NFL Week 7 Picks + Mini recap

Another week, another post of my picks for the upcoming NFL slate of games. Doing it a bit early this time around since I have work during the day (and not necessarily during the night). Typing this up while the Red Sox play the Tigers in game 4. Like the Red Sox chances in getting to the World Series but also like the Tigers as well. Tigers up by 6 in the 4th inning. I did pick the Tigers to represent the AL in the Fall Classic but its still a win-win if the Red Sox get there since they are my team. 

Last week there were 15 games on the slate and I won 9 out of 15 games with a record of 9-5. Not bad but not good record in terms of what I have been getting so far this season but still gotta feel good about it. Impressive wins by the Panthers, Rams, and Patriots last week. Who will I pick to keep my unbeaten streak on Thursday Night Football alive? Will the Giants win their first game at home against the Vikings? Will Peyton Manning get the last laugh in his return trip to Indianapolis, or will Andrew Luck surpass the shadow that once graced the franchise for over a decade? Will Zooey Deschanel break the ice and ask me out for a date? Will Tom ever stop this celeb crush madness and actually find a girl that isn’t famous? All these questions and more in this weeks picks!

Seattle @ Arizona: Seahawks. A lot of people are saying this is a trap game, that the Seahawks will find a way to blow it, and that the Arizona Cardinals will steal this one in front of their own fans. I say can it! Seahawks are a top 10 team in terms of offense and defense, what do the Cardinals have? Seahawks win it. 

Cleveland @ Green Bay: Packers. I like this matchup. Definitely cheesy oozy goodness. Got the day off from work, the game is on in my area, the Packers riding a 2-game winning streak, gotta feel good about this one. Pack win it.

 Tampa Bay @ Atlanta: Falcons. Two words describe this game. Toilet Bowl! This game and another one which I will mention later (You have a good idea what it is, don’t you) are what makes this game seems so good you’d think the Watch Water Boil League was awesome! Falcons have more talent even though their record doesn’t speak for themselves. 

St. Louis @ Carolina: Panthers. Panthers have been killing me so far this season, I pick them, they lose. I don’t pick them, they win. Cam Newton had a good game last week against the Vikings so I’ll ride the train once again. 

Cincinnati @ Detroit: Lions. Gotta feel good if you’re a Detroit sports fan, Red Wings playing well, Pistons… meh, Tigers up by a touchdown right now against the Red Sox (!!@!# and some more curse words), and the Lions are 4-2 on the season so far. Like the sexy matchup in this one. Sexy like a hot girl breaking the ice on you and much more. Like the Lions, sticking with them. 

Buffalo @ Miami: Bills. No upset pick this week so far so I’ll just say that the Bills win against the Fins. Call me crazy, say that the Dolphins are -8 favorites at home, say that the Patriots will choke against the Jets this week. Nope. Bills. 

New England @ New York Jets: Patriots. The Jets have shown glimpses of greatness, and have shown glimpses of how shitty they are. I’m not a Patriots fan but with the Red Sox doing well this year I’ll give the Pats some leeway in this one. 

Dallas @ Philadelphia: Eagles. The annual Boo Game for the Eagles fans as their arch-nemesis the Cowgirls come to town hoping to gain a 1st place spot in the division. Yeah the division is really that wide open. Cowpies could win but feel much safer in the Eagles rather than the Cowsills. 

Chicago @ Washington: Bears. Bears will take care of business at the Capital and Barack Obama’s team, the Bears, will show people how wrong they are in wronging Obama. Jay Cutler for Congress! 

San Francisco @ Tennessee: Niners. Not much else to really mention in this one. It is a late game and there could be the sort of jet lag that West coast teams have known to get bad in, but being a -4 favorite against a 3-3 Titans team is good. Eh why not the Niners. 

Houston @ Kansas City: KC. Texans are in a huge mess right now and the Chiefs are in a good place right now being undefeated and knocking on Peyton Manning’s Broncos front door. Who would boo their own player, especially one that gets injured? Right the same people that are fans of the Astros, I get it now. 

Baltimore @ Pittsburgh: Ravens. Renewed vigor for the Steelers as they picked up their very first win of the season. Unfortunately in this rivalry of rivalries the Ravens have the upper hand, at least they should have in this game. Joe Flacco isn’t always known for his clutch play day in, day out. 

San Diego @ Jacksonville: Chargers. How many points will the Chargers be favored in this game? 7.5! Not as much as the point spread of the Broncos/Jaguars game that the Broncos failed to cover (Le sigh). For the rest of this game I will talk about what I would do if I went on a first date with Wooey Zooey: a bowling game or two, dinner at Applebees, and then a walk around downtown Fargo (very romantic indeed). This isn’t really exactly a date specifically for her but for any girl that ends up deciding to date a introverted nerd like me. 

