Jason and I were able to be a little holiday festive and jovial while making our picks tonight, because we were able to enjoy a winning pick for the Saturday night game. Anything to wash away the taste of that horrible Thursday night pick. On to the rest of the games for Week 15:
| Thu. Nite |
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| ATL (8-5) | 13½ | Jack (4-9) | Atl 41-14 |
| Jack | Jack |
| Sat. Nite |
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| Dal (7-6) | 7 | TB (4-9) | Dal 31-15 |
| Dal | Dal |
| Sunday |
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| Cin (7-6) | 7 | STL (2-11) |
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| Cin | Cin |
| BUF (5-8) | 1 | Mia (4-9) |
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| Mia | Mia |
| NYG (7-6) | 6½ | Wash (4-9) |
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| NY | Wash |
| Tenn (7-6) | 7 | IND (0-13) |
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| Ind | Tenn |
| CHI (7-6) | 3½ | Sea (6-7) |
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| Sea | Sea |
| GB (13-0) | 13½ | KC (5-8) |
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| GB | GB |
| HOU (10-3) | 6 | Car (4-9) |
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| Hou | Hou |
| NO (10-3) | 9 | MIN (2-11) |
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| NO | Min |
| Det (8-5) | 1 | OAK (7-6) |
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| Oak | Det |
| ARIZ (6-7) | 6½ | Cle (4-9) |
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| Ariz | Ariz |
| PHI (5-8) | 3 | NYJ (8-5) |
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| NY | NY |
| NE (10-3) | 9 | DEN (8-5) |
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| Den | Den |
| Sun. Nite |
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| Bal (10-3) | 1½ | SD (6-7) |
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| SD | Bal |
| Mon. Nite |
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| SF (10-3) | 3 | Pit (10-3) |
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| Pit | Pit |
Some of our thoughts and observations included:
- We both jump on Cincinnati to rebound from that bad loss vs. Houston last week and whip the St. Louis Rams all over the field. While I feel some fear knowing that the Rams somehow pulled an upset on Baltimore at home using a replacement QB in A.J. Feeley, I can't predict that outcome against another decent defense using Kellen Clemens. Feeley may be ineffective, but Clemens is actively trying to give the football to the other team at all times.
- We're both still riding the Dolphins even after their bad loss against the Eagles last week. Buffalo is just bad. Jason has made it his mission to pick Miami and go against Buffalo so that the Fish finish ahead of the Bills in the standings, which would have been unheard of after Week 8 when Miami was 0-7 and Buffalo was 5-2.
- Our first disagreement of the week is on the Redskins-Giants game. Jason has seen enough of the bad Giants defense this season. He likes Rex Grossman to light it up against them. Jay doesn't go to the stats often, but he cites that the Giants for all their offensive firepower this year are still -25 in point differential. Yikes. But I found a curious thing in those same point differential stats: Washington is -61! I know they had the great John Beck at the helm for several of those games, but most of that is on the defense and Grossman. That 28-14 home beating by Washington against the Giants in Week 1 kicked off a fast start to the season for the Shanahan Boyz and the Skins. This ain't the same Skins. Give me the G-Men for some painful revenge.
- And I've gone down this road before and crashed and burned, but I'm going there again--gimme Indy to win!! Yes, I don't just want the Colts to cover a TD against the Titans, I got them to win the game. I really think they have to win one this year. They're not that winless Lions team. They were a playoff team last year, with a slightly better QB, I give you. I'm really disappointed in Tennessee refusing to establish the run at home against a terrible New Orleans run D last week. Did they really think they were going to outgun Drew Brees in a shootout? I don't like the Titans putting an old, beat-up QB-WR combo out there in Matt Hasselbeck and Nate Washington. And I can see the Colts outrushing them, too. Jason thinks it's going to be the Chris Johnson Show on the Indy turf.
- Get your Skittles ready in Chicago, because we like the Seahawks and Marshawn Lynch to go Beast Mode on the hapless Bears. I'm amazed that Caleb Hanie is favored against anybody the way he's played his first three NFL starts. The Bears may not win another fucking game this year. Well, at least Sam Hurd's got the hookup for the good stuff that can make them feel better about things. Seattle has two straight good games at home with eleven days of rest between them. Can they build on those successes and take that confidence into Chi-Town to get a win? Guess what--they did it last year. We'll gladly take them to do it again.
- Greg Jennings is missing at WR for the Packers as they visit the Chefs in Kansas City. Whatever will Green Bay do? How can Aaron Rodgers replace that important weapon? Oh yeah--nine different players have caught TD passes for the Pack this year. We think they can manage without Jennings. Plus, Jason pointed out that Green Bay already saw the KC starting QB, Kyle Orton, in Week 4 when Orton was in Denver. Green Bay won that game 49-23. Ouch. And that was the highly praised Denver D, not the not-so-praised Chiefs D. We'll take GB squoosh.
