You know when you check your lottery ticket in the morning, and you start comparing each drawn number to your selected numerals, and the first few numbers hit right on; your heart starts beating at a faster pace, then you end up getting five out of seven correct and you think even though you didn’t hit the jackpot,a couple of thousand is still a good victory, only to be disappointed when you really won only a hundo, and you start to curse the gaming commission by words ending in ers and oles? Yeah, that was like week seven in the NFL with respect to suicide pools. It could have been a million dollar week if only the Jets didn’t give the game away to the freaking Patriots. So close, yet so far. Only 2% of people – most of them residing in the wonderful town of Buffalo – lost last week in suicide pools. You know when you are driving to work and you are so close to beating your record travel time (because who doesn’t time their commute) that you hope the traffic officer sitting in the control room, who watches you every morning, gets distracted by a drop of jelly from his donut onto his shirt, preventing him from hitting the red button on the last set of lights, allowing you to achieve your best lap to work yet? Let’s hope week eight in the NFL is like that.
Last week, home teams went 8-5 adding to an already advantageous yearly total of 64-40. Let’s look at the division games from last week. Two teams, San Francisco and Chicago, seemingly dominated the field, yet only won by seven and six points respectively. The Bucs, after giving away a 14-point lead to the Saints, were a yellow flag away from tying up the game and sending the football into overtime. The pre game favourite Patriots needed overtime to beat the dog flying Jets. And if the Giants and Redskins played one more quarter, I still would have no idea who would come out victorious. AVOID division games.
Teams Already Used – Houston, New England, Chicago, Green Bay, San Francisco, Atlanta, Minnesota
San Diego, My Week 8 Pick – I am not too confident with this pick because as you know, I hate taking road teams. If I hadn’t used Green Bay yet, they would definitely be my top selection this week. Can’t have your cake and eat it too – for 17 weeks. We are rolling with a road team this week due to a few more pros than cons. The Chargers are coming off a bye week and should be fully rested and healthier to take on this tired and banged up Browns team. To play, or not to play? That is the question everyone in Cleveland is asking with regards to Trent Richardson. Not a good sign heading into a game when your star talent’s status is up in the sky. Even though the Chargers got burnt in their last two games to the Saints and Broncos, they still rate as the 13th best defense in the league. They have held the Chiefs, Raiders and Titans to 20, 14 and 10 points respectively; the Browns project to be a similar comparison and opponent to these average skilled squads. If the Chargers are still a team you can use this week, don’t be afraid to ‘stickum’ in as your top catch.
Green Bay – Chad Henne.
Chicago -The Bears are playing like one of the best teams in football. The defense is terrorizing opposing players while the offense is keeping it simple and eliminating mistakes. Carolina is the opposite of the Bears as their defense is playing subpar and the offense keeps giving the ball away. The Bears are also deadly at home in Soldier Field. The Bears have 21 total takeaways this year in a grand total of six games; averaging 3.5 turnovers per game on defense is like eating 3.5 pieces of cake afterdinner on average. Yeah, I’ve turned to food for thoughts. And you know what animal turns to food better than anyone else? Bears.
New England, Potential Suicide – Before we talk about anything, the first thing we need to point out about this game is that it is being played in London, England. Does Halloween exist in England? I’m going to say Europe in general is a spooky place; so England, being a part of Europe, is spooky enough without the need to dress up and eat tonnes of chocolate. Plus, wouldn’t Halloween totally extinct and turn small, calcified, white structures into English folklore? Hey, at least I put poor teeth hygiene in a nice away. Yeah, I put it in a nice way again. Bring in costume wearing teams and a second sport called football, and stay away from this game as Londoners may turn your suicide pick into a ghost.
