Week 16 Picks: Sunday and Monday

Billsvs 49ers

Just like the Saints, there wasn’t any excuse for what the Bills were for the first half of this season. Looks like they figured that out for themselves.

You can say, “Yeah, but look who they’re beating!” (Arizona, St. Louis, Seattle, Miami, Cleveland, Cincinnati) but that fails to take into account the extent of their wins.

They aren’t winning like a bad team getting lucky against other bad teams. They’re winning like a great team out to prove a point while they just happen to play a weak schedule.

Weak. Like the 49ers.

The big questionmark for the Bills is not so much, “Will the absence of RBs Travis Henry and Willis McGehee hurt them?” As it is, “With a game riding tightly upon his performance, will QB Drew Bledsoe revert to form and give the game away?”

NJ Giants vsBengals

Games like this make stats almost worthless. So forget them.

Eli Manning finally pulled his game together last week and almost pulled off a win vs the Steelers, despite an abysmal defensive effort by the Giants.

But the Bengals have played the tougher schedule and still have the better record.

A sane man (and there don’t seem to be many of them in Vegas) would go with the steadiness of the Bengals, rather than ride the hunch that says Eli will give us another game like last week and believe that the Bengals don’t have the muscle to shut him down.

But sane men are boring and I’m livin’ life on the edge, Baby!

Bears vsLions

The Bears play like a Pop Warner team one week, then like . . . a better Pop Warner team the next. They’ve lost to teams they should beat. They’ve beaten teams (ok, A team) they shouldn’t.

The Lions are pretty steady, with a core of good players on offense, little help around them and a really bad defense. They lose to teams they should lose to. They beat the teams they should.

Should they beat the Bears? Duh, just about everyone should beat the Bears.

Colts vsChargers

My gut pick on this was San Diego, and they have an excellent chance of pulling a minor upset. But the stats give a small edge to the Colts.

Ok, time to bring out my new favorite stat tool. The Aikmans!

The Colts have the #1 most efficient offense in the NFL. Guess who is #2? Er, right, the Chiefs. How about #3? THAT would be the Chargers.

Staying away from yardage rankings, the Colts have the #1 scoring offense at 33.9 pts per game. The Chargers? #4 (27.9).

An average of 5 pts per game difference.

The Colts have the 12th most efficient defense (no, really, I’m not making this stuff up. I WOULD, but I’m not).

The Chargers are 13th (remember we’re still doing the Aikman thing).

The Chargers have the #10 D vs scoring (18.7).

The Colts are #15 20.5.

Just 1.8 pts between them. So the Colts should win by 3.2 pts!

Right, anyway.

Each has allowed more than 30pts just twice this season, all four were against good offenses.

I also have to worry about the overall performance of the Chargers offense with WRs Tim Dwight and Keenan McCardell nursing injuries.

Dwight’s ouchie might be fixed up with localized (read injected) pain killers. McCardell is nursing a hammy, which tells me he’ll be ineffective even if he plays and probably won’t be worth a damn until the end of the playoffs or even the SB (which does the Bolts no good at all if they don’t get that far).

This is a game worth going to a sports bar for.


Jaguars vs Texans

What I really hate about the Texans (aside from the ugly fact that they’re from Texas) is that they’re inconsistent.

But I don’t want to hear squat about how Jacksonville QB Byron Leftwich is improving. Be serious. He threw for all of 121 yds last week with a 45% completion percentage. You can say that he hasn’t been hurting his team, but either did Trent Dilfer when he was a SB winning Raven QB. Look what it earned him.

I’ve probably whined about this before, but I’ll do it here anyway.

If the Texans had switched to a 4-3 this season they’d have a top ten defense. They didn’t. They don’t. So they end up playing maddeningly inconsistently on defense, too.

Yeah the Texans beat the Jags 20-6 earlier this season. Big fat hairy deal. They’re the Texans. They’ll find a way to give you Leftwichphiles a reason to crow about what a great QB he is for another week.

Thanks to Dom Capers’ dogmatic reliance on the 3-4, choking is what they do best.

