slightly less, and had nearly identical power numbers (.181 ISO in 2005, .182 ISO in 2006). 2% more LD's and 2.8% fewer K's is not enough to correspond to a 58 point jump in batting average. Here's the reason for the change from Gary Matthews, fourth outfielder, to Gary Matthews, borderline all-star: in 2006, 34.9% of the balls he put in play became hits, while in 2005, only 28.3% did. This is a massive jump that basically explains the jump in batting average, and why he suddenly became "good" in 2006. And still, is the season he put up last year, even if he could do that year in and year out, which he can't, worth 10 million dollars a year for the seasons in which he'll be 32, 33, 34, 35, and 36? One must also account for the drop in production that will result in moving from a great hitters environment to a decidely mediocre one. Also, even if he's a defensive asset right now, will he be one when he's 36? This is definitely the worst contract of this offseason so far. I'm just glad that it's being given by a team in the Mariners division because this contract should end up as a real albatross.

NFL!/Apple Cup!

2006-11-17T17:42:00.000-08:00

I haven't had my NFL picks up in awhile, which I mentioned yesterday. I've been tracking them personally though, and things haven't been pretty: 3-10 in week 6, 7-6 in week 7, 7-7 in week 8, 4-10 in week 9, 9-7 last week. I'm 70-73-1 overall. Underdogs have been absolutely killing, as Bill Simmons as frequently noted. Week 6 and week 7, my two ten-loss weeks, I picked seven and ten favorites, respectively, 17 out of 27 games, and got killed. I'm going to do the abridged version of the picks this week: Seattle (-4.5) over San Fran, KC (-9.5) over Oakland, Indy (-1) over Dallas, Cincy (+3.5) over Nawlins, Pittsburgh (-3.5) over Cleveland, Tennessee (+13) over Philly, Baltimore (-4) over Atlanta, St. Louis (+7) over Carolina, Buffalo (+2.5) over Houston, New England (-5.5) over Green Bay, Washington (+3) over Tampa, Chicago (-7) over NYJ, Miami (-3.5) over Minnesota, Detroit (+2) over Arizona, San Diego (+2.5) over Denver, and NYG (+3.5) over Jacksonville. I really like San Diego chances against Denver; I've said all season that they're the best team in the AFC, and I think they'll show that Sunday. I like the over in Washington-Tampa (34), under in NO-Cincy (51) (it's just too high), over in Philly-Tennessee (43), and the over for Miami-Minnesota (34). 34 points in just too low to safely take, unless Oakland and Denver are playing.

I know it's Apple Cup weekend, and as a UW student I'm compelled to at least mention the game, but I really don't care much this year. UW's season has been depressing because there was so much hope at one point, and everything's gone to hell since then. The Isaiah Stanback injury, two overtime losses, Carl Bonnell's awfulness. I'm glad that the upswing in the basketball program coincided with the football team falling off the map, or this would of been a depressing four years of UW sports. Oh well. I'll be cheering for the Huskies tomorrow, with the consolation if they lose being the basketball team. When we stomp the Cougs twice this winter I'll feel better about this.

This week I hope to have a post about the UW basketball team, you should definitely watch every chance you get, and maybe something on the Sonics/NBA. Go Dawgs!

How the Mariners Can Win the West

2006-11-16T15:22:00.000-08:00

Hey, remember me? It's been a while, hasn't it? Sorry about the hiatus, completely unintentional. I got lazy with the weather and school's killing me, plus I'm working on a top secret project, but that shouldn't be an excuse. I'll try and compensate by overloading you with posts. I've been tracking my NFL picks even though I haven't been posting, and should have something up on those in the next day or two.

Anyway, I want to talk Mariners. I must admit this has already been a very disappointing offseason for me. I hated, absolutely hated, seeing the front office give Mike Hargrove a vote of confidence for this season. I truly believe he's the worst in-game manager in baseball; he can't construct a lineup, he's overly reliant on "proven veterans" even when they suck (i.e. Carl Everett, Willie Bloomquist, and Julio Mateo), mangles pitching changes, sacrifice bunts way too much, etc. Second, I wanted the M's to go after Daisuke Matsuzaka, though I'm glad he didn't end up paying $51.1 Million just to negotiate with him. Third, this free agent market is depressing as hell. There's just not much out there, and with the new CBA, every team in baseball has loads of money and feels the need to flaunt it. The contracts being handed out and that will soon be handed out are ridiculous. You're going to see multi-year contracts worth about $10 mil per for turd sandwiches like Ted Lilly and Gil Meche. If you're a woman, hope that Alfonso Soriano impregnates you in the near future, because he'll be $120 mil richer in the next couple weeks. I don't necessarily have anything against contracts of this size, but I hate seeing them go to players who just aren't that good. Here are the players I would consider giving contracts to of that size if I was handed a team, the players I would consider truly elite, and also young enough to justify a massive contract: Albert Pujols, Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Beltran, and Johan Santana. That's it. I would probably consider David Wright and Grady Sizemore, too, because of their combination of youth, hitting, and their position, and maybe Jose Reyes if he keeps improving like he did last year. With the exception of Pujols, the best hitter in baseball, and also one of the best fielding first basemen, I think that contracts of the size Soriano will probably get should be reserved for potential hall-of-fame players, true five-tool players, at the premier defensive positions: SS, CF, C, 2B, and 3B. It's just not that hard to find a corner outfielder or first baseman or DH who can hit and play the field at a mediocre level. Here's a list of National League LF's who were at least 80% as productive as Soriano or Carlos Lee, as measured by Runs Created per Game, and with over 200 PA on the season: Luke Scott, Jason Bay, Dave Roberts, Matt Holiday, Chris Duncan, Andre Ethier, Pat Burrell, John Rodriguez, David Dellucci, Adam Dunn, Josh Willingham and Matt Murton. Barry Bonds was far more productive than either Soriano or Lee. Six of those players made the league minimum, and only Dunn and Burrell had comparable salaries to Soriano and Lee.

What frightens me about these potential salary figures is that the Mariners just aren't very well run. They're awful identifying low risk/potential high-reward bargains, such as last year when they pursued the washed-up Carl Everett for 5 mil a year instead of opting for an incentive laden, low-base contract for Frank Thomas. They also have a weird habit of throwing money at free agents when they don't need to, such as last year's Jarrod Washburn contract, which was 4 years at 37.5 mil when no other team was actively pursuing him. They've also feel the need to make splashy signings versus pursuing a good value. With all the money floating around this year and the team's payroll supposed to go up to about $95 mil, I'm afraid of landing more albatross contracts like Ritchie Sexson, Adrian Beltre, and Washburn.

That said, here's what the Mariners are going into next season with:

C: Kenji Johjima
1B: Ritchie Sexson
2B: Jose Lopez
SS: Yuniesky Betancourt
3B: Adrian Beltre
CF: Ichiro!
RF: Chris Snelling
LF: Raul Ibanez
DH: Ben Broussard

Bench: Scrappy Bloomquist, Rene Rivera, Jeremy Reed, etc.

Starting Pitching:
King Felix
Jarrod Washburn
Cha Seung Baek?
Jake Woods?
Joel Pineiro?

Bullpen:
JJ Putz
Rafael Soriano
George Sherrill
Mark Lowe
Julio Mateo
Sean Green?
Emiliano Fruto?
Jon Huber?

So, looking at this team, it's obvious that the main concern is going to be starting pitching. The starting lineup is about set, and the bullpen is set. I wouldn't do a thing to the bullpen. Putz, Soriano, Sherrill and Lowe were as good a core relief group as any in baseball last year, and none of them even made a million dollars. It's not their fault that Hargrove wants to use Camel-Face Mateo in important situations instead of as the mop-up guy. With King Felix and Jarrod Washburn as the only sure things, you're going to have to sign at least one free agent and possibly two, but you're also going to need to fill at least one of those slots with the in-house options or non-roster invitees because fiscally the M's can't afford three marquee free agents. The biggest names of the free agent starters are Jason Schmidt, Barry Zito, Andy Pettite, Adam Eaton, Ted Lilly, Gil Meche, Jeff Suppan, Greg Maddux, Vincente Padilla, Randy Wolf, and Jeff Weaver. Ugh. I would say that Pettite is the best name on that list, but he's either going to play for Houston or retire, so he's out. I would say Schmidt is #2. Weaver and Suppan will be overpaid because of the playoffs. Eaton, Lilly, Wolf, and Padilla all have injury/durability issues and none of them are that good. I hate Gil Meche. Maddux probably wouldn't come to Seattle. Zito just isn't that good of a pitcher anymore, despite good ERA and win totals. Out of these "marquee" starters, I would say that the M's should go hard after Jason Schmidt, and if they don't get him, look elsewhere. There's just not much talent there.

I would try to sign one of the second tier free agent starters after this, preferably someone coming off injury or a poor season who'd be willing to play for a reasonable one-year contract. I would look at guys like Bruce Chen, Shawn Estes, John Thomson. I think Chen would be the best bet, a lefty who had awful numbers last year, but the year before was 13-10 with a 3.83 ERA in almost 200 innings, with fairly good K/9 and BB/9 numbers. His issue in the past has been home runs, and he would certainly benefit next year pitching at Safeco.

Ideally I would go into next year with this rotation:

Jason Schmidt
King Felix
Jarrod Washburn
Bruce Chen
Cha Seung Baek/Jake Woods

Not bad. I think it would definitely be an improvement over last year's rotation, if only because Pineiro's no longer in it. With the pitching set, here's what else I would do. I think if the M's make a big signing on offense, they're going to have to move some salary. I would recommend trading Ritchie Sexson, who's due $28 million over the next two years. I'm not sure what you'd get for him, but it'd be worth it to get rid of his salary and maybe get a couple young arms in return. I would play Ben Broussard at first base, and sign a right-handed hitting, lefty-mashing 1B to platoon with him, either bringing back Eduardo Perez or signing Craig Wilson. I would then move Raul Ibanez to DH. I think the M's have room for improvement on defense, especially in the outfield, and the most obvious location is in LF, a very important position in Safeco due to the size of the left-center field gap, and with the number of fly-ball pitchers on the staff. You don't need to have great pitching, if you have great defense, and it's cheaper to acquire defense right now because the market undervalues it due to the difficulty in evaluating defense objectively. The M's are perpetually looking for another lefty power bat. By far the best option on the market for a lefty power bat and a good fielder is J.D. Drew. With the money saved by trading Sexson, the M's could reasonably go after Drew. As far as cheaper options with the same logic, Frank Catalanotto and David Dellucci are good picks, with Catalanotto the better defensive player and Dellucci the better hitter, and both lefties. If they prefer to go the speed/defense route, Dave Roberts is available, while the cheaper version of this logic would be to go after Kenny Lofton, who would likely be willing to sign a one-year contract. I really like the idea of having an outfield with three guys who could play center field. You take away the gaps, and you end up taking a lot of runs off the board in the long run. The best recent Mariners teams featured outfields of Mark McLemore/Stan Javier/Randy Winn, Mike Cameron, and Ichiro. With outfielders like that you make your pitching staff look a whole lot better.

So best case scenario, here's what I think would be both a reasonably easy to construct, and also improved enough to contend, Mariners line up:

C: Kenji Johjima
1B: Benuardo Broussez/Cren Brousson
2B: Jose Lopez
SS: Yuniesky Betancourt
3B: Adrian Beltre
LF: J.D. Drew
CF: Ichiro
RF: Chris Snelling
DH: Raul Ibanez

I would bat the line-up: Ichiro, Snelling, Drew, Ibanez, Beltre, Broussez/Brousson, Johjima, Lopez, Betancourt. I like it. That's a line-up that would score 800-850 runs, while taking runs off the board on defense. Last season the M's scored 756 runs, while allowing 792. If they could score 50 more runs and take 50 away over the course of the season, scoring 806 runs and allowing 742 runs, they're expected win total would be 87. An 87-win team in the AL West is a definite contender, about equal to Oakland and Anaheim. Honestly, a nine win improvement over last season is not too drastic. By having Ichiro in center all year they'll be improved because it lets them add another good bat to the regular line-up, in this case Chris Snelling. Subtract Sexson, and add Drew to improve the defense by taking Ibanez out of the field. The offense will also be improved be not having Carl Everett in the line-up for most the year. By adding Jason Schmidt the starting pitching will be improved, while the bullpen will be stellar again. I'm starting to get excited thinking about this team. One another minor addition: anyone would be a better back up catcher than Rene Rivera, who might have been the worst regular back up in the majors. It wouldn't be difficult or expensive to add a competent back-up like Todd Greene. Just that could be worth another win or two.

So as it stands, the M's bench would be Todd Greene, Jeremy Reed, Willie Bloomquist, and Perez/Wilson, as Hargrove insists on carrying 12 pitchers. That wouldn't be a bad bench, but I would ideally want one more guy who could play middle infield, so that Bloomquist could be used exclusively as a pinch runner, which is what he's best suited for. Jeremy Reed will be an important piece off the bench as he can play every outfield position, and Snelling and Drew will need to be spelled fairly often, due to their injury risk. The best scenario would be for the M's to carry just 11 pitchers, and call up someone like Yung-Chi Chen or Michael Garciaparra to add infield flexibility on their bench. If they carried 14 position players, the bullpen would look like this: Putz, Soriano, Sherrill, Lowe, Mateo, and Woods. That's a solid bullpen, and having Woods around gives you an emergency starter/long relief guy/second lefty. I like this hypothetical team a lot; I think they'd be very competitive in the division, with the potential to win around 90 games and a division title. All they need to add is Jason Schmidt, Bruce Chen, J.D. Drew, Eduardo Perez/Craig Wilson, and Todd Greene. Is that too much to ask for?

Week Five Review, Week Six Picks

2006-10-12T22:26:00.000-07:00

Last week went much better. 9-5, 40-33-1 on the season. Not a whole lot to complain about; Baltimore-Denver was like a coin flip that came up heads instead of tails. Oh well. Not sure what happened to Washington; I'd stay away from them until they start playing less erratically. Kansas City kicked a field goal from the one yard line instead of going for it, or else they'd have covered. I don't know about Indy. They've been solid gold in the past, at least in the regular season, but not so much this year. Their defense is awful, and I think the offense is sandbagging it. That's the only possible explanation for scoring 14 points against the Tennessee defense in the RCA Dome. As for New Orleans, you can't possibly expect Bruce Gradkowski to play that well. I would pick the Saints in that same situation one million times out of one million.

Here are a couple random thoughts from the last week. Now that the Yankees have decided to keep Joe Torre around, there's no way A-Rod stays in New York. Someone has to take the fall; that's how the Yankees work. It's not going to be Torre, and it won't be golden boy Jeter. A-Rod's the easiest target. I think he ends up with one of the Los Angeles teams, with the Angels as the early front runner. Both those teams have prospects, are willing to spend money, are more forgiving media markets, etc. If there was one thing I wish would happen in this whole process, I wish it was this: absolutely no concessions should be made to the Yankees. I have never understood why any team would want to do anything that helps the Yankees. There is no way that the Yankees should get more than thirty cents on the dollar if they trade A-Rod. If they think they have to trade A-Rod, so be it, but I wouldn't give them a thing. Take at most half their share of the contract (about sixteen million), but I wouldn't give them more than one prospect, and it shouldn't be your top guy. The Yankees are in a different situation than the Rangers were when they traded A-Rod. The Rangers had to free up money because A-Rod's contract hamstrung them. This is the Yankees. Don't help them out monetarily, and don't give them young pitching. They actually have a pretty good pitching in their minor league system. Phillip Hughes is one of the top three minor league starters in baseball. It's like they're forced to trade A-Rod. If they don't get the offer they want, I guess they'll just have to learn to live with him, or pay him 16 mil to sit at home.

