Week 2 Picks

Think they ever punted?

I'm in a pool where I have to pick 6 games against the spread, and one of them is my "key" pick that's worth an extra point.  So far this year, I've made the Thursday night my key pick.  And as you know if you've been following this blog, I was wrong in both week 1 (thanks, Ravens' D) and week 2 (thanks, Aaron Dobson).  Not a good sign.  Thankfully, I was able to salvage a decent week last week.  Week 2 is below.  Enjoy the games:

LAST WEEK: 9-5-1 against the spread, 13-3 outright
THIS WEEK: 0-1 against the spread, 1-0 outright

EAGLES -7 over Chargers: Believe the hype on Philly.  I absolutely love watching this team.

BILLS +3 over Panthers (Bills to win): Not sure Carolina should be giving a FG on the road to anyone just yet.

Rams + 5 over FALCONS (Falcons to win): Atlanta may not be very good at this point.  Roddy White at less than 80% looms large.

Redskins +7 over PACKERS (Packers to win): Not sure we know if either of these teams is good this year.  Take the points.

Browns + 6.5 over RAVENS (Ravens to win): Ugh.

Dolphins + 2.5 over COLTS (Dolphins to win): Miami might win the AFC East.

Titans + 8.5 over TEXANS (Texans to win): Houston scrapes by again; along with the Pats, they'll be an underwhelming 2-0 team.

BEARS - 6.5 over Vikings: Minnesota was way worse than the score indicated last week against Detroit.

CHIEFS - 2.5 over Cowboys: The Arrowhead home field advantage makes the difference.

Lions - 2 over CARDINALS: Detroit scored like 8 touchdowns last week, except 4 got called back due to penalty or Calvin Johnson violating the Calvin Johnson rule.

Saints - 3 over BUCS: "Captain" Josh Freeman leads the Bucs to v . . . oh, wait.

GIANTS +4.5 over Broncos (Broncos to win): Vegas overreacting on both teams.

Jaguars + 5.5 over RAIDERS (Jaguars to win): Chad Henne ends the Blaine Gabbert era with a convincing win against the Raiders.

Niners + 3 over SEAHAWKS (Seahawks to win): Two evenly matched teams.  Home field is actually worth a little less than 3 points these days though, so take the points.

BENGALS - 6.5 over Steelers: As much as it pains me . . .

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The Official Backup Quarterback Blog 2012 Season Predictions

Patrick Willis: the most important player on the BQB's Super Bowl pick

At long last, football starts on Sunday.  We at the BQB are psyched, not the least of which because we just switched to DirecTV and will feast on 9 -- 9! -- 1 o'clock games on Sunday via their NFL Sunday Ticket package.

Also at long last, the culmination of our offseason work: our 2012 season predictions.  We took all the relevant info we looked at during the season, put it together, and voila -- projected records for our 32 teams.  Here's how we did it:

1. Expected wins: We started with a team's expected wins from 2011, as determined by Pythagorean expectation.
2. New coaches get a bump: Since teams with new coaches typically see a bump of 1.5 wins the following year, we added 1.5 wins to the 7 teams who changed coaches this year.
3. Draft: We rated every team's draft, normalized those rankings to a 0 to 100 scale, and added or subtracted wins based on how they drafted (up to a cap of +/- 2, so the best team gained 2 wins and the worst team lost 2 wins).
4. Offseason: We assessed offseason movement (non-rookies) for each team (AFC and NFC), normalized those, and added or subtracted wins based on where they fell (the cap here was +/- 4)
5. Preseason: The preseason barely matters, but it seems to matter a little when teams go undefeated or winless; if a team went undefeated, we added a win, if it went winless, we subtracted one.
6. Schedule: We took the result of the first 5 steps, used it to run teams head-to-head (home advantage = 1 game), then took the weighted average of:
     - The original projected wins # (75%) and
     - Number of wins when you run the schedule (25%)

We then normalized the records so that, in total, teams would go 256-256 (since every game must be won or lost).

Disclaimer: We realize this isn't the be-all and end-all of projections, and that they're fairly quantitative and not at all subjective.  Having said that, we got some reasonable results in spots and, perhaps most notably, have 6 repeat playoff teams and 6 new playoff teams, about the average over the past 10 years.

After the jump, our ratings, predictions, and week 1 picks!