Browns vs Dolphins

Ok, so my calculations were a day off on the whole moonbeams in the valley of Bingbing last week. Hello, I do this for free. You don’t actually expect me to be accurate, too? Ingrates.

Aside from last week’s embarrassment of the Pats by the Dolphins there isn’t a whole lot of good things to say about these guys.

They both have interim coaches. The Dolphins have responded to theirs better and they do have the 8th ranked overall D, but they still bite.

The just bite less badly than the Browns.

Patriots vs Jets

The Pats lose a game and what do they do? They send a message by cutting one of their special teams studs (S Je’Rod Cherry). Meaning, at least by my read, that coach Bill Jerkichick, isn’t going to sit pat (ha, get it, sit “Pat”?! I kill me. Really) on the assumption that his players will be self-inspired to play harder and smarter for the rest of the season.

He’s not playing around and you have to believe that his guys know that and are playing just a little scared. Not scared of the Jets, scared of Billy Boy and his magical ax.

When these two teams met a few weeks ago the game was all defense and the Pats won by just 6 pts at home.

But the Jets offense is not all it’s cracked up to be. They’ve struggled all year long against better defenses. On the other side of the ball they’re missing DE John Abraham.

I see this being a bigger win for the Pats than it was last time around.

Saints vs Falcons

This is simple.

The Falcons have no offense without QB Michael Vick and his golden legs.

The Falcons have a first round bye all tied up.

Michael Vick isn’t playing.

No Vick, no offense, no win for the Dirty Birds.

I don’t think even the Saints miserable coaching staff can screw this one up.

Ravens vs Steelers

No, I haven’t lost my mind or forgotten about NFL Golden Boy Ben Rumplestiltskin.

I’ve just noticed that the Steelers haven’t been especially effective scoring vs tougher defenses (17 pts vs Jets, 17 vs Jacksonville, 16 vs Washington) lately and that RBs Deuce Staley and Jerome Bettis are both playing hurt if they play at all.

The Bumblebees got ho-smacked by the Ravens IN Baltimore last time around, and the Ravens are playing much tougher defense now.

The Aikmans rank the Ravens as the #1 most efficient defense with the Steelers ranked 5th.

This is flip-flopped from the NFL yardage based rankings, which have the Steelers at #1 overall and the Ravens at #6.

It’ll be another close game, but the Ravens have the edge if the Steelers don’t find a solution at RB.

Cardinals vs Seahawks

This is a really tough game to pick, because these two teams perform so erratically.

The Cardinals have the 15th overall D (14th Aikmans), yet they allowed offensive wimps beat up on them (gave up 31 pts vs Bills – Oct 31, 35 vs Panthers, 31 vs 49ers).

But the Seahawks also gave up 43 pts to Dallas and their offense has been ineffective vs middling to good defenses all year long.

So, since stats are worthless in this one, too, I’m going with the team I like the most. This is a very scientific method and I don’t recommend you try this at home. I’m a professional (or would be if Monkey Boy wasn’t so cheap).

Panthers vs Buccaneers

This is mostly a gut pick, but Carolina in also the more consistent team the past few weeks and they’ve really come on defensively.

They’ve scored 30+ pts in 4 of their last five games while holding 3 of their last five opponents to 14 or fewer pts.

They’ve also come up with 18 sacks and 26 takeaways over the past 6 weeks.

I love Tampa QB Brian Griese, but I don’t think he and the Bucs have what they’ll need to beat a Panthers team that never quits AND is playing all around beautiful football.

Redskins vs Cowboys

The Cowboys QB situation is jacked.

The Redskins have the #2 overall D.

And that’s all the giveadamn I can muster for this one.

MONDAY NIGHT

Rams vs Eagles

Oh my, no T.O. for Philly!

Yeah, but they still get to play vs the Rams D, right?

The Cowboys took my advice last week and made a lot of frightening and intimidating gestures in the direction of Eagles WR Todd Pinkston after they took T.O. out da game. It almost worked for them.

This week the Cowboys don’t have to worry about taking T.O. out, so if they’ve practiced scary face making this week they might pull off the upset.