I hate the new clock rules in college football. What was lost in the aftermath of the Huskies debacle last week was that the situation would not have even arose if it wasn't for the time ran off the clock during the kickoff and as soon as the ball is set before the first play of the drive. That was at least ten seconds lost, easily, that should have still been on the clock before the last non-play.

I haven't had a lot of time to blog this week because of school, etc. I won't be around this weekend because I'll be in Portland to see Sufjan Stevens and explore. I'm pretty excited. I saw TV on the Radio at the Showbox a little over a week ago, and it was one of the best shows I've ever seen, and I'm hoping S.S. comes close. And if you don't know Sufjan Stevens or TV on the Radio, you should probably find out. It'll be worth it. On to the picks, which won't be quite as long this week:

Cincinnati (-5.5) @ Tampa Bay

I think Cincinnati should be able to bounce back coming off their bye week and the blowout against New England. I don't think Gradkowski will play quite as well as last week, and I think Cincinnati is a better team than New Orleans, even though this games in Tampa. Cincinnati

Tennessee (+10) @ Washington

I think last week's game was more a case of Indy playing terrible instead of Tennessee turning a corner. I don't think Washington will play as poorly as they did last week, either. Washington

Houston (+13) @ Dallas

I'm kinda tempted to pick Houston. I think I have an irrational soft spot for the Texans. Maybe it's that dreamy David Carr. Anyway, the rational part of my mind tells me there's no way that Houston's defense stops Dallas. There's way too many double-digit spreads this week, appropos of nothing. Never a good thing. I think Houston may be able to keep it marginally close; it's a rivalry game and crazy stuff happens in these games. Houston

Buffalo (Pk) @ Detroit

Buffalo's been pretty good passing the ball, in non-Chicago games. Detroit may have the worst pass defense in the league; Houston could probably make a run at them for worst in the league. Buffalo's pass defense matches up well with Detroit's pass offense. Buffalo

Seattle (-3) @ St. Louis

I'm expecting the pre-Chicago Hawks to show up. I'm not a believer in the Rams; they had good luck to get Denver in week one, and haven't played anyone since. They throw the ball pretty well, which worries me with the Hawks pass defense, but I don't think the Hawks will have too much trouble. Seattle

New York Giants (+3) @ Atlanta

The Giants looked really good last week against the Skins. I give them the edge in this game, I think they'll win outright. Atlanta can't throw the ball, which is the Giants weakness. Giants are real good against the run, and their offense can throw or run with anyone. Giants

Philadelphia (-3) @ New Orleans

I pulled a complete 180 with regard to the Saints, but I think Philly's too strong this week. Great passing game, great pass rush, I like their secondary, just a really good team. Philadelphia.

Carolina (+3) @ Baltimore

I think Baltimore is just a better team than Carolina, even with a crummy offense. Carolina is now 1-4 ATS, and I think it'll be 1-5 after this week. Baltimore and the Under (33.5)

Miami (+2.5) @ New York Jets

Miami looked like a real team last week. I think Joey Harrington could actually work out for them as long as he does the game manager thing and limits his mistakes. I think the Jets are coming back to Earth; Dolphins win this outright. Miami

San Diego (-10) @ San Francisco

Not much to say here. San Diego should win easy. San Fran can't stop anyone. San Diego

Kansas City (+7) @ Pittsburgh

Here's my big "upset" prediction, even though it's not much of an upset. Everyone's saying Pittsburgh will bounce back this week, but they're running into a tough opponent. I think KC's an underrated team with a really good defense so far, while Pittsburgh's offense has been terrible. I think KC will keep it close and could win it outright. Kansas City

Oakland (+15) @ Denver

I can't see Oakland score more than a touchdown, so Denver's got to score 22 points to be sure. You know what, I'm going with Oakland. Call me crazy; I'm not ready to be on the Denver bandwagon just yet. This pick seems a little too easy, like Tennessee-Indy last week. I don't think it's smart to lay double-digits in so many games. Oakland

Chicago (-10) @ Arizona

One of my favorite parts apart doing this is that every week I know that I can pick against Arizona and know that it's a lock. Chicago

There you go. Only thirteen games this week. I like Chicago (-10), Kansas City (+7), Philly (-3), and the Giants (+3). All road teams. Hmm. I like the Carolina-Baltimore Under (33.5), Oakland-Denver Under (36), Houston-Dallas Over (43), and the Tennessee-Washington Over (39).

Week Five NFL Picks

2006-10-05T16:04:00.000-07:00

I'm ready to put last week behind me. It is over, in the past, done. I'm moving on. That said, it seems like the perfect week for the Hawks to have a bye. Also, I left some stats out of my last post. Here they are:

Home vs. Spread: 10-4 last week. Now 30-29-1 against the spread for the season. Home teams are now 31-29 overall.

Favorites vs. Spread: 8-6 last week. 26-33-1 for the season. 37-21 overall.

NFC-AFC vs. Spread. 2-2 last week. NFC is 6-5 against the AFC, 6-5 against the spread.

And here's something new; this is the NFL standings, by record against the spread:

AFC East AFC North

Buffalo 3-1 Baltimore 3-1
NYJ 3-1 Cincinnati 3-1
NE 2-2 Cleveland 2-2
Miami 0-4 Pittsburgh 1-2

AFC West AFC South

San Diego 2-1 Indianapolis 2-1-1
Kansas City 2-1 Jacksonville 2-1-1
Denver 1-2 Houston 1-3
Oakland 0-3 Tennessee 1-3

NFC East NFC North

Philadelphia 3-1 Chicago 3-1
Dallas 2-1 Minnesota 3-1
Washington 2-2 Green Bay 1-3
NYG 2-1 Detroit 1-3

NFC West NFC South

St. Louis 3-1 New Orleans 4-0
Seattle 2-2 Atlanta 3-1
San Francisco 2-2 Tampa Bay 1-2
Arizona 0-4 Carolina 0-4

Interesting. Miami, Oakland, Arizona, and Carolina have either made or lost a lot of money for people, depending on whether you're going for or against them. I imagine there aren't many people happy with Miami, Arizona, or Carolina. Hopefully the good people of New Orleans have been putting a lot of money on the Saints. On to the picks.

Tennessee (+18.5) @ Indianapolis

I would normally call this spread a joke, but it's completely justified. Tennessee is absolutely awful. They can't run or pass the ball, and they can't stop the run or the pass. Just ugly. Indianapolis. I would tentatively recommend the over, because Indy should score 30-40 points easily, but I don't know if Tennessee will be able to score. We'll see.

Washington (+5) @ New York Giants

I'm pretty excited about this game. There will be a lot of scoring, guarantee it. Neither team can stop the pass, while both teams can throw the ball. Both teams can run the ball, too, and the strength of both defenses is against the run. Really good matchups. I think Washington should be able to keep it close, maybe win it outright. Washington and the Over (45.5)

Detroit (+6.5) @ Minnesota

This should be interesting. Minnesota is pretty bad on offense, while Detroit can't stop the pass at all, but is very good against the run. Minnesota's strength is their defense, while Detroit is mediocre on offense, but is coming off a big offensive game. Minnesota.

Tampa Bay (+6.5) @ New Orleans

The Bruce Gradkowski era is upon us, and I can't contain my excitement. I'm surprised this spread isn't larger. The rationale seems to be that it should be a low scoring game, but I think New Orleans isn't getting enough respect, still. They're 3-1, and hung tough with Carolina last week, and they may have the best home-field advantage this year. New Orleans

St. Louis (-2.5) @ Green Bay

Another spread I'm surprised isn't larger. I think St. Louis wins this easy. Their defensive strength, guarding the pass, matches up well with Green Bay's offensive strength. Green Bay can't run the ball, and St. Louis should be able to pass on them. St. Louis

Miami (+9.5) @ New England

There's no way in hell I take Miami here. Miami's going to have to beat me for about three weeks in a row, badly, for me to change my opinion of them. Terrible offense, and the Culpepper-Joey Harrington quarterback controversy is officially on. This is hi-larious. New England

Buffalo (+10) @ Chicago

I like this Buffalo team, but I don't know if they can hang with Chicago. I actually think this'll be closer than the Seattle game (This is the last time I ever mention that game, I promise), but Chicago's defense is just too good. I think the over/under is a little low on this game (34.5), but I'm not sure I'd put money on it. Buffalo's been able to throw the ball well, and their defense is much better against the pass, but both of these clash with Chicago's strengths, stopping the pass (and the run) and throwing the ball. Chicago

Cleveland (+7.5) @ Carolina

It's very tempting to ride Carolina, but Cleveland is just awful. I don't see why this spread is comparable to the spread from the New Orleans game last week. New Orleans is a much better team than Cleveland. Cleveland's bad on offense, but they seem to be able to score some points. Carolina's defense has been surprisingly bad this year, as most people figured their defense to be their strength going into the year. I like Carolina and the Over (37.5)

New York Jets (+6.5) @ Jacksonville

We'll see this week if the Jets are for real. Hanging with Indy's bad defense at home is much different than sticking with Jacksonville on the road. New York can throw the ball, but can't run, and the Jets don't play defense very well. Jacksonville threw the ball really well last week, and Washington's defense is much better than New York's. At the same time, Washington moved the ball easily against Jacksonville through the air, and New York can throw. I think there will be more scoring in this one than people expect. I like Jacksonville and the Over (37).

Kansas City (-3.5) @ Arizona

I don't see why this spread is 3.5 points. This is going to be a blowout. Does no one else realize just how bad Arizona is? Seriously, they're terrible. Kansas City just beat San Francisco by 41 points, and I think Arizona and San Francisco are very comparable teams. I know KC did that at home, but home field advantage isn't worth 35 points a game. This is a mortal lock. Larry Johnson should run for about 500 yards. Kansas City

Oakland (+3.5) @ San Francisco

I'm not sure what to say about this one. I don't know if anyone outside of the Bay area will watch this; literally zero people outside of California will watch this game. The spread is calling these teams about even, giving the 3.5 to SF for home field. I think San Fran is definitely better than Oakland, so I'll go with them. San Francisco

Dallas (+2) @ Philadelphia

I really don't care to hear another word about this game. I think it's time for a moratorium on all Terrell Owens-related stories. Compounded with the fact that the Cowboys are involved, my least favorite team, and I just don't care. I think Philly wins this game pretty easily. I think Dallas is a very overrated team, and no one's giving Philly enough credit yet. Philadelphia

Pittsburgh (+3.5) @ San Diego

I think San Diego wins this game with ease. The combination of Pittsburgh's offense and San Diego defense makes me think there won't be many points for the Steelers. Pittsburgh's defense is very good, but I think San Diego should be able to score on them. I like San Diego. I don't think there will be much scoring, so I also like the Under (37).

Baltimore (+4) @ Denver

I haven't given Baltimore much credit this year, mostly because I think their offense isn't very good, especially their running game, but I like them this week. Denver still hasn't shown me much. Their defense is good, but I don't know about their offense yet, which is not a very good thing to have going into a game against a defense like Baltimore's. Denver may win it, but I don't see them winning by more than a field goal. Baltimore

So, that's my picks. I feel good about these picks, even though it seems like it's a little favorite heavy. Here's my best bets:

Kansas City (-3.5)
St. Louis (-2.5)
New Orleans (-6.5)
Philadelphia (-2)

Pittsburgh-San Diego (37) Under
NYJ-Jacksonville (37) Over
Cleveland-Carolina (37.5) Over
Washington-NYG (45.5) Over

Give me yr. thoughts in the comments.

Week Four Picks, Reviewed, plus MLB Playoffs

2006-10-04T12:04:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday was one of those days that gamblers dread. I'd felt great about my picks, fantastic, to tell the truth, and in hindsight, probably a little too good. All week I'd been entertaining visions of a 10-4, maybe even 11-3, hitting all my over/unders, riding off into the sunset on a majestic steed, a buxom lass in tow. Indeed. Ho Ho. It was not meant to be. The gambling gods descended from on high, and like King Herod, an angel of justice smote me down in my place. The Hubris! The first week of games I could actually sit down and watch like a man, on a couch with salty snacks and a refreshing beverage, started out innocently enough. San Diego-Baltimore was the first game, a game I felt great about, my dark horse Super Bowl pick, San Diego, having been freshly coronated by the national media with Bill Simmons ranking them #1 in his last column. The game started well, San Diego defiantly marching down the field against Baltimore on their first drive, Phillip Rivers throwing a long touchdown pass to cap it off. The route was on, or so it appeared. Baltimore managed to hang around for the rest of the half, and then it happened. Marty Schottenheimer reared his overly-conversative play-calling head. Suddenly San Diego couldn't move the ball, and Baltimore was in the game. Around the time of the intentional safety/near botched punt debacle, the game became officially frightening. The final Baltimore drive was inevitable, a seemingly washed-up Steve McNair leading the Ravens down the field for six points with mechanical efficiency.

My morning was already ruined. New Orleans was hanging in with Carolina, Miami was predictably blowing it against Houston, and the indians were descending upon the Arizona wagontrain with blood in their eyes, but I couldn't catch a break otherwise. Kansas City was back to looking like a playoff team, Minnesota couldn't score on Buffalo, Dallas was showing no ill effects from the T.O. suicide watch, and the J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS were matching Indy blow for blow.

By the afternoon slate, I was in the grip of a full-blown panic attack. What if I never picked another game correctly? The Pats were blowing out Cincy, Oakland had inexplicably put up three first-half touchdowns (the Madness!) against Cleveland, Detroit and St. Louis were in a shoot-out (what happened to the Rams D?), and Washington had returned to their status as a very dangerous team to gamble against with their renewed ability to get Santana Moss the ball in space.

Thankfully, the gods offered me a reprieve. Cleveland came back, a late touchdown pass gave St. Louis the win by a TD. It would be, at least, a salvagable week. With the Sunday night and Monday night games still to go, I even entertained thoughts of going .500. Ha. Don't get too cocky. The Hawks laid down for the Bears, while the Eagles covered, but Green Bay couldn't score in the second-half to hit the over. So that's how it all broke down. 6-8 on the week, now 31-28-1 overall. 1-3 on my best bets (Good God), 1-3 on my over/unders. Now 3-5 on the BB's and 4-4 on over/unders. I keep saying it could of been worse. Hopefully this week is better. Haven't had a chance to look at the lines for this week, distracted by school and playoff baseball. Picks'll be up tomorrow afternoon or Friday early.

As to the MLB playoffs: I started a post on them, a detailed breakdown of each playoff series. Seriously, it would've ran 10,000+ words, easily, and been obsolete within the week. So I scrapped it, and I'll just throw my predictions onto this.

I love the A's this year. I don't think anyone has the combo of starting pitching and defense to beat them. I think the Twins would be the toughest team to compete with if Francisco Liriano, but alas, it may be quite awhile before we see Johan and Liriano together at full strength. I don't exaggerate when I say they could be the greatest starting pitcher combination ever. Better than Koufax-Drysdale, better than the Big Unit and Schilling, or at least on par. I don't like the Yankees pitching, I think Detroit peaked too early, and their pitching will collapse against the Yankees. I think Oakland dispatches the Yankees with alarming efficiency, leading to Steinbrenner blowing up the team in the offseason. In the National League, I think the Mets beat the Dodgers, even with the Mets terrible pitching situation, and the Padres beat the Cardinals, even with the 1-0 deficit. Beyond Carpenter, the Cardinals might have the worst playoff rotation we've seen in quite some time. I think the Mets lack of pitching catches up to them in the NLCS, and the World Series features the A's and the Padres. The east coast will complain that all the games start after its bedtime. I think the A's win it all, as Billy Beane's shit will finally work in the playoffs.

