2016 Week 3 NFL Picks

Good news.  I have a few posts in the works besides NFL Picks.  But for now that’s all I got.  I’m not even bothering to put a picture with this one.  It’s been that kind of a week.

Last Week I correctly picked 12 out of 16 games.  Making the season totals 20 correct picks out of 32 games.  Last week I felt a lot of the games had a clear direction in which the game would go.  This week is not like that.  There are a lot of trends that meet each other this week.  Lots of “Are they for real?” answers to be had.  I don’t anticipate doing well because looking at the schedule I can argue a case for just about every team having a chance to win.  So, here it goes.

Thursday Night

Houston @ New England:  New England.  You go with “The Patriot Way” at home even with a 3rd String QB until they give you a reason not to.

Sunday Noon

Arizona @ Buffalo:   Arizona  

Oakland @ Tennessee:  Tennessee

Cleveland @ Miami: Miami.  Miami is terrible, but so is Cleveland and they’re the road team

Baltimore @ Jacksonville: Jacksonville

Detroit @ Green Bay:  Green Bay

Denver @ Cincinnati:  Cincinnati

Minnesota @ Carolina: Carolina

Washington @ New York Giants:  New York Giants.

Sunday Nap Time

Los Angeles @ Tampa Bay:  Tampa Bay

San Francisco @ Seattle:  San Francisco

New York Jets @ Kansas City:  Kansas City.  If this game was in NY I’d pick the Jets.  

San Diego @ Indianapolis:  San Diego

Pittsburgh @ Philadelphia: Philadelphia.  To me this is the sexiest game of the weekend.  Are the Eagles and Carson Wentz “for real”?  After winning against the Browns and Bears we’ll get an answer during this game when they play a real football team in the Steelers.  

Sunday Night

Chicago @ Dallas:  Dallas. It’s great that NBC gave the Cowboys a nationally televised game.  I feel like they don’t get that opportunity enough.  

Monday Night

Atlanta @ New Orleans:  New Orleans

 

2016 Week 2 NFL Picks

NFL Week 2 Picks

Last Week I picked all sixteen NFL games and ended being half right; picking eight out of sixteen games correctly.  Denver didn’t fall off as much as I thought they would.  Jacksonville wasn’t ready to take a step forward.  The Chiefs spent the first half being exposed for everything I thought they were, and then spent the second half being everything I thought they should be.  And I thought the 49ers were a bad team, it’s just the LA Rams were worse than that.

Gambling? Is it worth the risk?

 

Only being half right will not get me to my goal of 170 correct picks by the end of the season.   Here are this week’s picks.

Thursday Night

New York Jets @ Buffalo Bills:  New York Jets.  I don’t think either team is interesting.  Both are coming off losses, but at least the Jets seem to have it more together than the Bills

Sunday Noon

Cincinnati @ Pittsburgh:  Pittsburgh. To me, this is the most interesting game of the weekend.   It’s a Divisional match-up against two teams expected to make the playoffs.  Got to go with the Steelers until they give me a reason not to.  

Tennessee @ Detroit:  Detroit.  Detroit looked real good in Week 1, and Tennessee didn’t plus Detroit is at home.

Baltimore @ Cleveland: Baltimore.  Cleveland is trash

Dallas @ Washington:  Dallas.  No one should watch this.  But because it’s the Cowboys you know FOX will make it their feature game.  

New Orleans @ New York Giants:  NY Giants.

San Francisco @ Carolina: Carolina.  West Coast teams with early kicks in the east have terrible records.   Hopefully Carolina doesn’t develop a Super Bowl hangover.

Miami @ New England:  New England.  New England is New England, and the Dolphins are not.

Kansas City @ Houston:  Houston.  Kansas City and Houston played twice last year and KC won both.  Which means the law of averages says the Texans may get over.  I’m not sure which Chiefs team will show up, and until they develop some consistency I’m just going to assume the worst.  

Sunday Nap Time

Seattle @ Los Angeles:  Seattle.  I’m more interested in how many people show up for this one as opposed to what actually happens on the field.

