My Football Picks So Far

Photo: Russell Wilson throwing against the Packers, from nfl.com.

6-3 so far with my football picks, including the Patriots loss that I felt was coming, but refused to admit to myself. Today, the surprise of the day for me was the Jaguars, who beat the Texans by 22. (I should've considered the Harvey factor there; dumb on my part.) But I still wouldn't have picked them by 22. The last one I swung and missed on was Cardinals/Lions, which I thought would be a toss-up, but that Detroit won by 12. And though I was right about the Browns losing, Cleveland actually super-impressed, losing just by 3.

And the best tackle of the weekend still is the Friday night play by the security guard at Fenway who obliterated a drunken fan before both his feet touched the outfield grass. I'm watching the players jog into the dugout when suddenly I see a guard running full-tilt into a fan just barely touching the right field dirt with one of his toes. The guard was a blur and the fan didn't know what hit him.

UPDATE: Finished 10-5 for the week. I'll do better.

Patriots 27 NYG 26

Photo: The catch that wasn't, from Jason Szenes of the New York Times.  Article at NYTimes.com. BTW, note to the Times: The caption beside this photo says, "The Giants' Odell Beckham Jr. made a catch past the Patriot's Malcolm Butler (21)."  No, he didn't.  That was the play of the game, you know.

A few things from this game, the best I've seen all year and probably better than a few playoff games to come:

--"The receiver had not yet become a runner."  That was from Ed Hochuli, who seems to have toned down his tight-shirt accentuating his toned upper-body thing.  No better explanation necessary for why an incompletion is so, even in the end zone.  And, I noticed at the time, the receiver's second foot had not made solid contact with the ground before the ball had popped loose.  In short, the receiver has to make the catch and complete some other kind of football play.  That didn't happen.

--And Malcolm Butler, who knocked the ball out of Odell Beckham's hands on that play, really saved the day, and more than made up for his one awful play--the throw on the second play from scrimmage that allowed Beckham...to...go...all...the...way.  (Though McCourty actually ran into him on that play, and it was more McCourty's fault overall than his.)  The Giants had to settle for a field goal a few plays later, which put them ahead only by 2 with about 1:30 left.

--Losing Edelman for anything longer than this game is really going to hurt.  He does so many things well, but he's also really Brady's favorite receiver.  And with Dion Lewis out, that's especially painful.

--The true great ones win in dramatic fashion even when they're not at their best.  That was Brady today.  Really fortunate not to have 1 or 2 more INTs in this game, and a TD is taken back on a holding call, and he throws a pick on the goal line...and they still win.  After completing on a 4th and 10, no less.

--Gostkowski may be the best kicker in the NFL right now, and maybe has been for quite awhile.  Nothing against Vinitiari, and these comparisons are sort of useless anyway.  But a 54-yarder is not a gimme, of course, and this was to win the game, after being iced once, in hostile territory.

--Eli Manning vs. Tom Brady and the Patriots is like Geno Petralli vs. Roger Clemens.  Go figure.  And you get a safety if you leave a comment to explain this one, since you'd have to be my age and a serious Sox fan to get it.  But it's a solid comparison, in its own way.

--Amendola is another Edelman, who himself was another Wes Welker.  Unbelievably awesome receivers who run for a ton of yards after the catch, and make great catches, and catch 7-10 passes per game, and can be used as occasional running backs.  They're also short--much shorter than average in the NFL--and bounce back up after catastrophic hits.  The Patriots keep churning out these guys.

--The Patriots have, in MHO, the best quarterback, tight end, kicker, receiving corps and coach in the NFL.  That'll equal a lot of victories.

--I'm going to bet that Belichik does not retire when Tom Brady does.  But they'll forever be thought of together, now and in the Hall of Fame.

--The Patriots barely beat the Giants in their almost-perfect season as well, for those who remember.  So let's not get cocky here.

Any Given Sunday

You play badly in football, you deserve to lose.  The Patriots played very badly indeed.  It was obvious after the pick, even though no points were scored on that, and when they went behind 10-3, I called it a loss and went out to dinner.  I was right.  (I'm good at calling their losses very early in the game.)  They deserved to lose, sad to say.  Winning isn't a right; you have to earn it.  Even as a fan of the team, I know this to be so.  They don't deserve to win just because I'm a fan of the team.  (Too many sports fans don't get this simple concept.)