That is all.

Online Gambling Ban

2006-10-03T16:16:00.000-07:00

Has anyone heard anything about the online gambling ban? If you have, do you know how said ban will affect companies such as Neteller? If Neteller is in fact affected, will one still be able to transfer money from a Neteller account into an American bank account? All of this is purely hypothetical, of course.

My two cents as to this matter is that this is utter bullshit. This is the US government ruling in favor of corporations over individual citizens right to make a living. Gambling is legal in every state, at least in the form of lotteries. There are tribal casinos all over the place. I hate that idiot taxes such as lottos, scratch tickets, and pull tabs are left in place while online poker, blackjack, sportsbooks, the games with the lowest or non-existent house advantages, the games that involve actual talent or ability to exploit inefficient systems, are affected. Argh.

I'm moving to Iceland.

Week Four NFL Picks

2006-09-28T15:37:00.000-07:00

Wednesday was the first week of classes at the U, so my output may drop off somewhat in the immediate future. Who knows, maybe it won't. I do have Fridays off, so I may use Fridays to put out more posts. Tomorrow I think I'll put up a post on the MLB playoffs (thanks to Rudee for the suggestion.) Baseball's my first love and I haven't gotten a chance to write about much yet, so I'm looking forward to it. I may do another post on what I would like to see from the Mariners this off-season.

It's looking increasingly like Mike Hargrove will be back for next season. Ugh. I'm not looking forward to that; Mike Hargrove has no business coaching a major league team at this point in his career. He's terrible with young players, is one of the worst abusers of the sacrifice bunt in baseball, his mismanagement of the bullpen is astounding, he's overly reliant on "proven veterans", etc. I could go on and on, and frankly I don't really want to, because I find it to be very depressing to dwell upon. I will say this, I think that the decision to retain Hargrove makes me severely pessimistic about the odds of a Mariners World Series team while the present front office group is in place. They've set a precedent of settling for less and focusing on putting a marketable team on the field, rather than a team that actually wins games.

Fuck it. M's are winning it all next year behind the co-Cy Young winners, Felix Hernandez and Daisuke Matsuzaka. On to the picks for week four:

Indianapolis (-9) @ New York Jets

This game is between two teams that will apparently attempt to go through this season without playing defense. There's not a team in the league that can win against Indy in a shootout, and I don't think that the Jets will be the team to test this theory. Indy's defense has been pretty beat up, and I do think the Jets should be able to score points through the air. I like Indy and the Over (46.5). Indy may be able to put up 47 points single-handedly.

San Diego (-2.5) @ Baltimore

I'd say this game's the undercard to this week's marquee matchup, Seattle-Chicago. I look at this one as a matchup between two great defenses, but San Diego also has a very good offense, while Baltimore's is merely run-of-the-mill. I don't think that Baltimore will be able to pitch a shutout; San Diego will be able to score at least a couple touchdowns (hell, the Browns put up 14 points against Baltimore last week), while Baltimore's struggle to put the ball in the endzone this year worries me. San Diego

Minnesota (+1) @ Buffalo

There were a couple lines this week that I thought were just weird looking. This was one of them. Does anyone think that Buffalo's a better team than Minnesota? I know that the home-field advantage is factored into the line, which essentially says that Minnesota's the better team on a neutral field, but Buffalo's exhibited an ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in two of three games this season. I actually like this Buffalo team, they're entertaining, have a lot of youth, could be a playoff team in a couple years, maybe sooner with the weak division they're playing in, but I'm gonna go with Minnesota here.

Dallas (-9.5) @ Tennessee

This was one of two games this week that took me the longest to figure out, along with Jacksonville-Washington. I don't debate that Dallas is the better team, but should they be nearly ten points better, on the road? The other issue here is the whole Terrell Owens fiasco. I don't often put much importance in issues like chemistry, the effect of off-field issues, etc., but there's no way that this isn't a huge distraction. As bad as Tennessee has looked, I think that they're improving; I thought they'd be an improved team in the preseason, until their quarterback fiasco began, but Collins/Young learn the offense a little better each week, and I don't think they're defense will keep playing this poorly. Tennessee

San Francisco (+7) @ Kansas City

Here's another weird line: No team with Damon Huard at quarterback should be laying seven points under any circumstance, home-field advantage or not. San Francisco's defense has been porous this year, but I think the overly-conservative Kansas City offense will make up for it. San Fran's exhibited an ability to put up points this season, and I think they'll at least keep this game close. San Francisco

New Orleans (+7.5) @ Carolina

Dear New Orleans,

I'm sorry for thinking that your team sucks real bad. Your defense looks frisky, and Deuce McAllister looks like he cares again with Reggie Bush as his decoy. Marques Colston was a great find. Sorry.

Sincerely,

CSG

This is a game between two teams that have done the exact opposite of their expectations. Carolina was handed the Super Bowl before the season started, but forgot to show up for their first two games, then squeaked by Tampa. New Orleans was supposed to be bad, but instead has rode a wave of magnanimous energy from across the country to a 3-0 record. The historical percentage of 3-0 teams that go to the playoffs? 65.7%. There's a big difference between a 2-0 and a 3-0 team. New Orleans

Arizona (+7) @ Atlanta

Atlanta worries me, because everything that could go wrong for them against New Orleans did. That was like a worst case scenario game for them. The offense was bad, the defense looked much worse than the first two games, and their special teams continued to be atrocious, something that tends to be overlooked when a team is winning games, but just looks ugly when a team's losing. Still, I was rider #1 on the Arizona schadenfreude bandwagon; in fact, I may be the conductor. Arizona is currently part of an unelite group of teams that is winless against the spread; I predict they'll stay there. Atlanta

Miami (-4) @ Houston

Here's another one of the confusing lines. Should Miami be laying points against anyone? I know that Houston is horrid, but I don't know if Miami could even score points on Houston at this point. I swear that everyone watching Miami play has their hands over their eyes and cotton stuffed deep into their ears, then during commercial breaks read the Sports Illustrated NFL preview edition. I might look bad with this one, but I'm going with Houston

Detroit (+5.5) @ St. Louis

I don't think St. Louis could have gotten a more ideal schedule to start the season. I don't trust either of these offenses to do much in this game, and I think St. Louis will shut down Detroit on defense. St. Louis, and I love the Under(43.5).

New England (+6) @ Cincinnati

I'm surprised this spread is this close after last Sunday's performances by each team. Cincy is still being should short on how good they are, while the New England dynasty may well be on life support. Cincinnati

Jacksonville (-2.5) @ Washington

Along with Dallas-Tennesee, this was the game that gave me the most difficulty. I liked Washington a lot preseason, but I haven't been impressed by them at all this year, even last week against Houston. I think it may ultimately hurt them to have the heat off of Mark Brunell for at least a couple more weeks after going 24/27 against Houston while throwing nothing but screen passes and dump-offs to running backs. I love the Jacksonville defense, but they're offense looks anemic. I think they'll find a way to score some points this week, though, and they should be able to shut Washington down. Jacksonville

Cleveland (-2.5) @ Oakland

I'm amazed that this line is only 2.5 points. Cleveland nearly beat Baltimore, who demolished Oakland. Cleveland's strength is their defense, which isn't saying much, but should be enough to stop Oakland. Oakland's strength is also defense, and Cleveland's weakness is their offense, so I don't anticipate a lot of scoring. Cleveland and the Under (34).

Seattle (+3.5) @ Chicago

Last week's Chicago-Minnesota game gave me a lot of confidence about this game. Minnesota has a good defense, but not as good as Seattle's, and they gave Rex Grossman fits all game. We've seen that as Grossman goes, Chicago goes. When he was on against Detroit and Green Bay, they looked unstoppable. Not so much against Minnesota. I think Seattle will be able to move the ball, and they have the benefit of using a lot of offensive sets that teams haven't had much time to scout. Plus, Shaun Alexander is praying for the Hawks, and he and the Big Man are real close. Seattle

Green Bay (+11) @ Philadelphia

Not a lot to say about this one. Philly's pretty good, Green Bay's pretty bad. I think there should be a lot of points scored, even though Green Bay doesn't have a great offense, due to the injuries in the Philadelphia defense. I like Philadelphia and the Over (47.5).

That's the picks. As always, put questions, comments, suggestions, slander in the comments. My best bets would be these games:

Indy (-9)
Philly (-11)
Cleveland (-2.5)
Minnesota (+1)

Green Bay-Philly over 47.5
Cleveland-Oakland under 34
Detroit-St. Louis under 43.5
NY Jets-Indy over 46.5

Week 3 NFL Picks, Reviewed

2006-09-27T17:53:00.000-07:00

I was 7-6-1 for week 3, was 2-2 on my best bets, and hit three of four over/unders. That Chicago game was a killer. Chicago at -3.5 won by three points, and the score was over by half a point. I'm 25-20-1 overall. Here were my misses:

Buffalo (-5.5)
Miami (-11)
Chicago (-3.5)
Carolina (-3)
Baltimore (-6.5)
Atlanta (-4)

Jacksonville-Indy was the push.

I think the only real mistake I made this week was taking Miami at -11. Laying 11 points on a team that has looked as bad as Miami this season is moronic, regardless of how bad Tennessee has been. I'm willing to stand behind the Buffalo pick; They really outplayed the Jets all game, yet couldn't get the ball into the endzone. I think that's unlikely to continue in the future with a good as Willis McGahee has looked so far. The Jets seem to be getting by with smoke and mirrors. The Chicago game was frustrating. It was difficult to tell whether they're not as good as I thought, or if Minnesota is better than I thought. I thought that game made it apparent that Rex Grossman cannot struggle this year if Chicago wants to be an elite team. He just didn't look good in that game, his throws were all over the place, the interceptions were terrible, etc. Chicago was lucky to get out of that one with a win. I thought that the Carolina-Tampa game confirms that Carolina is not in the upper echelon of this league. Even with Steve Smith back and looking like he was nearly 100%, they didn't beat Tampa like they should have. Their defense is no where close to as good as some people thought it would be, and their poor running game holds them back on offense. Tampa probably should have won that game outright.

Baltimore's offense is fairly worrisome. As it currently stands, I think they're in the second tier of AFC teams. Here's who I would include in the first tier, the teams I think stand a strong chance of being the AFC representative in the Super Bowl: Cincinnati, San Diego, Indianapolis. That's it. Even Indy is suspect because their defense has been awful. The second tier is pretty crowded: Baltimore, Jacksonville, Pittsburgh, Denver and New England. My issue with all of these teams so far has been their offenses. Unless your defense is historically good, such as the '85 Bears or 2000 Ravens, you can't win without a least a solid offense, and I don't see any of these teams as having historically good defenses. And yes, I do think New England is just the eighth-best team in the AFC. If it wasn't for their division, they would not be a playoff team.

Atlanta also took a step back with their Monday night loss. Evil Michael Vick reared his head in that game, spraying passes all over the place, skipping balls to receivers, forcing passes to Alge Crumpler in triple coverage, and running himself into sacks. His success running the ball the first two weeks may actually be detrimental to him, as he seems to be a player who buys into his own hype and seems to think he's invincible when he has success doing stuff that should only work in video games. At the same time, a lot of credit should be given to New Orleans' defense. They looked really good, fast and surprisingly cohesive, considering how their three starting linebackers have been there for about a month. So yes, I am upgrading my opinion of the Saints. They are not terrible. They may also have the benefit of a unique home-field advantage all season. It'll be hard to pick against them at home this season.

This was a frustrating week of games for me. I know I was over .500, but I think I could've easily gotten 9 or 10 wins with a few breaks. I was right on with a number of my predictions, especially in the Seattle, St. Louis, Philly and Denver games. Oh well. There's always week four. Here's the breakdown from the week three games.

Home vs. Spread: 5-8-1. 20-25-1 for the season. Home teams are just 21-25 for the season. Something to be noted.

Favorites vs. Spread: 3-10-1. 18-27-1 for the season. Favorites 27-19 overall. It's beginning to look like that when in doubt, go with road underdogs.

NFC/AFC vs. Spread: 1-0. Washington vs. Houston was only inter-conference game of the week. NFC is 4-3 against the spread in interconference games, 4-3 overall.

I should have my picks for the week up either tomorrow evening or sometime Friday. Don't hesitate to post comments, anonymous criticism, etc.

Sunday Posts, Pt. 2

2006-09-24T13:48:00.000-07:00

3:55-Ok, Matt Hasselbeck just threw a pick-6, and I'm starting to get a little worried. The Giants have scored 21 points in the first 5 and a half minutes of the fourth quarter. Weird stat line for Hasselbeck today: 33 attempts, five touchdowns, three interceptions. Seahawks can't get anything going to run out the clock. Giants are an odd team. They don't seem to have a pass rush and they're pretty bad in coverage, but they're great against the run. Eli Manning may be the greatest quarterback of all time against a prevent defense. I don't understand why you'd even go into the prevent against him. He's much, much worse when pressured, and the biggest knock against him is that he's wildly inaccurate. Why would you give him wide open receivers to throw to. Alright, not going to worry anymore about that one. Hawks still have it locked up. I'm loving Mack Strong, certified running threat.

Philly's got their game locked up, and that game's gone way over. Four minutes left in St. Louis-Arizona, with the Rams up two points. That one looks like a lock to hit the under at 16-14 with the o/u at 44.5. Cleveland-Baltimore's the only one that looks like a loss, though Baltimore might be able to eke out a win. They're in field goal range down two with under 30 seconds to go.

3:24-These games are going very well for me. I thought the Seahawks would win fairly easily, but this is ridiculous. Watching a Manning suffer is one of life's great joys. I'm loving the Seahawks defense this year. The impact of Ken Hamlin's return has been greatly underestimated so far. The Eagles are spanking the Niners; they had almost 350 yards of offense at the half. The only question is whether they hit the over on that game; only ten points to go. Rams are up on the Cards, 16-7, and in line to go well under. The Ravens have been my only disappointment thus far, looking bad on offense, and getting torched by the immortal combo of Chaz Frye and Braylon Edwards. Oh well. Can't win them all.

Afternoon games are Seahawks-Giants, Rams-Cardinals, Eagles-Niners, and Ravens-Browns. I have the Seahawks and Eagles as best bets, giving 3.5 and 6 points, respectively. I also recommended the over for the Eagles and the under for the Rams-Cardinals. Seahawks are already up 14-0. I'm loving it. Each team's first drive ended in an interception. Eli Manning is a little bitch. Philly's already up 14-0, too, with McNabb throwing two first quarter TD's. Arizona's up 7-0 in the first, and Baltimore's up 3-0, early in the second.

Sunday posts, pt. one

2006-09-24T10:30:00.000-07:00

1:20-Early games went weirdly. 3-4-1 overall, Indy-Jacksonville pushing. A bunch of late comebacks. I don't know what happened in the Chicago game, but it ended up as the worst possible score for me, 19-16 Chicago. Chicago misses the cover by a half point, and they go over by a half point. Absolutely excruciating. Carolina couldn't cover, either, but won on a last second field goal. I hate the Dolphins. Cincy came through, though, and so did Washington and Green Bay. There should be a special place in hell for favorites who don't cover, but still win the game after playing terribly.

12:52-Jacksonville's cut the lead to 7. I'm going to pissed if this ends up a push. Minnesota's up four, one minute to go. I can't believe that one. I hit the under, though. Green Bay up 31-24. Tampa up 24-23. Washington 31-15. Jets up 28-20. How the fuck do you get 490 yards of offense and only score 20 points? This kind of shit can only happen to Buffalo. Miami up 13-10 against Tennessee. Cincinnati up 8, less than a minute to go. Pittsburgh with the ball and driving.