Tampa Bay @ Arizona:  Arizona.  Can’t see Arizona going 0-2, but it’s the NFL and strange things happen.

Jacksonville @ San Diego:  San Diego.  Only reason, Jacksonville is going across country and hasn’t established themselves as a team that could overcome that.  

Atlanta @ Oakland: Oakland.

Indianapolis @ Denver:  Denver.

Sunday Night

Green Bay @ Minnesota:  Green Bay

Monday Night

Philadelphia @ Chicago: Philadelphia.  I’d like to see how Carson Wentz does against a better defense that has actual game tape on him.  I still think the Eagle win.  

The Football Pool Memorial

At one time I was the commissioner of an NFL Football Pool.  We picked the games straight up, no points spreads.  We charged $2 a week; for the first few years we had over consistent 20 participants.  For various reasons participation dwindled to eight die-hard players.  At which point we decided to finish the 2014 Season and not do the pool anymore.

I miss it.  I can’t stand fantasy football, and even though there was negligible amount of money on the line, it allowed to me to have some sort of interest in every NFL game.  Because I was in charge of sending out the weekly schedule of games and then keeping track of everyone’s picks.  I got to be an expert at NFL Scheduling.  I could often tell you when each team played, who was at home, on what network, and in some cases the broadcast crew without looking at my phone.  I also have 5 seasons worth of prognostication data for myself and random football fans.  For a couple of seasons I even kept track of notable media members who made picks during the NFL Pre-Game Shows.  Turns out they’re not any better than us unwashed masses at picking football games. 

Gambling? Is it worth the risk?

Turns out if you pay even a little bit of attention you can pick the winner around 62 % of the time.  Reviewing some of the old spreadsheets I found the eventual winner of the entire season only picked correctly 65% of the time over the course of five seasons;  or 166 out of 256.  The year I won the entire season, 2012, I picked 170 games correctly, or 67%.  My average over the five seasons was 63%. 

Since I need content for this website and I miss picking all 256 games that make up an NFL season.   I’ve decided to publicly make my picks for each week and keep track of the results.  I doubt I will spend more than 20 minutes a week doing research on making picks.  That is similar to what I did in an actual football pool.  If you think you’re any good feel to make your picks and send them to me and I’ll post them along with mine.  If you beat me you will receive absolutely nothing.  I will post the coming weekends picks, and go over the previous week’s picks every Wednesday.  My goal will be to beat my best season of 170 correct picks.  So, without further commentary, here are my picks for Week 1 and some commentary on my pick if it comes to me. 

Thursday Night

Carolina @ Denver:  Carolina. No tactical reason I’m picking Carolina other than things usually even out in the NFL.  

Sunday Noon

Green Bay @ Jacksonville: Jacksonville.  Home underdogs are a good place to find surprise results.  Especially on opening weekend 

Buffalo @ Baltimore: Baltimore

Chicago @ Houston: Houston

Cleveland @ Philadelphia: Philadelphia

Tampa Bay @ Atlanta: Tampa Bay

Minnesota @ Tennessee:  Tennessee

Cincinnati @ New York Jets: NY Jets

Oakland @ New Orleans: New Orleans

San Diego @ Kansas City: Kansas City.  I’m not real high on the Chiefs this year, but San Diego is terrible and the game is at Arrowhead

Sunday Nap Time

Miami @ Seattle: Seattle

Detroit @ Indianapolis: Indianapolis

New York @ Dallas: New York Giants

Sunday Night

New England @ Arizona: Arizona

Monday Night

Pittsburgh @ Washington : Pittsburgh

Los Angeles @ San Francisco: Los Angeles.  It’s really weird typing Los Angeles in reference to an NFL team

 

Footbaw!

Football that counts returned this past weekend and it was spectacular.  I could write a lot of superlatives about the awesomeness of this past weekend’s college football games.  I’ll just let the games themselves and people who get paid to write wax the poetry.  In the end, it left most football fans wanting, and that is why College and NFL football are as popular as they are.  If you’re like me you can’t wait till next weekend so we can do it again…until you look at the slate of College games.  Unless you are a fan of a certain school here are the most interesting televised games in each time slot.  All times central because that’s where I live:

Well do you?

