Week 9 Picks

They'd win by 50 if Christian Okoye roamed the backfield . . .

Another week, another missed key pick.  Aaron Rodgers' injury didn't help, but I have to say the Saints were very impressive, especially Mark Ingram.

Trying not to make life difficult on ourselves this week.  We're taking the CHIEFS -10 at home against the Jets.  I don't care who's playing QB for the Jets.  They've been atrocious in all but one game this year (two weeks ago against the Pats), and the Chiefs are sneaky-good, up to fourth in Football Outsiders advanced metrics.  They'll feast on an inept Jets team all day on Sunday.

Week 8 picks

Even with the Majik Man at the helm, Green Bay shouldn't be getting points this week

Another ugly performance last week in my battle royale against Junk Food Guy.  JFG has been keeping score; all I know is I have a lot of ground to make up.

A brief digression -- my weekly picks have stunk, but what about my overall season picks, as noted in my season preview?  Let's have a look:

Division Champs:
AFC North: Steelers (+200 at the time): Pittsburgh is a game back of Baltimore in a tight division race.  I'm not sure Monday night told us anything, but Cincinnati has fallen back a bit.  Pittsburgh plays the Ravens on Sunday night next week and can make up the game difference.  Football Outsiders, though, is skeptical, putting the Steelers' division chances at just 10%.

AFC East: New England (-400): Feeling reasonably good about this one.  The Pats are a game up on Buffalo and own the tiebreak, and FO puts them at 56% to win the division.

AFC South: Indianapolis (-160): FO has the Colts as a whopping 97% to win the division title.

AFC West: Chiefs (+650): Not looking so hot here; just a 5% division title probability

Wild cards: Titans and Jets: Blew this one.  The teams have a 1.4% and 0.5% chance of making the playoffs, respectively.

NFC North: Packers (-160): Tied atop the division with Detroit, and 70% to win their division according to FO.

NFC East: Redskins (+400): 0.8%.

NFC South: Bucs (+700): Man, has this division been bad.  Carolina leads it, and they were atrocious last week.  The 1-5 Bucs are only 2 games back but only have a 1% chance of winning the division.

NFC West: Niners (+220): A game and a half back of Arizona.  16% chance of winning the division.

NFC Wild Card: Seahawks and Bears: If the playoffs started today, both would be out, although FO gives the Seahawks a 60% chance of getting there.  Chicago, 14%.

So as of now, we've hit on 3 of 8 division champs (37.5%).  A monkey would get 25%, so we beat the monkey.

For playoff teams, we're 4 out of 12.  A monkey would get 4.5, so a little off there.

But the good news is that our Super Bowl pick - Packers over Colts -- is alive and well.  FO rates the teams as second-most likely in their conference to reach the Super Bowl (5% chance that both will).

So fear not -- the BQB won't lead you completely astray.  In fact, the Packers are out lock of the week this week, getting 1.5 points in New Orleans.  Yes, Mark Ingram returns for New Orleans, and yes, they're historically very good at home.  But advanced metrics only rate them as the 21st best team in the league, while they have Green Bay 3rd.  On a neutral site, is Green Bay really only a 1.5 point favorite?  With the 3 point home team juice, that's what this line is saying, and I think it's wrong.  Take the Packers.

Week 7 Picks

It's even more of a lock without this guy managing the clock!

For the record, my locks of the week are a shopping 1-4-1 so far this year.  Take that for what you will (translation: take the opposite and run to your bookie).  I made up a little ground on The Junkfood Guy last week but I'm still well behind for the season.  Time to start being irrational . . .

My lock of the week this week is the winless Oakland Raiders +4 at home vs. Arizona.  This is more of a bet against Arizona than anything; they've looked shaky the past several weeks against Denver and Washington, and their DVOA is actually only 19th out of 32 despite their 4-1 record.  Oakland, on the other hand, is winless but not atrocious -- Football Outsiders has them ranked better than Minnesota, who has 2 wins this season.  Oakland led the whole way against a strong San Diego team -- they'll get it done (or lose by a FG) this week.

Week 6 lines

Seahawks at home, no matter the number

The key pick continues to kill me, but I did manage to go 9-5 last week despite missing on Cincinnati by a mile.  (And for the record, yes, I had Houston last night.  At least we got a good game.

Lock of the week is SEAHAWKS -8 at home against the Cowboys.  I like Dallas a lot, but I like Seattle at home a lot more.  They're 14-4 there against the spread dating back to 2012.  Expect a similar game to Monday night, where Dallas keeps it close but the 12th man helps Seattle pull away at the end.

As for the rest of the slate . . .