12:15-Pittsburgh's gone up 17-14 after a big interception throw by Carson Palmer. Indy's holding their 7 point lead. A suddenly rejuvenated Tampa Bay has gone up 21-20. Jets up 21-10 in a game they have no business winning.

11:43-Indy takes the ball to start the second half and marches down the field for a touchdown. Impressive half-time adjustments. Pittsburgh takes the ball and drives for a field goal, 14-10. Mark Brunell is currently 20-20 against Houston. I think I could throw for 250 yards and a couple TD's against them, giving a proper o-line.

11:20-Most games approaching half-time or already there. Cincinnati adds another TD to go up 14-7, with Roethlisberger having a rough half: 5/12, 1 INT. No one's playing defense in the Detroit game, whatsoever. Almost all of Green Bay's offense is through the air, as I predicted. Buffalo has dominated the Jets, but are somehow only up three points with the Jets in the red zone. I have no clue how that is happening. Jacksonville-Indy are tied, but Jacksonville is dominating. Indy can't pass and can't run, and Jacksonville is running all over them on offense. Houston might have the worst defense ever. Washington has 299 yards of offense. I think they're enjoying having a healthy Clinton Portis. The resurrected corpse of Mark Brunell is 14/14 for 191 yards. Maybe Mario Williams can share some of his potential with the rest of the team. Chris Simms had another terrible half, 5/13 with a pick. Too bad their back-up is Bruce Gradkowski. Carolina's up 20-7, Steve Smith's played well, and there's been a huge positive effect on their other receivers and running game. Minnesota's up 6-3 on Chicago, and looking pretty good. Chicago is also shooting themselves in the foot with 8 penalties and a Rex Grossman pick. It's only 7-3, but Tennessee is killing Miami. This is sad.

10:59-Indy and Cincy have both tied it up. Peyton Manning somehow has only 16 yard passing with 5:30 to go till the half. Green Bay is up three while simultaneously making Jon Kitna look like the second coming. Miami is losing to Tennessee, 7-3. Wow. Jets and Bills are tied. Washington's up a touchdown, Vikes-Bears are tied 3-3. Carolina up 17-7. The Dolphins have gone from playoff team to gun-in-the-mouth depressing in three weeks flat.

10:34-Jags-Colts and Steelers-Bengals at the end of the first quarter, Jags and Steelers both up a touchdown. Both games are really similar; Jags and Steelers have both had the ball almost the entire first quarter, Colts and Bengals haven't been able to do anything when they have the ball. Buffalo and Green Bay both up a touchdown, Chicago-Minnesota and Washington-Houston are tied, Miami's up three, and Carolina's up ten.

Puyallup Fair: Last Days

2006-09-24T09:35:00.000-07:00

Sunday is finally here, and I've got to admit, I've been waiting for this day all week. College football is nice, especially with THE University of Washington looking downright frisky for the first time in years, but it's just an appetizer, and in terms of appetizers, it's a good one, but not a great one; think mozzarella sticks vs. calamari. I like college football, but I hate all the bullshit that surrounds it, all the Touchdown Jesus phony tradition, the profits involved at the big schools, which are given a perfectly legal venue to exploit mostly poor kids, who then act like they give a damn about the sanctity of amateur athletics when they're exposed for recruiting violations, players receiving compensation, etc. I know I'm ranting, but give me the pro game any day.

There's eight early games today, with the two big ones being Jacksonville-Indy and Cincy-Pittsburgh. I'm pretty damn excited for both these games. There's also Chicago-Minnesota, Green Bay-Detroit, NYJ-Buffalo, Washington-Houston, Tennesee-Miami, and Carolina-Tampa. A couple clunkers there, but the two big ones more than make up for them. Everything starting in about ten minutes.

Today's the last day of the Puyallup. It's been interesting, to say the least, but I think it's been a good experience. I'll be glad to get back to my normal routine of school/general drunken slothfulness, and I won't miss working 85-90 hour weeks, but I'll walk any with some money and a unique experience. I also lost some weight because there was nothing for me to eat. How about that?

I'll be doing posts throughout the day if I'm not horribly busy, which is a distinct possibility. Drop in and say hi, offer some insight, observations, etc. If you want. I'm not forcing you, as one of the woeful inadequacies of the Internet is the inability to use the threat of immediate physical harm in my favor. C'est la vie.

Week Three NFL Picks

2006-09-21T17:16:00.000-07:00

Alright, so I had a big post up and just about ready to go, went to save it when I went to get some food, and it just so happened to be when Blogger was down for site maintenance, and I lost my whole faw-king post. Yeah, I'm well stropy about that. Anyway, I'm going to offer the Readers' Digest abridged version of what I had.

One of the stock boys in the warehouse, Chris (who I described in this earlier post in the entry at 10:58), got led out in cuffs earlier today. Apparently he had a warrant out for something, I have no clue what exactly, but it was major enough that they arrested him in Puyallup for something that happened in Lewis County. Even though I have had my fun at Chris's expense, he was a pretty good guy, all in all. He's 23, worked hard, never knew his father, has a young kid about to start school, was working to pay his child support. He's no saint, but there's honor in taking care of your kid and not being a complete piece of shit. So, Lewis County, cut the dude some slack, there's worse people out there. Unless he's a child molester. Then, by all means, throw the book at him.

So with that insight into the seamy underbelly of the Puyallup Fair, let's get on to the picks.

New York Jets (+5.5) @ Buffalo

Ok, so here's two teams who've been surprisingly not horrible. Buffalo's looked real good on defense, and Chad Pennington's looked back to normal after rotator cuff surgery. I think that Buffalo's strengths, their pass rush and pass defense in general, matches up well with New York's strength, their passing offense. The Jets are very reliant on yards after the catch because Pennington lacks the arm strength to get the ball down the field, and Buffalo's defensive speed should keep the YAC to a minimum. The Jets can't run the ball at all, and Buffalo should be able to put a couple good drives together to put up some points behind Willis McGahee. Buffalo

Cincinnati (+2) @ Pittsburgh

Cincy got hit hard by injuries last week, while Pittsburgh was beat by Jacksonville at their own game. I think Cincy is the better team here, and even with their beat-up receiving corps, I think they can score against Pittsburgh. Cincy also has an underrated defense, and Pittsburgh's offense isn't really in sync yet, with their diminished running game and Roethlisberger's tummy ache. Cincinnati

Jacksonville (+7) @ Indianapolis

Jacksonville looked great against Pittsburgh on Monday night, but I don't think they're quite at the level of the elite AFC teams, Indy, San Diego, and Cincinnati. They shut down Pittsburgh's offense, but I don't think Pittsburgh has a great offense, at least not yet. Also, I don't think Jacksonville's offense can keep up with Indy's in the RCA Dome. This should be an interesting game, but I think Indianapolis wins it.

Tennessee (+11) @ Miami

Stay away from this game if you're using real money. Both teams have looked terrible so far; Tennessee doesn't have a quarterback who knows their offense, Daunte Culpepper's trying to set a record for most untouched fumbles in a season, Miami can't get the ball to Ronnie Brown enough, Tennessee can't play defense. I think Miami should be able to put up points against the horrendous Tennessee defense, and I don't know if Tennessee will be able to score much. Miami

Washington (-4) @ Houston

Here's two teams that have been bad so far. Washington's been about equally poor on offense and defense, while Houston's actually been pretty good on offense while being awful on defense, probably the worst in the league. Washington should have Clinton Portis for this game, which should help them a lot. Hopefully they'll also remember to get the ball to Chris Cooley. It's going to be another long season for Houston if their defense is this bad again. Washington

Chicago (-3.5) @ Minnesota

This is being treated as a showdown between division rivals, but I think it's a case of a contender against a pretender. Minnesota is solid as long as Brad Johnson is healthy, but Chicago is at entirely different level as a team. They've got the best defense and special teams combination in the league, plus a offense that can finally move the ball and put up points. Minnesota has squeaked past Washington and Carolina without Steve Smith. They just aren't a great team, while Chicago might be. Chicago

Carolina (-3) @ Tampa Bay

Here's another game I would avoid. Carolina should have Steve Smith back, but you don't know if he's going to be the same player. Most of his talent is tied to his ability to gain yards after the catch. If he doesn't have the same quickness and agility as normal, he won't be nearly as effective. That said, just having him on the field should be enough of a distraction to help out their struggling offense. What makes me want to stay away from this game is a combination of several things: Everyone's going to be leaning toward Carolina, which is never a good sign, Tampa Bay can't possibly keep playing this poorly, and they're at home. I'm still going to go with Carolina, but an upset wouldn't surprise me.

Green Bay (+6.5) @ Detroit

I think these are two teams that are about equally bad. This spread is too large. Green Bay's strength, their passing offense, matches up well with Detroit's weakness, passing defense. I also don't feel very confident in Detroit's ability to put up enough points on offense to justify a spread like this. I could see Green Bay win this outright. Green Bay

Baltimore (-6.5) @ Cleveland

Baltimore is due for a let-down game, but I don't think that this is the week. The Cleveland offense is terrible, and Baltimore will absolutely eat them alive. It'll be difficult for Cleveland to reach double digits. I don't think Baltimore will have a problem putting together a couple scoring drives, and a defensive touchdown wouldn't surprise me. I think this'll be an easy cover. Baltimore

St. Louis (+4.5) @ Arizona

I would just like to say that I think both just aren't very good. St. Louis can't get the ball into the endzone, with 24 of their 31 points coming via field goal. They're like last year's Cardinals in that regard (that's not really a team you want to be mentioned alongside historically.) Arizona has the same problems on offense that they have every year --- they can't block anyone, as Edgerrin James' 3.1 yards per carry and 8 sacks of Kurt Warner through two games will testify to. Without the blocking to get their supposedly high-flying offense off the ground, Arizona won't be able to score too many points, and St. Louis has looked like they have a decent defense this year, though it remains to be seen if that will hold up outside of St. Louis, as they have traditionally been much worse defensively on the road. I think this game may end up low scoring, and I see St. Louis keeping it close and possibly coming away with a victory. St. Louis

New York Giants (+3.5) @ Seattle

I got a question about this game in the comment thread for the week two review post from my friend Rudee. Here's how I responded:

"People will remember the Giants comeback from last week, but they forget that the Giants got absolutely killed for three quarters last week, then had a bunch of crazy plays go their way, recovered a bunch of fumbles, got the benefit of a couple calls/moronic penalties by the Eagles, essentially a lot of lucky plays ended up going their way, plays that don't necessarily reflect their true skill level. Also, the Eagles couldn't run the ball at all to run out the clock because Andy Reid kept calling the same run into the middle for zero yards. I don't see the Seahawks running into this problem if we're ahead. The Hawks have a better defense than the Eagles, in my opinion, and I don't see them getting burnt so bad if they can't get a pass rush. I also think that the Hawks will be able to pass on the Giants all day long because the Giants have been terrible against the pass so far. I think that the Seahawks win, and that the game won't be as close as most people expect."

Because I wrote this morning, I think I'm going to stick with this. The Giants pass defense looks awful to start the season, and they haven't been able to pressure the quarterback like they could last year. Osi Umenyiora has been surprisingly quiet, while Michael Strahan and LaVar Arrington are showing the effects of age and injury, respectively. (LaVar Arrington is also incredibly stupid. Just wanted to get that in as a possible reason for his decline in play.) I'm interested to see how much the Hawks use four receiver sets this week with Deion Branch available, as this would seem to be a great method to exploit the thin Giants secondary. I think they'll use three and four receiver sets almost exclusively due to the injuries to Jerramy Stevens and Itula Mili. The Hawks will have Pork Chop Womack out for about six weeks, which may actually be a blessing in disguise, as Womack as looked like one of the weaker members of their line so far, and it gets Chris Spencer, future stud, into the game. Seahawks

Philadelphia (-6) @ San Francisco

The fact that this line is as low as it is says a lot about the improvements San Francisco appears to have made this season. I like seeing San Francisco have a competitive team because when I was younger they were the non-Seahawks team I liked the most, as I was a big Steve Young fan. I haven't liked them since they entered the same division as the Hawks, but I think having more competitive teams makes the NFL more enjoyable in general. That said, the Niners haven't played anyone yet, with the first two games against Arizona and St. Louis. I think Philly will be able to exploit San Francisco's weak defense, and I don't think this game will be very close. I think the Eagles of the first three quarters of last week will be the team that decides to show up, rather than the fumbling, penalty-prone and overly-conservative play-callers of the fourth quarter and overtime. Philadelphia

Denver (+7) @ New England

Ooh, a rematch from last year's playoffs. What intrigue. What's too bad is that neither one of these teams has looked particularly good so far. New England's been mediocre, but Denver's been God-awful. I know I said it last week, but I think Denver's a solid team still, and I think that Jake Plummer will bounce back. (If I say it enough, it might come true.) I like Denver in this one. And if they don't cover, I'll never pick them again.

Oakland (+10) @ Bye

Ok, that's a cheap shot. But I think Andrew Walter's just threw his second pick against the bye week.

Atlanta (-4) @ New Orleans

This is the week when all my New Orleans bashing comes through, as they are exposed when they finally play a good team. Atlanta should be able to run on New Orleans all day after running over Carolina and Tampa. Vick plays better on turf, and no one has been able to stop the spread option look that Atlanta's sporting, which is a fucking brilliant use of Mike Vick. He's never been used right in his career. He's one of the best athletes in the league, and he's got an inaccurate cannon for an arm. Keep the ball in his hands as much as possible. It never made sense to put him in a system where he needs to make short, accurate passes as quickly as possible. Would you put Peyton Manning in the wishbone? NO. So don't put Vick in the west-coast offense. This may be the year he becomes the quarterback everyone thought he was two years ago. Atlanta

So that's my picks. My reviews on about the first half of the games ended up somewhat truncated due to losing all that work when I went to eat, so if anyone wants further explanations or rationales for my picks, feel free to ask in the comments. I said I'd offer my best bets up also, and here they are:

Chicago (-3.5)
Seattle (-3)
Philadelphia (-6)
Atlanta (-4)

I also like the under in Chicago-Minnesota (34.5), the over on Philadelphia-San Francisco (42), the under on St. Louis-Arizona (44.5), and the under on Atlanta-New Orleans (42). Happy gambling!

Week two NFL Picks Review

2006-09-19T14:41:00.000-07:00

Week two saw me go 8-8 overall, and I currently sit at 18-14 for the season. Here were my misses:

Washington (+6)
Pittsburgh (-1.5)
Denver (-10.5)
Green Bay (+2)
Philadelphia (-3)
Detroit (+9)
Miami (-6.5)
Oakland (+12)

Looking at these games, I'm would say that I'm most surprised by the Denver, Green Bay, Detroit, and Oakland results. I just didn't expect Denver to come out and play that poorly on offense in their home opener against Kansas City, a defense that isn't exactly highly regarded. Maybe KC will be better on D with the hiring of Herm Edwards, a more defensive-minded coach, but most of that performance lies squarely on Denver. Denver was able to run for 145 yards, but one must remember that the game went nearly five quarters, so the raw data is slightly exaggerated. If they'd been able to have any semblance of a pass attack, they would have been able to run much more effectively. I know that I wrote that Denver would be stupid to bench Jake Plummer, but that was assuming that he would play at his established level of performance. One has to wonder if all the calls for Jay Cutler are getting to him and affecting his performance, which, paradoxically, would be the only situation in which I would advocate pulling him. Either way, it looks like Denver is not in a good spot.