- Fresh off of stomping my heart out with his late-game heroics, T.J. Yates leads the Texans onto their home field against the woeful Panthers. The new AFC South champs are gunning for a first-round bye, so they should keep grinding against Carolina and get the win even though the Panthers probably will outthrow them. What Arian Foster and Ben Tate do to Carolina on the ground should break Cam Newton's spirit and put some quit into coach Ron Rivera's squad.
- Jason is taking the big home points on this occasion for the Vikings. Even though they host New Orleans indoors, Jason still likes the prospect of RB Adrian Peterson returning from injury to blast the Saints hard enough to keep the score close. I'm guessing Peterson's workload will be rather low, being his first game back in several weeks. And I just can't pick against New Orleans indoors on a fast track.
- I could have gone either way on this one, but Jason will take the Lions to get it done on a road trip at Oakland. It will be fast, it will be intense, and Matt Williamson from the ESPN Football Today podcast said that it may shatter the world penalty flag record. Cheap shots all over the place! Jason calls Raiders QB Carson Palmer "Interception Santa," giving out balls to whomever is around. (If only they were black balls, then he'd attract a Kardashian. Hey hey!) That may be true, but I'll pick Interception Santa because Oakland hopefully is bright enough to have Palmer hand the ball to Michael Bush and stand aside many, many more times than he throws. Detroit will let you run on them, plus it ramps up the physicality and raises the chance of some hothead Lions, particularly the returning Ndamukong Suh, throwing a punch or blowing his stack and helping the Raiders out.
- My Lock of the Week would be Arizona to throttle Cleveland. Jason thinks it smells like time for another Patrick Peterson punt return for a TD, but that's just because he's got Peterson in our fantasy league, which uses IDPs. We both are curious to see QB John Skelton work some more magic with Larry Fitzgerald, tossing him the ball and watching him tear it away from anyone in the vicinity. And, it's Seneca Wallace in at QB for the Browns, which isn't good for Cleveland fans.
- We're not fans of either the Eagles or the Jets, as has been well documented, although I liked Philadelphia coming into the season. The way they've gone out like punks has turned me off, but we were faced with picking one or the other this week. While I studied and agonized and really sweated out this one, Jason was ready with his pick immediately. "Oh, I'll take the Jets," he said, because he would like to see Philly's flickering playoff candle get snuffed out for good. I'm also going with Gang Green, although I will root for Philly because I can't stand Rex Ryan and Mark Sanchez way more than anyone on the Eagles. Also, I wonder if Philly will keep choking and losing games in front of the home crowd. The Jets may only be 2-4 on the road, but the Eagles for some reason are 1-5 at home.
- It's been really hard to avoid the subject of Tim Tebow in sports talk these last few weeks. The Tebow Thing has grown and grown and grown, and no, I'm not talking about his supposedly virgin penis. We've had to adjust and admit that picking Tebow in a point-spread environment isn't a toxic idea, and we've now both gone with the Broncos for two weeks in a row. But I'm not doubling down my bet as strong as Jason is--see, he's got Tebow and the Broncos to win. That's right. New England's defense has nauseated Jason so much that he's taking Tebow to find a way to win the game over Tom Brady and the Patriots. I was so floored by the declaration that I completely forgot what lame Tebow jokes I was going to bust out in this space. Oh well. Guess I'll just declare my opinion that Tebow can keep Denver close, although I'm not taking Denver to go all the way and win. I wonder, if Bill Belichick puts enough WRs on the field as DBs, can Tebow get easily confused and start throwing the ball towards them, thinking maybe they're his WRs that were just acquired in an in-game trade? Er, maybe not.
- On Sunday night, I'm shrinking away from Baltimore in fear of those three bad losses earlier this season on the road, and I'm backing Philip Rivers and the Chargers once again. They seem to be really getting at it during this stretch drive. Jason's looking forward to the Ravens ending this San Diego shit and eliminating them from playoff contention.
- And on Monday night, we have to go with the Pittsburgh Steelers on a very long road trip. San Francisco needs to come out of their funk from last game if they're going to knock off the AFC champions, and we don't think they're motivated to do that. Now, we saw Charlie Batch try to play QB for Pittsburgh when Ben Roethlisberger got twisted, and that would have made us run towards SF if Batch had to start. But Big Ben appears to be giving it a go, so we'll go with the Steel to beat a Niners team that seems to be throttling it down and saving it for the playoffs, which we all know never works. We do all know that, don't we?
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