Tonight: Bucs + 6.5

Oh dear . . .

Not as easy a pick as you might think.  Tampa has kept things reasonably close this season at home:

Week 2: Lost to Saints, 16-14
Week 4: Lost to Cardinals, 13-10
Week 6: Lost to Eagles, 31-20
Average margin of loss: 5.3

And Carolina on the road . . .

Week 2: Lost to Bills, 24-23
Week 5: Lost to Cardinals, 22-6
Week 6: Beat Vikings, 35-10
Average margin of victory: 2.6

I feel that the most likely outcome might be Panthers by a TD, but I think Vegas is overreacting to their last 2 weeks.  The chance of a Tampa win is higher than the chance of a blowout.

THE PICK: Panthers 19, Bucs 13

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Week 9 Preview and Picks

Cam Newton's Panthers have as many wins as he has fingers up,
but that's likely to change in the second half of the season

Our new layout and avatar lasted all of a week.  Last week, we looked at the best- and worst-case scenarios for newly-appointed Chiefs starting QB Brady Quinn, whose picture adorned the side of this blog and served as our Twitter avatar.  Quinn’s line in his start against Oakland?  2-for-4 for 1 yard, 1 interception, and 1 head injury.  Yikes.  Matt Cassel returns to the starting lineup tonight, and Brady Quinn returns to the top of the webpage (albeit with a friend whose wardrobe we detailed here).

As we hit the midpoint of the 2012 NFL season, we look at teams who have deviated significantly from their early season performance.  More than a few have started out either hot or cold and currently resemble a far different team than they did in weeks 1-3.  A deeper dive after the jump.

Week 7 Preview and Picks

Our model says losing Revis will cost the Jets a little over a game this year

[10/19 update, 9:30 a.m.: A brief word on last night's game, which was played following the original publishing of this post.  As we tweeted and put on Facebook last night, we took the Niners to cover the 7.5 point spread.  You know what happened.  We'd just like to go on record as saying that we agree with Harbaugh's decision.  Declining the penalty leads to a single kneel-down to end the game. Accepting it -- and taking the safety -- leaves the possibility, however remote, that Seattle could go onside kick --> score --> onside kick --> score.  The chances are low with 45 seconds and no timeouts, and yes, something crazy could happen on the snap for the kneel-down, but if the BackupQB were coaching the Niners, he'd have done the same thing.

Our original post starts after the jump . . .]

Recasting Any Given Sunday

"Ya find out life's this game of inches . . . so's football . . ."

We at the Backup Quarterback Blog had a few friends over for July 4th.  Prior to the evening's fireworks display, we were flipping between the various patriotic concerts and -- one of my favorite things of any July 4th -- old-school patriotic movies.  I happened to walk 2 guests into the living room during Bill Pullman's epic (?) speech in the 1996 movie Independence Day.  After we ceased all conversation and immediately fixated upon Pullman (portraying U.S. President Thomas J. Whitmore), conversation turned to the Twitter feed of Grantland's Bill Barnwell.  In Tweets throughout the day, Barnwell and his followers discussed the prospect of re-casting Independence Day using today's stars.  Among the highlights: LeBron James or Russell Westbrook as Will Smith's character, Vincent Kartheiser (Pete Campbell on Mad Men) as Jeff Goldblum, Will Farrell as Goldblum's character's father, and Bill Pullman's President Whitmore played by . . . Bill Pullman.

A few days later, we found ourselves flipping channels and stumbled upon Oliver Stone's 1999 football drama, Any Given Sunday.  Arguably our favorite football movie of all time ("The Program," "Little Giants," "Rudy," "Necessary Roughness," and "Varsity Blues" also merit consideration, with 'The Replacements" finishing in roughly 1,775th place), we thought we'd try the same exercise here -- recasting Any Given Sunday, except with current players, coaches, and other NFL-related personnel.  Mr. Stone, if you're looking to produce a remake, you can find our cast list after the jump . . .