Green Bay, Detroit and Oakland also surprised me, not because I thought they would be any good, but because I didn't think they would be this bad. I thought the Detroit and Oakland spreads were entirely too high, because of the relative strength of each team's defense, and the (supposedly) mediocre offenses they were facing. I didn't expect either Detroit or Oakland to win, but I did expect them to cover. Unfortunately, I also didn't expect either the Lion or Raider offenses to prove so inept. In addition, no one expected Chicago to put up 34 points on a Lions defense after they held the Hawks to nine. If I could re-do, these, I would probably go with Chicago, given what we know about their offense, but given the same situation, I would probably go with Oakland again. Twelve points is a huge spread, they have a pretty solid defense, Baltimore is a mediocre offense, and over the course of the season, no offense can possibly be as bad as the Raiders have so far. Can it? Green Bay's situation is just sad. I thought for sure they would win last week outright, but their offense just isn't very good, when you take into account the horrendous New Orleans defense. I was pretty damn close though when I predicted 350 and 3 TD's for Favre. The 340 and 3 he did put up was fairly lackluster though, as it took him 55 attempts, due to an inability by Green Bay to run the ball with any effectiveness.

I know that it sounds like I'm not giving New Orleans any respect, but here's the truth: CSG doesn't care about black people. OK, not really. They may be a little better than I thought pre-season, but any team in the league would look good or even dominant if they had faced Cleveland and Green Bay in the first two weeks. New Orleans squeaked by both teams. They do deserve some credit for winning two road games, which is an accomplishment for anyone, but they're probably the worst 2-0 team the league has seen in some time. Looking at their schedule the rest of the way out, the only games I see them being competitive in are the two games against Tampa Bay and the game at home against San Francisco. Their schedule the rest of the way is actually pretty brutal: two against Atlanta and Carolina, the entire NFC East, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati. That should be rough. I'm still pretty comfortable in my pre-season prediction for them to be under six wins.

Washington and Miami are the teams that I found most disappointing. I wasn't incredibly confident in either pick, but I was expecting a lot more from both teams. I won't harp on it, because I already have, but Washington would be much better off starting Jason Campbell, and I also had the feeling that Clinton Portis would play. Not quite sure what's going on there.

Miami was single-handedly sunk by Daunte Culpepper. Now, I wasn't one the people predicting big things from Miami this season (I'm looking at you, SI), but I thought they'd be solid. Right now, I think they'd be better off without Culpepper starting. We take for granted the recovery and rehabilitation process for professional athletes due to how advanced our sports medicine technologies have become, but the injury Culpepper suffered last year was pretty devestating, and too many people were assuming that he would be back at full strength, playing like a slightly less mobile version of his 2004 self. The way he has played makes it pretty clear that he is still adjusting to his new skill set, post-injury, and that he will need some time to get used to his new immobility.

On a slightly related note, I would say that under bets in the Buffalo games should be good bets for at least the next couple weeks, before perception catches up with their performance. They've got a good defense, and an offense built around ball control and hiding J.P. Losman. They're not going to score a lot of points, or give up a lot, in my opinion. Watch out for big spreads involving them for this reason.

As for Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, nothing about their performances really worried me. I actually thought that Philly's performance in the first three quarters proved that they are for real, before they had the football equivalent of losing ten straight coin flips happen to them. The perception of Pittsburgh should come back down to an earthly level after the loss to Jacksonville and Miami not being as good as people thought they were. Yeah, it's usually not a good idea to hand the Super Bowl to a team that was a six seed last year after week one. Yeah, I'm surprised about that just as much as you.

I haven't had a chance to look at the lines for this week's games yet, but I probably will later tonight. Not sure yet when I'll put up my picks for this week. I think I'll do a couple different things this week. I'm still going to make my picks for each game, but I'm also going to add a "best bets" thing, the games I would feel most comfortable putting actual money on. I think I'll also try to take a look at the over/under and money lines and see if I can unearth some gems there. On to the week two breakdown:

Home vs. Spread: 11-5. Home teams bounce back in a big way. 15-17 for the season. Home teams 17-15 overall.

Favorites vs. Spread: 10-6. Also 15-17 for the season. Favorites 19-13 overall.

AFC/NFC vs. Spread: No interconference games this week. 3-3 for the season. 3-3 overall.

Monday Afternoon Tellustrator

2006-09-18T13:32:00.000-07:00

Thoughts on Sunday's games while watching highlights at the bar in Freddy's Club Casino...

The Minnesota-Carolina game featured the best and worst special-team plays I've seen in a while. The Minnesota fake field goal to tie the game was as perfectly executed as could be, great timing, too. On the other hand, the Carolina punt return cross field lateral fumble was something straight out of the elementary school playground playbook. Completely inexplicable at that point of the game.

After seeing the Giants comeback, I'm still convinced the Eagles are the better team. The comeback required an incredibly remarkable series of random events to go in the Giants favor, and they all did. There's not much the Eagles can do when something like that happens. Their inability to run out the clock in the 4th quarter was the only thing I found to be particularly troubling. It'll be interesting to see how they respond to the Jevon Kearse injury, though. There pass rush has been much better than last year's anemic performance.

I haven't seen this many blocked kicks in my entire life as I have through two weeks of this season. This has been absolutely insane.

The Jets comeback against the Patriots also felt fluky. That wouldn't have been close without a couple huge run after the catch plays, especially Cotchery's crazy play.

Please, do not allow the phrase "walk-off touchdown pass" to enter the vernacular.

I wish more people could understand how surreal it is to see closed captioning attempt to approximate what Chris Berman is saying.

The Redskins still need to pull Mark Brunell. His second half performance against a prevent defense inflated his numbers, which still weren't very good.

That is all.

Sunday Post, pt. 3

2006-09-17T19:02:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr. Gibbs,

As a senile old man I know that you have an attachment to the grizzled veteran types, but this is ridiculous. Mark Brunell has attempted 14 first half passes for 48 yards. With the sacks, you've got 29 yards passing in the first half. You would have been better off calling 17 fullback dives than passing on those plays. He is single handedly killing you. Please put Jason Campbell in the game, and install him as your starter for the rest of the season. Maybe he struggles for a couple games, but in the long run it's a whole lot better than Mark Brunell's decidely veteran form of immobility and inaccuracy. There's a whole lot of mediocrity in the NFC, and your division is wide open. Please, don't make me look like an idiot for thinking your team would win a playoff berth. Please, think about the gamblers and the prognosticators, and put in Jason Campbell.

Yours truly,

CSG

Sunday Post, pt. 2

2006-09-17T13:17:00.000-07:00

4:26-All games completed. I went 4-1 on the afternoon slate. Definitely happy with that. 8-6 for the day, with the Sunday night game coming up in 45 minutes, and the Monday night game tomorrow. Here's some thoughts on the afternoon games:

It's amazing how much better San Francisco looks this year. Frank Gore is a solid RB, and Alex Smith looks decent, definitely improved over that Tim Rattay, Ken Dorsey, et al. mix they were running out for the last few years, before last year. They've usually had a servicable defense, but last year's offense was maybe the worst NFL offense in memory. I'm not going to get ahead of myself because I think the Rams are really bad, maybe worse than San Fran, but this team should be competitive this year, in a losing sort of way.

San Diego will run away with the AFC west. Kansas City and Denver have both looked terrible, and Oakland is the worst team in the league. I thought this would be one of the more competitive divisions in the league, but those three teams will be looking up at San Diego all year long.

Seahawks have been really underwhelming. I don't put too much emphasis on week one, but I thought they'd come out and really dominate against Arizona, but they couldn't seem to put them away all game long. I'm really pleased by the defense, but the offense just isn't cutting it, especially the line play. I'm going to be really worried if they don't start to gel soon.

New England better show me something soon. They're lucky to be in a division that has looked pretty bad thus far. They've squeaked by Buffalo and the Jets, nearly blowing both games. New England is looking a lot like a 9-7 team that will win that division, and then lose in the first round of the playoffs.

4:17-San Fran wins 20-13, Hawks 21-10, San Diego up 40-7, Denver wins 9-6 in OT. Fuck you, Denver. If you're not going to cover, don't win at all. New England will cover barring a hail mary, or Eric Mangini revealing his enormous gambling problem by kicking a field goal to cover.

4:01-Seahawks struggling to hold onto an eleven-point lead. SF's up seven, KC and Denver in OT, NE up seven and driving. San Diego has lost their bid for back-to-back shutouts, but they're up 26 in the forth. For some reason I have a bad feeling about the NE game.

3:12-I'm just really amazed to see Alex Smith performing well. I really hope he succeeds as an NFL quarterback, so that one day a biopic will be made about him called "Manly Deeds, Womanly Hands." And the Broncos managed to kick a field goal. As much as they're killing me, it is fun to watch a Mike Shanahan team suck real bad. Smug prick. San Diego has held Tennesse to 47 total yards. Tennessee's quarterbacks have combined to go a Leafian 3/15, 30 yards, 0 TD, 1 INT. What the fuck has happened to the Hawks? They've ran 6 plays for -19 yards in the third quarter. Jebus.

3:04-Shaun Alexander and Edgerrin James look really mediocre. I do not to want to see that from Shaun. I predicted it from James, though. San Francisco has taken the lead on St. Louis, 17-10. All five games are going well for me, except for the fucking Broncos.

2:42-Games at half time. Seahawks up two TD's, Kansas City up 3-0, St. Louis up 10-3, San Diego up 20-0, New England up 17-0. Four shutouts at the half. No fucking clue what the Broncos are doing. I keep thinking of the episode of the Simpsons when Hank Scorpio gives Homer the Denver Broncos as a gift for helping him achieve his goal of global domination. The way the Broncos looked on Homer's front lawn, inept and disorganized, that's how they look today. The way Homer groans and says "The Denver Broncos", that's what I keep hearing in my head. The Chargers have let Phillip Rivers open it up, and he's responded well. Remember, you heard it hear first, San Diego Chargers in the Super Bowl...

1:59-Giants absolutely stole that game from the Eagles. Unbelievable. San Diego and New England up ten each. Kansas City-Denver is scoreless, second quarter. Seahawks still up two TD's. I think that the Seahawks will establish themselves as an elite defense this year, not quite the same level as Chicago's, but surprisingly close. They've held the Cardinals juggernaut to 49 total yards.

1:34-Seahawks score again, 49-yard TD pass, Hasselbeck to D-Jax. So much for the bad knee, he has 113 yards receiving in the first quarter. Somewhere, Willie "Flipper" Anderson breaks into tears for no apparent reason.

1:22-Seahawks and Niners marched down the field on their first drives. Hawks TD, Niners a FG. Giants-Eagles is going to OT, somehow. 17 unanswered fourth quarter points by the Giants. Minnesota driving in OT, into Carolina territory.

Second batch of games starting, Seattle-Arizona, St. Louis-San Francisco, Denver-Kansas City, Tennessee-San Diego, New England-New York Jets. Minnesota-Carolina going to OT. Looks like Giants-Eagles will be a fucking push. Green Bay is within a touchdown. I'm currently 3-4-1, waiting for Minnesota-Carolina, if Green Bay doesn't do something. Told you this would be a tough week. A lot of football still to be played, though.

Sunday posts

2006-09-17T10:27:00.000-07:00

1:00-Second batch of games about to start up. Carolina-Minnesota is the only game still close. Minnesota has the ball in a tie game with 2 minutes to go. New Orleans scored two quick TD's to put Green Bay away. Giants just got within three points.

12:43-The focus of the talking heads this next week will be on how bad Miami looked, but Buffalo may have a surprising defense. They're young and fast, and they gave New England a ton of problems in the first half last week.

Minnesota and Green Bay have tied up their games. Cleveland's got it down to ten. I'm going to be pissed if they hang around and cover. I would love if Oakland could get a cheap TD to cover though. That's a problem with picking favorites with double-digit spreads. If a good team doesn't run up the score to pad stats, ala Peyton Manning and Indianapolis, a shitty team can hang around in a game that isn't at all close and get a cheap cover at the end, something that is just infuriating.

I'm really interested to see if Rex Grossman is for real against a solid team. If he's even above-average, then the Bears are an elite team with that defense. It's too bad that he is such an injury caveat. At least they have Griese this year, instead of drunken Kyle Orton.

12:19-Scratch Andrew Walters semi-competency. Oakland might not score an offensive touchdown this year. They just gave up a safety to go down 15. Their defense is actually looking pretty good, but their offense redefines ineptitude. The only question remaining is who's after Walter, Tui or Jeff George?

I'm not sold on Baltimore's defense. They're going to have to stop a real NFL offense before I'm a believer.

Carolina's really struggling to move the ball without Steve Smith. DeShaun Foster still sucks.

Tampa's going to bench Chris Simms soon. He looks terrible. Ron Mexico and Warrick Dunn are both over 100 yards.

11:54-I missed this, but apparently Aaron Brooks is injured, and Oakland has brought in Andrew Walters, who looks semi-competent. I don't think I'm quite ready for the Aaron Brooks era to end. That crashing noise you just heard was the Miami Dolphins Superbowl bandwagon careening off a cliff. They're down 13-0 to Buffalo, late third quarter. That's the quickest bandwagon calamity since Arizona's of last year. Philly is now up 24-7 on the Giants. I feel sorry for the Giants. They've got a good team, but a killer schedule. Detroit's scored finally. I don't think Atlanta even needs to throw the ball. They just just go to a Wing-T and get it over with. Last thoughts: I think something terrible happened on the Vikings sex cruise last year, something unspeakably horrible. That's the only way to explain the quarterback formerly known as Daunte Culpepper. This is just sad. When do the calls for Joey Harrington start?

11:43-Philly adds a field goal, New Orleans a TD, Baltimore a TD, all games to the half.

11:24-Early games all nearing halftime. Atlanta, Chicago, Cincy, and Indy up by double digits. Green Bay up six, Buffalo up three, Carolina up four, Philly by a touchdown, and Baltimore up six and driving. Chicago looks really fucking good, but I think they may also be a difficult team to read because of their schedule/division.

10:32-The Green Bay-New Orleans game feels like one of those games where Brett Favre goes for about 350 yards and 3 TD's, and leaves the field to a standing ovation, followed by a week of Madden, Joe Buck, Peter King, Joe Thiesmann, et al., fellating him in word, both verbal and written, saying how he still has something left in the tank, how Green Bay might be a sleeper in the NFC North with him at the helm, etc., to then have Favre come out next week and throw 3 horrid interceptions across his body into triple coverage. In fact, I know this will happen, and I plan on enjoying it. Why? Because I'm not a good person. In other news, it looks like Ron Mexico might run for about 200 yards on Tampa. I like when talking heads say that Tampa will be able to contain Vick because they have in the past, as if roster turnover and the effects of aging are non-existent in the NFL.

10:21-Indy leads Houston 14-0 with 8:17 to go in the first quarter. At their current pace, Indy should win about 115-0. I think this might actually happen. Green Bay's up 10-0 already, Giants up 7-0 with Philly in the red zone, and Chicago and Cincinnati are both up 7-0 and driving.

Every Day Should be Sunday

2006-09-17T10:05:00.000-07:00

Salutations, loyal readers. I've been looking forward to this day all week. Nine NFL games starting at the 10 am PST time slot. Thank Jebus for creating the left coast, in all his infinite wisdom and magnanimity. I'll try to drop throughout the day with comments, etc. even though I'm going to be pretty busy here in Carnieland. Anyway, I'm just using this post as an excuse to post this picture of Dave Wannstedt. Seriously, did he have a stroke or something? It looks like the right half of his face is paralyzed, including his moustache. Or did he have to shave his moustache for some reason, and then the University of Pittsburgh A/V club had to add it in Photoshop, due to popular demand?