Denver @ Indianapolis: The highlight of the week comes to you in Indianapolis, Indiana where the former hero faces off against the future hero. In these sorts of matchups the former hero wins the matchup (Montana over Young, Favre over Rodgers) and I’m sticking with the Broncos in this one. Indy has weapons but enough to beat Peyton Manning? I don’t know. 

Minnesota @ New York Giants: G-men. Please Giants for god’s sake win this game. BSPN needs something to bitch about and talk about and since the Vikings aren’t doing enough to save their season, take this moment to salvage your season by winning this game against an inferior Vikings team that trashed my hopes and Adrian Peterson’s (I wanted #28 to score 4-5 touchdowns, since his 2-year old son died, I wanted him to actually win the game). That’s coming from a Packer fan that has mad respect for AP. 

2013:
2013:
Week 1: 12-4
Week 2: 11-5
Week 3: 7-9
Week 4: 11-4
Week 5: 10-4
Week 6: 9-5
Total: 60-31-0

2012:
164-90-2

My Market’s broadcasts:
CBS Early: Cincinnati @ Detroit; Marv Albert, Rich Gannon

CBS Late: Cleveland @ Green Bay; Kevin Harlan, Solomon Wilcots

FOX Single: Chicago @ Washington; Kenny Albert, Daryl Johnston, Tony Sirigusa

My friend: Baseball is back

Now it has been a long time coming. Both in that I haven’t done a column in nearly 3 months. Why the long period of time? Regardless of the way that my Packers lost to the 49ers in the divisional playoff game a week later the column was released, it was still a decent season for the Green and Gold. I get my revenge on Christian Ponder (who is more of a pussy than anyone else that I know), on stealing who was my interest months before he stole her, Samantha Steele (now Ponder, now obviously the latter last name was better to me). Other than my revenge, the Packers even up their rivalry with the Vikings in the playoffs at 1-1. There is a point to this article.

Baseball has returned. Days are getting longer, Beer doesn’t freeze when you try to drink it, girls start to wear shorts, shirts (yes my guy friends, don’t lie you like it, I do too). Another year of hope for Cubs fans to break the curse of the Billy Goat, Yankee fans claim that this will be the year that they will win #28 (and fail), hot dogs will be consumed, baseballs will be thrown back in disgust, another year of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver destroying the great game of baseball (one idiotic word at a time). Here’s my overall thoughts on the season, and the season so far. 

1. Yankees still suck. 2009 was the last great year of the Yankees opening their checkbook to players in a big way. CC Sabathia and Mark Texeira were the ones that took from going to small-time teams to the big show. Going to the Yankees that year you witnessed many things: the two players actually making an impact on the club, the last year that you witnessed an Alex Rodriguez actually being clutch and put up numbers like he was supposed to make, and the Yankees winning #27 of their overall World Series titles (of which I couldn’t watch ESPN for a month because they loved to give the Yanks so much slack, note this is before Tim Tebow came into their lives and destroyed the network). 

Obviously the Yankee bandwagon has been small these past few months for good reasons. Their players get more injured than an average Yao Ming season. It’s a fact that they have old players (Kuroda 38, Pettite 40, Jeter 38, Overbay 36, A-Rod 37, Youkilis 34). The average age of the team is 30 years old. Certainly no spring chickens on the team. 7 players on the disabled list. 

2. Tigers bullpen is still trash. Biggest reason why they couldn’t win a title last season. As much as starting pitching is key to winning games, relief pitching deserves as much responsibility to winning games. For example, if you work in a McDonalds, your shift is about to end, business has been good, plenty of great compliments from the customers, working area is clean, you head out, and the coworker puts in the wrong order for a customer, bad example I know. That’s what relief pitching is essentially, you keep a good thing going for the one who came before you and you don’t try to screw it up for the person. The team’s ERA is 2.60 (which is good when you think of it) but here’s the relief pitchers ERA (Smyly 13.50, Downs 6.75, Coke 9.00). The season is young I know, these sort of problems happen normally, I feel the Tigers will be alright. 

3. Houston Astros. The Astros as of right now are 1-2 on the season. The logo is nice, the stadium is still pretty cool (AT&T Park is probably my favorite ballpark). On Opening Night last Sunday, these Astros won a game against the Rangers. 8-2 in fact. After that, the honeymoon was over. Losing to the Rangers 7-0 and 0-4 in 2 days was heartbreaking I figure. My overall thoughts on them going from NL to AL is so-so. I personally liked to see the Brewers go back to the AL since that was where they started as a club (established in 1969 as the Seattle Pilots then moving to Milwaukee in 1970, entered the National League in 1998). 

4. Red Sox. As a fan of the Red Sox, I find this year to be a year where we could go almost anywhere in the division. First or last. The division is open. Somewhere we could get closure to the horrid season that was 2012. Jackie Bradley Jr., already is a household name, starting pitching looks good, hitting is impressive, we could go all the way in a possible way. 

That’s all that I have for right now. 

-Tom