Week 5 Picks

Is it finally the end for Tom Brady & Co.? (photo credit: Jennifer Long, Kansas City Star)

The Patriots' recent run of dominance is well-documented.  Since 2003, they've won every single AFC East Title except for 2008, when Tom Brady went down in week 1 with a season-ending injury.  They've won 10 games all 11 years of that stretch (even going 11-5 the year Brady was out under Matt Cassel) and 12 games 8 out of the 11 years.  To put that in perspective, from a Pythagorean expectation perspective, having a .750 winning percentage is equivalent to scoring twice as many points as you allow.

This blog -- along with 16 out of 16 ESPN national contributors -- picked New England to repeat as division champions this season.

It's been an incredible run, but 2014, as we've all seen, has been unkind.  When Brady threw a pick-6 while trying to somehow bring his team back from a 34-7 deficit in the 4th quarter in Kansas City, it may have been the end of an era.  New England lacks the blocking and tackling -- to say nothing of things like receiver separation and, yes, quarterback play -- to be considered an elite football team.  Our friends at Football Outsiders dropped them from 8th to 23rd in their DVOA rankings in just a week.

The other problem for Pats fans?  They're playing an elite football team Sunday night, one that's the best team in the NFL according to DVOA and one that's coming off a bye.

Week 4 Picks

Donovan's mama would be proud of the 3-0 Eagles

Mediocrity continues to reign in my battle royale with The Junkfood Guy.  We both went 8-7 last week against the spread, but JFG's key pick of the Colts came in while my key pick of Houston in a trap game at the Giants was a loser.  As such, JFG gains 4 points on me.

If you're scoring at home . . .

JFG: 21-22-2, 25 points
BQB: 17-26-2, 21 points

Note that we're both 1-2 in our key picks, for whatever that's worth.

When I took a look at the spreads this week, literally only one game stood out at me . . .

Week 3 picks

Seems like a long time ago, doesn't it?

My epic battle with www.junkfoodguy.com has been anything but epic.  The old reliable BQB is a whopping 9-19-2 against the spread the past two weekends.  Thankfully JFG has been mediocre himself -- 13-15-2.

The good news?  I've hit one of two key picks (worth 5 bonus points), and JFG's missed on both.  So despite a 4 game lead, we're tied in the standings at 13 points a piece.

Last week's key pick was Arizona giving 2 points against the Giants in New Jersey.  I watched most of that game (amid a relatively weak early game schedule) and, I have to say, the Giants were every bit as bad as they were the previous Monday night against Detroit.  Although sample size is a little small, our friends at Football Outsiders have put together their DVOA ratings through 2 games.  New York is 31st of 32 (lowly Jacksonville is 32nd).  What's more, the Giants are consistently weak in all 3 phases -- 24th on defense, 30th on special teams, and dead last on offense.

Enter the Houston Texans, 2-0 and just 2.5 point favorites in East Rutherford on Sunday.  At some point, the Giants have to get a win.  I don't think they keep this one close.  Our key pick is against the Giants for a second straight week.  Key pick: Texans - 2.5.

Rest of the picks after the jump . . .

The Week 1 Picks

Worry not Jags fans, the Blaine is gone, and you might even cover a double digit spread this week!

Junk Food Guy and I have agreed to terms.  We're picking every non-Thursday night game against the spread every week.  Lines are from MGM/Mirage in Vegas (via VegasInsider) at the time of publishing. Every game is worth one point, except for our "Lock of the Week," which is worth 5.

The contest pits a Bills fan and a Steelers fan, so the loser has to wear this horrific shirt to a Super Bowl party this year.  So there's that.

We're back! 2014 NFL Preview

A Super Bowl matchup between #12's . . .

We're back!  After a quasi-retirement mid-way through last season, the BQB is making his Ali-like return to the ring today with a 2014 season preview.  Special thanks to The Junk Food Guy for getting me to snap out of my Hibernol and back to the blog.  Junk Food Guy and I will be wagering something (TBD) on these picks, as well as on game picks throughout the season.

Typically, season previews -- not to mention Vegas odds -- focus a little too much on what happened the previous year.  Our friends at Bovada have odds for each division champ, and 7 of the 8 division champs from last year are again the favorite this year (Carolina is the lone outlier).  In 6 of the 7 cases, the favorite is a negative money-line value, implying more than 50% probability (here, Cincinnati is the outlier at +180, implying a 36% probability of winning the division ).

Year-to-year, though, the variance is much higher.  The median number of repeat division champs since 2003?  3 out of 8.  The most in that period was 6 in 2012 -- take out that year, and there have never been more than 4 under the current structure.

Repeat playoff teams are a little more frequent -- a median of 6 out of 12 -- but that still leaves a lot of turnover in playoff teams year to year.

With that in mind, our picks for this year's playoffs are below (you'll notice there are 3 repeat division champs and 6 repeat playoff teams).