(Update: I've decided that Wannstedt looks like he's in one of those ridiculous interview pieces on Conan where they have a picture of, I don't know, Saddam Huisein, with just his mouth moving for the entirety of the interview.)

Week Two NFL Picks

2006-09-14T17:52:00.000-07:00

Week Two can be be a difficult time to pick NFL games. I'm not just saying this to cover my ass when I fuck up every game this week; it really is hard to pick early season games. Any view you have of the teams is just a small snapshot that can be very misleading; great teams can look bad, pretenders can look like contenders, it's just the nature of dealing with a very small sample size. The best way to look at an early season slate is probably to stick with your preseason thoughts on each team, tempered slightly by one's impression of week one performances. Don't get suckered into thinking an average team is great because they dominated someone in week one. In 2003 New England opened the year in Buffalo and got shut out 31-0. They went 17-1 the rest of the season to win the Super Bowl. Buffalo ended up 6-10. Week one can be misleading. With that in mind, on to the picks. Lines courtesy of USA Today.

Oakland (+12) @ Baltimore

Let's look at this game as a case study in why one shouldn't invest too much in week one performance. Baltimore played the most dominant game of the week, going into Tampa and shuting out a playoff team from last season. Oakland played as poorly as any team in the league at home against San Diego, in the spotlight of Monday night football, no less. If you look at this as the best team in the league against the worst, you're going to go with Baltimore. The problem with this logic though, is that neither team has played at their true level yet. Baltimore is not that good, and Oakland is not that bad. Baltimore scored twenty points last week on offense, not a bad total, but not great either, and Oakland may have a pretty good defense, roughly in line with Tampa Bay's. If you assume a similar offensive performance by Baltimore, combined with the fact that Oakland most likely won't get shut out again, and that Baltimore most likely will not score a defensive touchdown, it becomes highly dubious to put money on Baltimore giving twelve points. Oakland

Houston (+13.5) @ Indianapolis

Indianapolis did not play very well against in the Manning Bowl, yet still managed to beat a good team. Expect them to bounce back this week at home against Houston, the team that had the worst defense by VOA in week one, except for...Indianapolis. It'll be interesting to see how the Indy defense performs this season, as the defensive improvements they made between 2005 and 2004 were the reason the Colts were the best team in the NFL during last year's regular season. You might see a lot of scoring in this one. Indianapolis

Cleveland (+10) @ Cincinnati

Cincinnati stomped Kansas City on the road pretty thoroughly, while Cleveland looked bad against New Orleans. I would expect more of the same in this one. I'm actually surprised this spread isn't larger. Cincinnati should be able to really give Pittsburgh a challenge this year, while Cleveland doesn't look like they're good at anything. I wonder if any of the Cleveland fans will decide to bring out their dirty brown towels in this battle for Ohio. Cincinnati

Buffalo (+6.5) @ Miami

I'm going to go with Miami on this one, but who knows? Buffalo gave New England a ton of problems in the first half last week, and probably should of won that game. My suspicion is that they were playing over their heads, but J.P. Losman looked like a real-life NFL quarterback, Willis McGahee is looking like a stud, and their defense really had New England confused. Not a lot of confidence on this one. I could see Buffalo win it, and I could see them get blown out. I'm leaning toward a let down game and a blown out, with Miami playing much better than they did against Pittsburgh.

Detroit (+9) @ Chicago

Chicago turned in one of the more dominant performances in the league in their shutout of Green Bay at Lambeau Field. What was most surprising about their performance was the play of their offense. My opinion is that the Chicago offense regresses this week against a Detroit defense that held the Seahawks, a vastly superior offensive team to Chicago, to just nine points. I could see this be a very low scoring game; Chicago has the best defense in the league while Detroit looks like they may have a very good defense. Nine points seems like too high of a spread. Detroit

Carolina (-1.5) @ Minnesota

Carolina was the most disappointing team in week one, getting absolutely ran over by Atlanta. You know that was a sad Sunday at the Sports Illustrated offices as their perennial pre-season Super Bowl winner sucked real bad without Steve Smith. Smith is questionable this week, and Jake Delhomme better hope he's back, because Delhomme looked absolutely lost without him. Their run game sucks as long as DeShaun Foster is their running back, and he's still starting this week. Minnesota, with all bets off if Brad Johnson is injured.

New York Giants (+3) @ Philadelphia

It'll be interesting to see what this game tells us about the Giants offense/Colts defense. The Giants moved the ball at will against Indy, but it's entirely possible that the Colts can't stop anyone. I do think the Giants offense will be very good this year, and it'll be interesting to see what happens in this one. This will be a game with a ton of offense that should be a very competitive. I'm going to go with Philadelphia at home, but I think this'll be close.

Tampa Bay (+5.5) @ Atlanta

I'm not really sure where to go with this one. Atlanta ran over what is supposed to be a very good Carolina defense, which leads me to believe they can run on Tampa. Still, I expect Tampa to bounce back after playing horribly against Baltimore. There's no way that Chris Simms has that many balls batted down at the line again this week, is there? I still don't like Tampa's line situation. I've got to go with Atlanta.

New Orleans (-2) @ Green Bay

This is how far Green Bay has dropped off: They're a home underdog against one of the three worst teams in the NFC. Green Bay was awful last week, against Chicago, but I know the Chicago Bears, and New Orleans is no Chicago. Green Bay, in Brett Favre's last hurrah.

St. Louis (-3) @ San Francisco

St. Louis beat a very good Denver team last week, but they're also a team with a notorious home/road split on both offense and defense. San Francisco resumed being an NFL team last week after taking last season off. Alex Smith, despite his child-like hands, even looked like he may not be the worst quarterback drafted since Ryan Leaf. How about that? I think St. Louis is due for a let down this week. San Francisco

Arizona (+7) @ Seattle

There is no possible scenario in which Seattle loses this game. First home game after a Super Bowl run? Double bonus if it rains. Seattle

New England (-5.5) @ New York Jets

I don't know about this one. I could see New England bounce back and dominate, and I could see the Jets, who are pretty bad, even with Pennington, win this one. New England really scares me with their wide receiver situation. I feel like this may be the decision that exposes Bill Belichick for his hubris. I realize they've got some good tight ends, but I think you need at least one legitimate one or two receiver to be successful. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, but they scare the hell out of me. New England. Stay the hell away from this one if you're using real money.

Tennessee (+11) @ San Diego

The Jets moved the ball with ease against the Titans, in Tennessee. I just don't see Tennessee being able to stop San Diego. Hopefully Marty Schottenheimer loosens the reins on Phillip Rivers against a weak team, to see what he can do before they get into the tougher games. San Diego

Kansas City (+10.5) @ Denver

If I told you Damon Huard was prominently involved in this game for a team trying to break in two offensive tackles, is that something you'd be interested in betting on? Denver

Washington (+6) @ Dallas

I am really starting to believe that this Dallas team could be a complete disaster. I haven't bought into their hype whatsoever, I think their defense is overrated, the offensive line is terrible, Terrell Owens comes in to the position they were probably strongest at last year, and now there's a quarterback controversy brewing, involving Drew Bledsoe and Tony Romo? Is Vinny Testaverde not available? No good can come of this. Washington

Pittsburgh (-1.5) @ Jacksonville

The Monday night game is tough. I think Jacksonville's underrated, but Pittsburgh's defense looks awesome. This game might tell you a lot about both of these games. I'm interested to see in Jacksonville is for real. I think they'll keep this close, but Pittsburgh ends up winning it. Should be a good game.

Week One NFL Picks Review

2006-09-14T15:05:00.000-07:00

Went 10-6 on my picks against the spread for week one, the kind of strong start that one hopes to have for the season. Here were the games I missed: Denver @ St. Louis, New York Jets @ Tennessee, Baltimore @ Tampa, Seattle @ Detroit, New Orleans @ Cleveland, and Minnesota @ Washington. I tend to believe that the Denver and Seattle misses were the result of good teams coming out and laying an egg. It happens. In fact, both of these teams did the same thing last year, Denver getting absolutely destroyed by Miami, and Seattle looking bad in a loss against Jacksonville with Matt Hasselbeck playing poorly.

In the case of Denver, Jake Plummer will have an occasional game like that one, but he's ultimately a pretty solid quarterback to have, and the calls for Jay Cutler are ridiculous. Their run game looked good still, and that's the main thing they need for their offense to be successful.

Seattle had a lot of problems with their o-line, but I don't anticipate that to be an ongoing issue this season. They would have still covered if it wasn't for the two blocked field goals, or if they'd be able to punch it in just once. They beat an improved team on the road in week one; there's really no need to panic.

In the NYJ-Tennessee game I think I underestimated the impact of Tennessee's quarterback issues, and did not expect Chad Pennington to come out and play as well as he did. My opinion of the Jets definitely goes up with a healthy Pennington, but not much. They still beat a poor team that could of easily tied up the game in regulation and won it in overtime.

Baltimore beating Tampa is probably the week one result that is being most blown out of proportion. Yes, Baltimore's defense looked good, but do you really expect them to play that well all season? In addition, Tampa looked horrible on offense. Chris Simms looked like he had regressed after the progress he made last year, and they were playing without their starting guards, which effectively grounded their running game. My opinion of Tampa going into the game was not that high, as I do not expect them to return to the playoffs this year. I still view Baltimore as about a .500 team, give or take a game. I don't think they'll make the playoffs. Their defense will regress to the mean, and the holes in their offense will be exposed.

My opinion of Minnesota definitely increased with their game Monday night. I realize that they are a better team than I anticipated in my preseason review. That said, I still don't think they're great, and I'm willing to stand behind my preseason pick for them to be under 8 wins, based on the fact that there is no way that Brad Johnson stays healthy all season, and once he gets injured they're stuck with Brooks Bollinger or Tavaris Jackson. Not quite sure what to think about Washington. Minnesota didn't vastly outplay them, and they were in the game till the end. Their main issue was their offense; Mark Brunell didn't look very good at all. I think this is the quarterback controversy that the MSM is thus far ignoring. Brunell didn't have a flashy bad game, like Plummer or Drew Bledsoe or Brett Favre had. He just wasn't good. I think Jason Campbell ends up replacing him at some point this season, and that the offense ends up being better off for it.

New Orleans-Cleveland, I don't really have any thoughts on this game. Reggie Bush looked good, but the offense still wasn't good overall. The defense played well, but, well, it was the Cleveland Browns. Joe Jurevicius broke his ribs, and Braylon Edwards stunk, plus Reuben Droughns couldn't get anything going. Charlie Frye looked bad when he wasn't running the ball. Denver, Carolina, Oakland and Tampa were the only offenses worse in week one, according to Football Outsiders'VOA rankings. I'm not too worried about this result. I wasn't real confident going in, and that'll happen when you're picking every game.

I should have my week two picks up soon, either later tonight or sometime tomorrow, based on how much time I have. I'm still working the fair, and this weekend's supposed to be crazy busy. I'm not too worried. This is going to be a funky week for gamblers. Lots of crazy big spreads; I don't think I've ever seen five double-digit spreads in one week before. There were zero last week. I think these could be good games to exploit, just like last week when the two biggest spreads ended up going to the underdogs (Buffalo-NE, and Arizona-SF). Anyway, here's the week one breakdown on home/road, favorites/dogs, and inter-conference games. I'm going to track these through the season, and hopefully I'll be able to find some inefficiencies.

Home vs. Spread: 4-12. Good Lord. Sure looks like Week One home teams might be a little overvalued. Home teams just 5-11 overall!

Favorites vs. Spread: 5-11. This doesn't surprise me; because of the perceived lack of information going into the first week, oddsmakers are going to pad the spreads for the teams that people know, i.e. New England, Carolina, etc., because people are more willing to go with the teams they know. Vegas must make a killing in week one. 8-8 overall. That's a lot of underdogs winning outright. Would have been a good week to bet money lines.

NFC/AFC vs. Spread: 3-3. Sorry if that's a little confusing. This is the NFC record against the AFC against the spread. I'm interested to see how this shapes up throughout the season, because it says a lot about the perceived strength of the two conferences in comparison to each other. 3-3 overall.

In closing, I didn't get a chance to talk about this in this piece, but I told you so on the Raiders. Wow, that team looked bad. I wish I'd been there to laugh it up with Jerry Porter. And the Chargers looked real good. They'd be smart to open it up with Phillip Rivers. He looked ready, and you don't want to risk wearing out LDT by giving him 35 touches a game when you don't have to.

Puyallup Live Blog, Pt. 4

2006-09-10T20:21:00.000-07:00

8:16-There has been a shocking development in the Manning Bowl. After Peyton and Eli have both choked, guaranteeing first ballot introduction into the Manning Hall of Game, Indianapolis is in the Giants' red zone at the two-minute warning, up two points. The spread is Indy -3.5. They have to score to ensure the cover! How will one Manning fuck this up for me? Let's see!

8:23-Colts kick the field goal to go up 5! Giants get the ball, get up to mid-field, but the Hail Mary attempt falls incomplete! I go to a robust 9-5 for the week against the spread!

Puyallup Live Blog, pt. 3

2006-09-10T16:11:00.000-07:00

Went out and got some food. Watched some people. Found out that the ride that keeps playing Audioslave and Hoobastank is called El Nino, rather inexplicably. And yes, they are playing that Hoobastank song at this very moment. I am starting to drag. Must resort to fun facts.

Did You Know?

The Puyallup fair is the largest concentration of goatees and sleeveless T-shirts in Western Washington.

Children under the age of 8 are required to vomit while inside the park as a condition of their admission.

That all food sold at the fair must be breaded and deep fried.

4:51-I shouldn't say that there is nothing here for me to eat at the fair as a vegetarian if I desire a real meal. There is one place. I can eat a veggie sub. I have it with some chips and a sprite. I eat this every day as my fair meal. Today was no exception. I sat atop the International Village, and I ate my veggie sub and chips and drank my sprite. Its lemon-lime flavor was quite refreshing. It is sunny and a light wind is blowing. It is quite comfortable, actually.

The vegetarians who run the henna stand have reached out to me. They offered me hummus, the chosen olive branch for all vegetarian attempts at reaching out to unfamiliar people. Once again this is a fact. You cannot debate this. And if you don't like hummus, fuck you. I don't want you to read this. I will make an effort to hang out with the henna people before the day is over. I picture their booth looking like an Ottoman harem.

5:18-Although my NFL Guest Guesser picks have been disappointing, I currently stand at 8-5 against the spread for my week one picks with the Sunday night and the two Monday games to go.

6:09-This is what I really excel at in life -- I am incredible at avoiding work. Right now, I could be helping to unload a truck, but that would involve non-voluntary physical exertion on my part, something that I just cannot do. Instead I'm sitting here, checking the same football scores, over and over.

7:36-We are into the home stretch. (I am trying to use as many horse racing analogies as possible.) This is endurance bloggery at this point. I have been at it for over ten hours now, and I'm doing it all for you, loyal readers. The Manning Bowl has moved into the forth quarter, and Peyton is trying to blow it for me. I hate you so much, Peyton.

Puyallup Live Blog, Pt. 2

2006-09-10T12:41:00.000-07:00

12:41-There's a ride right by the warehouse, but I can't quite see it because there's a tent in my way. This ride plays music as it operates, but I like it only plays three different songs: a generic House music beat, that dreadful Audioslave song about being yourself and how that's all that you can do, and that song, I think by Hoobastank, that has the worst first line I've ever heard, "I'm not a perfect person..." right there, you can stop playing the song. When you hear a line like that, you know the song sucks. It's actually kind of polite on Hoobastank's part, because you know, right out of the gates, that this song sucks, and will suck forever. Yet this ride plays this song all day long, and I'm stuck here listening to it. "...A REASON TO START OVER NEW, AND THE REASON IS YOOOOUUU!" This is what plays in my end all day long.