 

11am: Central Michigan @ #21 Oklahoma St, FS1 & UCF @ #7 Michigan, ABC

230pm: Tulsa @ #6 Ohio State, ABC & Kentucky @ #25 Florida, CBS

6pm: Arkansas @ #13 TCU, ESPN

630pm: Iowa State @ #17 Iowa, BTN

7pm: Virginia Tech vs #9 Tennessee @ Bristol Motor Speedway, ABC

9pm: Texas Tech @ Arizona State, FS1

930pm: Virginia @ #24 Oregon, ESPN

Yes there are some interesting games listed above.  No doubt there is will be some drama and some surprises but nothing on this schedule strikes me as appointment television.  It’s more like; “If I’m not doing anything I will check-in on some games.”  I guess not every College Football Saturday can be as good as last weekend.  My advice for this Saturday is to knock out that home improvement project you’ve been thinking about, plan an outdoor outing, or talk to your family.  Because in Week 3 (9/15 – 917) most of the featured games are at least conference match-ups.  Of course, you could save your TV watching time for Sunday when the NFL begins, if you’re into that sort of thing.  

2nd Last Chance

I do not watch a lot of TV that is not live sports.  TV shows that get to trending on social media I usually ignore because I feel I don’t have enough spare time and mental energy to consume them.  Do not confuse that with me thinking I would not enjoy them.  I probably would, but if I did get into binge watching TV shows I’d have to give up something else I enjoy doing as an opportunity cost, like reading or getting enough sleep to be a functioning adult.  Right now, that’s not a trade off I’m willing to make.  

However, I ran across a show that has developed a cult following among the people I follow on twitter; Last Chance U.   Last Chance U is a Netflix original series that follows the East Mississippi Community College Lions through their 2015 Football Season.  The focus of the series is on several players that are at EMCC because they have Big Conference Division 1 football talent, but have had to transfer to a Community College because of grades or brushes with the law.  It is their last chance to make it in football, and there is no fall back plan.  Like most good stories there are several minor plot lines and characters that become just as likable as the original plot line.

Netflix and their streaming compatriots have cranked out a lot of original series in order to win subscribers.  Last Chance U is the first one that I have been completely into.  I mean, I watched Marco Polo, but it took me 18 months to finish a 10 episode Season 1, and I haven’t cared to look to see if there is a Season 2.  I’ve watched the first two episodes of a few other shows and nothing has really made me want to watch more.  By comparison this show got me going.  It’s a great window into the world of a normal student athlete both on and off the field.  At one point the show unlocked some memory for me and I could smell the sweat in the locker-room through the TV.  It was awesome and disgusting at the same time.  Not only is there the struggle against opposing teams, which often goes outside of football.  There is the struggle coaches and non-football staff go through in an attempt to keep the players eligible.  Not only so they can play at EMCC, but so they can transfer and play at the four year institutions that come to EMCC to recruit the players.

If you google Last Chance U you will find this is not the only space on the interwebs dedicated to this show and how compelling it is.  Netflix doesn’t release it’s viewership numbers, but two weeks after Season 1’s debut Netflix announced that there would be a Season 2.  Like other fans of the show I’m pretty excited about this.  BUT…

As I thought about a second a season a few things hit me.  Before Season 1 EMCC was a relative unknown on the sports media landscape.  When you started watching you had no idea how the EMCC Lions 2015 season would go. (Although, you could certainly look it up before you finished the season.) Now, it’s likely that most people who followed Season 1 will follow the Lions this fall and know how the 2016 season went by the time Season 2 is released next summer.  Sports Media Reporters will report it.  I started following EMCC Athletics Twitter, along with QB Coach Clint Trickett, and Academic Advisor Brittany Wagner and others have as well.  I’m sure there will be no shortage of spoilers on social media as the football season goes on.

Season 2 of Last Chance U will no doubt have plenty of redemption stories and many of the plot lines that made Season 1 attractive to viewers.  I just wonder if surprise will be one of them.  But you know I and other fans will tune in to find out.