Well, out of the 4 remaining teams, I'd have to call Pittsburgh, simply because they're the only team not severely over-performing.  The Packers, Bears and Jets are all playing over their heads; none of them are as good as they're playing--I don't care what Bill Parcells' famous expression says.  I'd have to pick Pittsburgh to win it all.  (As long as the Jets don't, I don't really care, to be honest.)

If they do, that would give Big Ben 3 Super Bowl wins, and now we're talking Hall of Fame credentials.  This is one of the uncomfortable things about sports, that you can't take individual honors away from a guy just because you don't like him.  It's the reason the Hall hasn't kicked out O.J., and it's why they'll have to let Big Ben in.  There's no doubt that he's not a great person--few of us are, I guess--but he seems to cross the line into seediness.  But if he wins again, he'll quietly have as many rings as Tom Brady, though he's obviously not in the same league as a player. 

That's the NFL today, or at least the Super Bowls in the last 7-10 years: the Patriots, the Colts and the Steelers, with occasional upsets thrown in.  There's parity, for sure, but still, at the peak, you have the same repeaters.  It's the latest secret of the sport: more wins for more teams, but in the end, when it matters most, the same ones are there, with an occasional surprise.

Seahawks vs. Saints

The problem, as I see it, is the Saints' defense, not the fact that the defending Super Bowl champs had to play a road game against a sub-.500 team.  Strictly speaking, you don't give up more than 40 points to a 7-9 team.  If you do, you'll lose, and you'll deserve it.  That last running TD of the Seahawks was the closer, and a travesty to allow.  Really poor tackling (though nice stiff-arm at the end).  But enough already of how the Saints were defeated by a faulty playoff system.  They were defeated by their defense.  Truth be told, they won it all last year with a dynamic offense, as Brees had one of the best years ever for a quarterback.  Their defense was lousy last year, too.  They just had a better offense and, let's be honest, a lot of luck last year.

And how about giving some love to Hasselbeck?  He's been a quality gunslinger for a long time; he always has the potential to beat you.  The 'Hawks go as he goes.  When he's on, he can pile up yards and just beat you with his arm.  I didn't call the game for them, but I knew that it was very possible that the Saints could not cover the spread.  Both teams had good offenses and bad defenses, and if the real Hasselbeck showed up--and he did--I knew this could be a close one, especially with the Seahawks at home.  I should've bet.

Finally, how about a round of applause for Pete Carroll?  He's lost the deer-in-the-headlights look he used to have with the Patriots, hasn't he?  I guess that time at USC really turned him around.  Good to see him picking himself up and dusting himself off in the NFL.  He never was a bad guy in New England; people genuinely liked him around.  He just seemed completely out of his element, over his head, or whatever your favorite cliche is.  Maybe he just needs a smaller, less rabid media center to work in.  I don't know what the media situation is in Seattle, but it can't be the blistering furnace that the sports media and fanbase is in New England.  

Random Thoughts

--It isn't fair that the younger fans never had to suffer through the 1-15 years like I did.  Then again, that makes them not appreciate these Patriots like I do, and those my age.  Remember when they used to be called the Patsies?  And when someone said Pats, it was with a much more negative tone.

--Brady and Belichick will make the Hall of Fame.  But let's not forget Robert Kraft.

--The fact that the Patriots improved vastly by trading away Randy Moss tells you all you need to know about Randy Moss.  For those of you familiar with old-time baseball, you'll understand when I say that Randy Moss suffers from Rogers Hornsby Syndrome.

--I'll take Deion Branch over Randy Moss any day.  Unless you need a catch in back of the endzone.

--The Pats still get decent picks in that trade for Moss, even though the Vikings discarded him immediately.

--Speaking of the Vikings, the head coach took the hit for the whole organization.  There's been some really bad decisions made up there the last few years.  The owners never fire the owner, do they?

--Speaking of owners, the big guy of the Raiders needs to go.  Can't the NFL make him step aside like baseball did to Marge Schott?

--I'm glad the Bengals and Browns have gotten better.  I was tired of seeing them be the jokes of the league since the Patriots improved.

--More than any other sport, the organization makes or breaks the team in football.  Baseball teams win with bonehead GMs and owners all the time.  (Like the Yanks and A's of the 70s, for example.)  Not so in football.  And before you say Jerry Jones, remember that the Cowboys won a lot when he had a coach he trusted and he wasn't a pastiche of himself.