Well, the Seahawks won, but God they looked bad in the second half. This game reminded me of those games they used to play with the Chargers every year, where all the scoring came from field goals, and Jon Carney would always win it with no time remaining. At least the Hawks won it this time.

The Buffalo Bills lost to the Patriots today on a safety. I'm pretty sure that that is the perfect way to sum up Buffalo as an organization.

1:06-Update on my Guest Guesser picks; Seahawks win, KC loses, Tampa loses, Cleveland loses, Tennessee and Denver about to lose. Harsh. Tennessee and Denver might have a chance, but it's pretty unlikely. 4 games still to go. Probably out of the running at this point.

1:50-Midday lull. Second batch of NFL games have started. Lots of tedious work for me. Carnies acting surprisingly normal. Calm before the storm. Figurative storm. Weather is actually quite nice. The amount of paper I will go through over the course of this fair is astounding, as I have to invoice every order made in triplicate. There are 49 stands that we run, and the fair runs 17 days. That is a ton of paper, maybe even literally. I'm hoping that pretty soon I'll be caught up on orders, and able to get some food, since I've had nothing but coffee since the bowl of cereal I ate at 7:45 this morning. That should give me a chance to explore the grounds a bit, and take some notes, all for your reading pleasure. You can thank me later.

2:32-Breaking news on stock boy Chris: he's been married and divorced already. I'm pretty certain he's younger than me. I have recently attained the legal age of drinking, just for reference. Almost caught up with my invoices. My stomach has begun to eat itself.

Puyallup Live Blog, Pt. 1

2006-09-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

Hello, and welcome to your official, in the non-official sense of the word, live blog for the Puyallup Fair on a momentous Sunday, September 10, in the year of the Lord 2006. I am currently stationed inside our warehouse, right where the magic happens. And believe me, there is magic in this warehouse, and all over these fair grounds. Well, either magic or the ghosts of Japanese citizens interned here during World War II. Here's a run-down of my morning thus far:

8:17-I leave Bellevue. Depeche Mode is my accompaniment for the drive. Depeche Mode is the single greatest band in human history to drive to. That's a fact. You can't even argue that.

8:59-I get to the warehouse. My computer has been taken over by Robbie, one of the warehouse workers. He is from Kelowna, BC, and I've discovered that he plays professional indoor lacrosse. I had no clue there was a league for indoor lacrosse. You know it's a good day when you discover a new sports league at a time when you'd normally be asleep.

9:12-Grab my first cup of coffee. There will be many more to come.

9:41-I come to two realizations, both good. My day has been blissfully carnie-free thus far, and the first Sunday of the NFL season starts in 19 minutes. This may be the greatest benefit of living on the west coast. Football starts at 10 in the morning on Sundays. What a country we live in. ("God Bless America" swells in the background as a single tear rolls down my cheek, coming to a rest in the dense tangles of my mutton chops.)

There will also be an intriguing subplot running through today's NFL games. The Seattle Times runs a contest called Guest Guesser, where you predict the outcome of 20 football games a week, 10 college and 10 pro. I some how hit all ten college games yesterday, and I don't even particularly like college football. If I hit all 20 games, I win $1000 and an opportunity to win a trip to the Super Bowl. And yes, there is now no way in hell I can win after that jinx. Just for kicks, here are the teams I need to win: Seattle, Tampa Bay, Kansas City, Denver, Cleveland, Tennessee, Chicago, Jacksonville, Arizona, and Indianapolis.

10:02-NFL games starting, and I have yet to receive a phone call or be contacted on my walkie-talkie. Also, the incredibly loud roller coaster directly in front of me through the bay door of the warehouse is not running yet. My day has nowhere to go but down.

10:13-I fill an order for 12 plush pink poodles on a leash. I die a little bit inside. Seahawks first drive is stopped by a blocked FG attempt.

10:31-Seahawks have ball at their own 11 after a Detroit punt. Shaun Alexander has already lost a fumble today. Football Outsiders have the Seahawks predicted to be the best team in the league this year, by a pretty big margin, with the best offense and the 2nd best defense. My Super Bowl sleepers, the San Diego Chargers, are ranked 3rd overall, behind Indianapolis. The roller coaster has began operations.

10:58-Getting kind of busy. My first stock boy is in, Chris. I have no clue where they find these stock boys. Chris looks like all of his teeth have been shifted one to the right, and then every other one was removed. I wish this was an exaggeration. Did I mention he has a child, and is working this job to pay his child support? Meanwhile, the Seahawks appear to be dominating the Lions in every aspect but the scoreboard. Matt Hasselbeck is the man.

11:16-As the first group of NFL games nears halftime, I'm getting absolutely killed. Seahawks are winning, but Tampa, KC, Tennessee, Denver, and Cleveland are losing. Tampa, Denver and Kansas City are losing by double-digits, with Cleveland down 9.

11:49-Ken the Canadian warehouse manager who prefaces everything with "fuckin" or "motherfuckin" has arrived. My day just got a whole lot louder. Cleveland and Denver are showing signs of life.

12:15-I forgot to write that earlier there was a debacle about the fact that the frog-shaped guns that blow out bubbles were not working. It was very important, apparently. Bubble guns are selling like hot cakes. Or maybe they're selling so well that hot cakes are selling like bubble guns? I used to have a readership, but I blew all their minds with that one. So now no one reads my blog.

And thus concludes part one of this live blog.

A Bold Experiment

2006-09-09T21:06:00.000-07:00

I have had a thought. Yes, and a wonderful thought it is. Tomorrow I shall take on that wonderous interweb-centric event that you and I call the "live blog." And not just any old run-of-the-mill event commonly subjected to live bloggery, such as a sporting event or live television award show, but that glorious entity we call "a day at the fair." And what better person to lead you through your day at the fair than I, a fair insider. (I am actual inside during the fair! Can you even wrap your feeble mind around that, loyal reader? Whilst the common man strolls through the fair grounds, eating his cotton candy and carrying the novelty stretched-out coke bottle that has been filled with sand and decorated to appear like a whimisical creature of sorts that he has purchased to remember said fair, I am inside a warehouse, yet still at the fair?! Isn't that mind-boggling? Is your mind appropriately boggled?) Yes, from the ornate throne I sit upon at the front of this warehouse, I will blog away, all the live-long day, in real time! Are you amazed how this medium is changing your life and expanding your mind in ways you never thought possible? Please, join me tomorrow on this magical mystery blograganza. You won't regret it.

Also Sprach Ryan Howard

2006-09-08T21:07:00.000-07:00

Sweet Jesus. Ryan Howard hit two more home runs tonight, bringing his total to 56 this season. If the Phillies end up in the playoffs, he's a lock for MVP, even though Pujols may actually be slightly more deserving based on his season as a whole. Where Howard will benefit is the fact that he's hit better than Jesus since the all-star break, while Pujols decided to have the greatest April in history. Since the all-star break, Howard has hit a Ruthian (just a notch below Bondsian) .356/.492/.799 (AVG/OBP/SLG), and that's not even including tonight. He has 28 home runs since the all-star break, with over 2/3 of September to go. He will most likely hit 62 home runs, and, deserving or not, be crowned by the MSM as the "clean" single season home run leader. I'm just glad to have jumped on this bandwagon early, because this guy's going to be enormous. I personally see myself hating him in the next six months, but for now, at least, I get to bask in the glory of "I told you so"-dom.

Week One NFL Picks

2006-09-06T19:31:00.000-07:00

Bill Simmons did his NFL preview today, and while I am generally a fan and try to resist the Simmons bashing that tends to be so prevalent on these vast internets, I've got to call him out for today. Don't claim to spend so much time researching the upcoming season, and follow it up by writing a ridiculously half-assed treatment of the entire NFC, which as it currently stands, according to my calculations, comprises 50% of the NFL. St. Louis is your sleeper? Seahawks at 7-9? Dallas at 10-6 after he points out the T.O. related collapse that is bound to happen? Minnesota making the playoffs? At least he didn't jump on the Arizona bandwagon. I realize he's more of a humor columnist than anything, but he's still got a dream job and if he's going to do it half-assed, he probably shouldn't do it at all.

Anyway, the NFL season starts tomorrow. Isn't that fantastic? You know it is, especially if you're a compulsive gambler. Without further adieu, on to the week one picks, which I plan on doing throughout the season, unless I really suck ass, in which case I will quit to spare myself the (theoretical) embarassment I may suffer in front of my (theoretical) readership. Lines courtesy of Bodog.

Miami (-1.5) @ Pittsburgh

Miami has a ton of preseason hype, due to the signing of Daunte Culpepper, the expected emergence of Ronnie Brown, and a supposedly improved defense. Sports Illustrated went as far as predicting them as Super Bowl losers in their always laughable NFL preview. (When lumbering vestiges of the MSM attempt to become with "it", as SI has attempted in the last couple years with shorter sensationalist pieces by snarky writers, it's never good. It's like when MC Hammer went gangsta rap, dropped the "MC", then made a video wearing a speedo while sporting a struting erection that ended up banned by MTV. Please SI, do not put Peter King in a speedo.) This spread has swung six points since opening, due to Roethlisberger's appendectomy. My suspicion is that that's too far of a swing. I think I would still lay a couple points on Pittsburgh at home against Miami, even without Ben. Getting 1.5, I'm all over that. They won two games last year with Batch. He's actually not that bad. Pittsburgh.

Denver (-4) @ St. Louis

It's tempting to pick this as a let down game for a team coming off the AFC championship game, on the road against the Greatest Show on Turf, with a suspect running back platoon. Then I remember that St. Louis is going to really suck bad this year. Denver.

New York Jets (+2.5) @ Tennessee

Man, the Jets will be bad this year. And I think Tennessee will be improved, even with the odd QB situation they have. Tennessee.

Buffalo Bills (+9.5) @ New England

That's a huge spread. New England seems to get the benefit of the doubt because of the reputations of Brady and Belichick. They still have a ton of questions marks, especially at WR and their secondary. I think Buffalo sucks, and I might look bad, but I'm not ready to pass up the points. Buffalo.

Baltimore (+3) @ Tampa Bay

It's a good thing I'll be stuck in this warehouse on Sunday, so that there is no chance I end up watching this game. Tampa Bay.

Cincinnati (+2) @ Kansas City

It's just a damn shame that the Bengals' off-season has to come to a close. Cincinnati.

Seattle (-6.5) @ Detroit

This game has swung 3.5 points toward Seattle since it opened, so you know that all the morons are putting their money on the Hawks. I would normally go against this, but I think the Hawks will return with avengence to Jerome Bettis' hometown, leaving behind a trail of flames and degradation. Or maybe Detroit has always just looked like that. Seattle.

Atlanta (+6) @ Carolina

I think Atlanta's got the ability to surprise people, if Michael Vick ever decides to learn how to be an NFL QB. Maybe he'll do it this year, and stop robbing the Falcons blind. Atlanta's defense should be much improved over last year, and I could see this being a close game. Atlanta.

Philadelphia (-5.5) @ Houston

Philadelphia gets back on the playoff path.

New Orleans (+3) @ Cleveland

As much of a feel good story New Orleans has been throughout the off-season, they're still really bad. They might have enough offense to surprise a couple teams this year, and it is hard to have a truly terrible football team with a competent quarterback, but they are severely lacking in what it takes to win games. Cleveland.

Dallas (+2) @ Jacksonville

Dallas loses a close one on the road. Bledsoe makes a terrible crucial play, T.O.'s media sniping begins. Jacksonville.

Chicago (-3.5) @ Green Bay

Brett Favre's pursuit of the single-season interception record begins. Chicago.

San Francisco (+8) @ Arizona

Arizona is not that good, as I've already documented. San Fran will make it surprisingly close, maybe even win it. The Arizona bandwagon will become a little lighter. San Francisco.

Indianapolis (-3.5) @ New York Giants

Did you know that Eli and Peyton Manning are brothers? Indianapolis.

Minnesota (+4.5) @ Washington

It is unfortunate that no double-ended dildos will make an appearance during this game. Washington.

San Diego (-3) @ Oakland

I was at the Seahawks final preseason game against the Raiders. I do not need to further explain this pick. San Diego.

Thank God it's football season.

Yao Ming and Shark Fin Soup

2006-09-05T15:21:00.000-07:00

When working at a desk in a warehouse, surrounded by boxes filled with plastic dolphins and other assorted doo dahs, the smell of vomit gently wafting into the warehouse, one's mind tends to wander. Inevitably, one's mind will wander into the the cruel and depressing meadow (wandering always leads to meadows) that is shark fin soup. This story is supposedly about a month old, but was never brought to my attention, so it has obviously just happened, with older dates placed on the links to make myself and Mr. Yao look foolish. Alas, I could never be made to look foolish, with my flowing hair and stunning mutton chops. But I digress. I feel that everyone, even you, loyal reader, should know that Mr. Yao and I are united in our effort to stop the consumption of shark fin soup. Not through any actual effort, but if prompted, I will give a strongly worded rebuke to anyone thinking about consuming shark fin soup. Plus, I will include general ill-will in all my thoughts about China until people stop throwing finless sharks back into the water so an overrated soup can be made. Believe me, I have many thoughts about China included in my daily routine.

As Gregor Samsa woke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself in his bed, transformed into a member of the Accounts Receivable department

2006-09-04T10:26:00.000-07:00

As I currently write, I am sitting in a warehouse somewhere in the center of the Puyallup Fair grounds. This will be day 3. For the uninitiated, the Puyallup Fair is the "Pacific Northwest's ultimate entertainment event," if one's idea of an entertainment event is farm animals, rodeos, fried foods, and nauseating roller coasters, interspliced with concerts from the likes of Hilary Duff, Kenny Rogers and Creedence Clearwater Revisited. (Hilary Duff tickets are $59.50. I hate ya, sweet Jesus). I'm handling the accounts receivable for a company that controls the concessions and novelties for the fair. I do not know how I got here. I read Karl Marx and am prone to making snobbish comments about your musical tastes. I'm an English major living in Seattle. When I explain how I got this job and what it entails, I feel like someone explaining how they ended up in porn. "I needed the money, I was desperate..." so on and so forth. This is my Gregor Samsa transformed into a monstrous vermin moment.

The Fair has given me a surprisingly large amount of free time, with high speed internet access, as my actual duties thus far take up about 2 hours of a 10-12 hour day. Going into this I thought that this thing we call blog may have to die down for the majority of the month of September, but as it currently stands, I may be able to produce a record output. Huzzah!!! I hope that you, my loyal readers, are as excited as I am. My mutton chops are twitching with anticipation. Hopefully at some point in the near future, I will finish my current pet project, a long-winded, rambling piece with loads of research on the nature of sacrifice bunting as it pertains to the 2006 Seattle Mariners, in terms of run expectancy, and possibly even win expectancy. That excites you, doesn't it? That tingling you feel, that's the excitement, or possibly an oncoming cold sore. I have drinken entirely too much coffee.

2006 Fantasy Baseball

2006-09-03T17:04:00.000-07:00

With Ryan Howard hitting three home runs today in the first game of the Phillies' doubleheader, bringing his total to 52 on the season, I would like to bring to the attention of every member of my fantasy baseball league, and to the general public, that I was on this bandwagon from the beginning, and that I drafted Howard in the seventh round of our fantasy draft. When he hits number 62 and sets the all-natural MLB single season home run record, just know that I was there from the beginning.

P.S. I also drafted Joe Mauer in the 8th round.

Fun with (purely hypothetical) Gambling, Part 2

2006-09-01T16:53:00.000-07:00

Alright, so when I say I'll have a post up by tomorrow, you can trust me to have it up within two weeks. Anyway, here are my thoughts on the NFC teams, with the over/under on wins listed next to each team.

NFC North
Chicago-9.5
Minnesota-8
Detroit-7
Green Bay-6.5

The NFC North is a division with a lot of parity, an NFL euphemism for being loaded with mediocre to bad teams. Chicago will once again be the best team in the division and will coast into the playoffs by virtue of their schedule, despite not making any moves to improve their offense. Rex Grossman will be at quarterback until he's injured by week 6, and they did bring in Brian Griese to back him up, in hopes of Kyle Orton and his famous neck beard not having to make any appearances this season. Even with their mediocre offense, their defense should still be very good, and they should be able to coast through their division. Definite Over. Minnesota is regarded as the second best team in the division due to their second half run to 9 wins last year, but I can't see them winning that many games again this year. They played over their heads last year in the second half (2 wins over their pythagorean expected record), especially Brad Johnson. (Who could have predicted that?) Johnson will not play as well this year due to regression to the mean, and more importantly, is a serious injury risk at the most important position on the field. If you're a Viking fan, you do not want to see Tavaris Jackson or Mike McMahon under center, and there's a good chance it's going to happen. The offensive line will be improved with the addition of Steve Hutchinson, but Chester Taylor and Mewelde Moore just aren't very good, and the receiving corps is ugly. Under. Detroit and Green Bay should be improved over last year due to their schedules, two of the easiest in the league, but neither of these teams is good. I would say that Detroit is most likely to be somewhat surprising, but in more of a "wow, Detroit might crack .500 with Matt Millen still prominently involved" kind of surprising, rather than potential playoff team.

NFC South
Carolina-10
Atlanta-8.5
Tampa Bay-8
New Orleans-6.5

Carolina seems to be the pre-season favorite to win the NFC, at least within the MSM. I'm not ready to buy that just yet. The passing offense will be improved with the addition of Keyshawn Johnson at second WR to complement the best receiver in the league last year, Steve Smith, but their running game will be below average again unless DeAngelo Williams is for real and he supplants the highly overrated DeShaun Foster at running back. They do have one of the best defenses in the league, especially upfront, but they were also incredibly lucky last year with regard to fumble recoveries, and should regress somewhat in that aspect. I think they'll be over ten wins, but I don't think they're ready to pass up the Seahawks as the top team in the NFC. Atlanta is a difficult team to project. They're a year removed from the NFC championship game, but completely collasped during the second half last year. They're one of the best rushing offenses in the league, but also have a terrible group of receivers, and an offensive scheme that is not a good fit for Michael Vick. I truly think they should just hire Urban Meyer to teach them the Spread offense, and cut it out with the West Coast offense experiment. Their defense was terrible last year, but should be improved with Ed Hartwell returning from injury. 8.5 sounds about right, with a chance to go over. Tampa Bay will drop off this year due to their schedule. New Orleans is just bad. Bad offense, bad defense. The offense will be improved, or at least more entertaining, with Reggie Bush and Drew Brees, but the line and receivers are mediocre to poor, and the defense is real bad. Their schedule won't help, either. Definite Under.

NFC East
Dallas-9.5
Washington-9
NY Giants-9
Philadelphia-8.5

The most even division in the league, top to bottom. Dallas is the pre-season favorite, at 3/2 to win the division and 10/1 to win the Super Bowl. Let me bring out my best Christopher Walken voice to say "That's...crazy!" This is not that good of a team. I'm not quite sure why they brought in Terrell Owens, either. He does not address the needs of their offense, while introducing a enormous distraction to the team. This will not end well. Where they really needed help was offensive line, which they did not address. They'll wish they'd gone out and gotten some linemen about the same time Drew Bledsoe throws his first game-ending interception after being sacked 6 times, leading to T.O. blowing up at him on the sideline, followed by T.O. insinuating to the media that Bledsoe is a hoomosexual or a racist. Under. You'll thank me. Out of Washington and the NYG, I think Washington's the better team, though they may struggle without Clinton Portis for the first couple weeks. The Giants will struggle aginst their schedule, one of the most difficult in the league. Factor in some regression from Tiki Barber and an aging receiving group, plus Eli Manning throwing passes twenty feet over his receivers' heads, and this could be a frustrating offense to watch. I think Philadelphia will be one of the surprise teams of the NFC. It's amazing how quickly people are writing off a team that won 48 games in the four years prior to last year. Last year was a completely unpredictable collapse. They were killed by injuries and Terrell Owens. Over, with a good shot to win this division.

NFC West
Seattle-10.5
Arizona-8
St. Louis-7
San Francisco-5

I've already covered most of my thoughts on the NFC West in an earlier post, but I'll paraphrase here. Seattle returns last year's NFC championship team nearly intact, if not improved, especially on defense. Combine this with a patsy schedule, and the Hawks should have home-field advantage through the playoffs. Over. Arizona is not nearly as good as the MSM wants them to be. They have a sexy fantasy team construction, versus the kind of team that wins real football games. Fitzgerald and Boldin are as good as anyone in the league, but Edgerrin James is due for a collapse after moving from the best line in the league to the worst. Under. St. Louis will be surprisingly terrible. Under. San Francisco seems just about right.

In conclusion, here are my best bets for the over/under: Tennesee (over), San Diego (over), Chicago (over), Minnesota (under), New Orleans (under), Dallas (under), Philadelphia (over), Seattle (over), Arizona (under), and St. Louis (under). Out of those ten, I'd say that five best bets are San Diego, Minnesota, New Orleans, Seattle, and St. Louis. The AFC seems to definitely be the more known commodity, with a whole lot less variability. Here are some of my favorite long shot bets: San Diego to win the Super Bowl at 18/1, and Philadelphia at 22/1. I'm not saying either of those teams are going to win it all, but I do think those are undervalued teams that would give good payouts, and that actually have outside chances to win it all. I also like Seattle at 11/1 to win it all. Atlanta at 30/1 to win it all or 13/1 to win the NFC might also be good extreme long shots.

Here's my playoff picks:

Division champs:
AFC: Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, New England, San Diego
NFC: Chicago, Carolina, Philadelphia, Seattle

Wild Cards:
AFC: Kansas City, Cincinnati
NFC: Atlanta, Washington

Seattle's definitely my pick to win the NFC, due to the fact that they'll probably have home-field through the playoffs. I think the AFC comes down to Indy, New England or San Diego, with San Diego upsetting Indianapolis in the AFC championship, then losing to the Hawks in Super Bowl XLI. You can hold me to it.

Jamie Moyer traded

2006-08-19T21:54:00.000-07:00

There is no word to describe this trade, other than shitfuckcuntface. I have no clue how to react. Why? What the fuck is the point in this? Right now? You could have ripped off the Reds at the trading deadline for fuck, I don't know, Adam Dunn and Joe Morgan? They did give up their starting shortstop and a corner outfielder for two relief pitchers, one ultimately injured, and a minor leaguer. They could've traded Moyer at last year's trading deadline and got something. Instead they got two single-A players, Andrew Baldwin, 4.04 ERA, 164 H, 11 HR, 22 BB, 100 K's in 147 Innings, and Andrew Barb, 35 H, 0 HR, 28 BB and 71 K's in 60.2 innings. Barb's stat's are impressive, but he's pitching at low A ball, he's 22 years old, and he's in the muthafuckin' Sally League. Baldwin is supposedly more impressive from a scouting standpoint, but at the same time he's 24 years old and still in high A ball. Oh God, I want to be sick. We traded Moyer for minor league filler and projectability. Sweet Jesus. At least I'm drunk. Barb's been pretty dominant, but Christ, how are either of these guys going to fill a spot in the starting rotation, even in the future? Barb might be a solid set-up reliever. That's it? Oh good God. Does this mean Pineiro is re-entered into the rotation? Do we call up Cruceta, or Blackley, or Baek, or Nageotte? Jimenez? Are any of these names even remotely interesting? Maybe Cruceta, or Blackley, if it was two years ago? DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE WORDS THAT ARE COMIN' OUT OF MY MOUTH, BILL BAVASI?

muthafuckin' snakes on a muthafuckin' plane

2006-08-18T14:08:00.000-07:00

About an hour ago my buddy Jon and I got out of "Snakes on a Plane," and I must say, it was everything I hoped for. We caught the first show of the morning, 10:45, at the Cinerama, which was the perfect venue. My only disappointment was that there only appeared to be maybe ten other people in the theater. I'm still predicting a lot of success for the movie though, because it really is about a perfect popcorn movie. It was pretty hilarious without being too over the top, and also stayed away from being too tongue-in-cheek. The action scenes were ridiculous, but in a good way, and still somehow suspenseful. There was a good gratuitous sex scene that precedes the first snake-related death. Julianna Margulies comes out of hiding to give a likeable/hot performance as one of the flight attendants. That guy who plays Champ Kind and Todd Packer plays a misogynist pilot, about the perfect role for him. Anyway, getting to hear Samuel L. Jackson say "get these muthafuckin' snakes off this muthafuckin' plane" is worth the price of admission. "Snakes on a Plane" is a movie that perfectly understands what its role is. If it were a baseball player, it would be one of those Matt Stairs/Craig Wilson types. Maybe they're terrible in the field, and they couldn't steal a base if their life depended on it, but they can rake and draw walks, and they usually have a cool moustache or a mullet, and they end up being more valuable to a team then a flashier player who tries to do too much. Go see this movie.

Fun with (purely hypothetical) Gambling, Part One

2006-08-17T20:30:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things about an upcoming sport season is making predictions about how each team will perform. There's nothing quite like nailing a sleeper pick that no one else is talking about, like last year when I predicted the Tampa Bay Buccaneers would make the playoffs. On the flip side, there's nothing like making a prediction that turns out to be completely asinine. Last year I actually thought the Houston Texans (the 2-14 Houston Texans) would compete for one of the AFC wildcard slots. Oh well. As long as you're not involved with vindicative bookies, it's fun.

I was looking at the NFL future lines earlier at Bodog, and started thinking about the Over/under lines for season wins. Most seemed about right on to me, but others looked like they could be good opportunities to make some money, and by money I mean not real, material, money, but more like a heightened sense of self-satifaction. Because placing bets on professional sports will ultimately lead to a life of poverty, baldness, and vindicative bookies. Here's my rundown, division by division, team by team, with over/under wins next to the team:

AFC North
Pittsburgh-10
Cincinnati-9
Baltimore-8
Cleveland-6.5

These all seem about right on. No arguments here. I guess if you're a Pittsburgh homer, you could say that their line seems low, but this was an 11 win team last year that's bringing back almost the exact same team, and faces a tougher schedule. It'll be interesting to see if they're willing to let Big Ben and his reconstructed face open up on offense with Jerome Bettis returning to Detroit. Because that's where he's from.

AFC South
Indianapolis-11.5
Jacksonville-9
Tennessee-5.5
Houston-5.5

The o/u on Indy seems about right, and while Jacksonville's looks low for a team coming off a 12 win season, but they killed a bad schedule, and were a little lucky to boot. Tennessee looks like a good bet for the over. They were hurt by injuries last year, and also had a young defense that was horrid. They made some pickups on defense that should help, and they should also be improved with experience. And come on, they only need to win 6 games. Houston still sucks, but I don't know if they're bad enough to go with the under.

AFC East
New England-10.5
Miami-9
Buffalo-6.5
NYJ-6

No argument with those numbers for New England and Miami. New England's may seem low at first glance, but then you see how old most of their core is, and that their secondary is still a mess, and wonder if they might just fall apart. Brady and Belichick get the benefit of the doubt though. Buffalo and the Jets could be good bets for the under, but I wouldn't be too confident in those picks.

AFC West
Denver-10
Kansas City-9.5
San Diego-9
Oakland-6.5

Denver and Kansas City are about right. If I were forced to choose, I would with the "under" on Denver and the "over" on KC. San Diego is definitely "over." They were one of the better teams in football last year, something that is obscured by the fact that they failed to make the playoffs. They won 9 games last year with the NFL's most difficult schedule, and underplayed their Pythagorean record by almost 2 wins, which is usually the result of bad luck. Their schedule is much easier, as the get to play the NFC West this year. I don't think that the drop off in play from Drew Brees to Phillip Rivers will be that great. I have no clue what to think about Oakland, honestly. They really weren't quite as bad their record from last year suggests, and getting rid of Norv Turner will do wonders for them. Still, they've entered the Aaron Brooks era, and there's no good way that that will end well.

Tomorrow I should have Part Two, the NFC.

With sad resignation, football season bares its breasts

2006-08-17T18:27:00.000-07:00

As depressing as the Mariners have been lately, it couldn't come at a better time, coinciding with the beginning of the NFL preseason. As unbearable as preseason football may be, it's nice to have it as a signal of a season worth looking forward to, as this year's Seahawks may actually be a better team than the Super Bowl squad. With their talent and their abysmal division, the Hawks would have to completely shit the bed to end up with fewer than eleven wins. Looking at their schedule, they have five potentially difficult games: Giants at home, at Chicago, at KC, at Denver, and San Diego (a whale's vagina) at home; if they even go 2-3 in these games, they should be able to get home field advantage through the playoffs. If not for being matched up with the very strong AFC West for their non-conference games, the Hawks would have the easiest schedule in the league. The NFC West is a joke; I would be surprised to see the Hawks lose a division game. As much as people like to think that the Cardinals will be competitive, real life doesn't act the same as fantasy football. Having two amazing wide receivers doesn't cover up the fact that they have an average defense and possibly the worst offensive line in the game. Last year they were a historically terrible running team, and Edgerrin James will help, but not nearly as much as some would believe. He's leaving one of the top lines in the game to run behind a line that was ranked 32nd in Football Outsiders' stat Adjusted Line Yards last year, a stat that assigns responsibility to the offensive line for running back carries. Indianapolis was best in the league in Adjusted Line Yards. Also, teams will also be able to focus on James more than they could when he was with Indy, because even as good as Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin are, its Kurt Warner getting them the ball, and not Peyton Manning. Finally, James passed the 370 carry threshold last season, including his playoff carries, and also had 44 catches to go with that, so he's carrying a pretty high injury risk. The last year he passed the 370 carry mark was 2000, and the next season he tore his ACL. When you also factor in the fact that Kurt Warner's deal with the devil expired after 2001, you've got a team that looks like, well, the Arizona Cardinals, perennial suckhouse. Anyway, don't believe the hype about Arizona. At least they have a crazy-ass new stadium.

As far as the rest of the division, the 49ers will be terrible again, as they failed to address any of their needs on offense in the off-season, and they'll have to live with the fact that they're giving $50 million to Alex Smith, whose freakishly small hands cause him to fumble every time he is touched while holding the football. As far as the Rams, I think folks'll be shocked to see just how bad they are this year. A lot of people still have visions of the Greatest Show on Turf dancing through their minds, but this team is an atrocity. It's just too bad Mike Martz is no longer prominently involved.

Anyway, I should have something up soon, hopefully about gambling!!! Yay, gambling!!!

Good Evening

2006-08-17T18:09:00.000-07:00

I meant to start this blog a couple months back, and was going to focus exclusively on baseball, specifically the Mariners. Well, then I got lazy, and now it's August, and the way the Mariners have looked the last couple weeks makes me want to hide in a bathroom stall with a handgun pressed firmly into my hard palate. I figure that writing exclusively about the Mariners would just aggrevate me at this point, so I'm using this opportunity to expand beyond baseball, mostly to general sports discussion and whatever else I may choose to write about. Hope you enjoy! (And by "you," I really mean "me," because my readership at the moment is purely hypothetical).