Week 13 Picks

If I had money to throw away, here are the teams I'd bet on. Winning team is in CAPS.

Week 13
Thursday, Nov. 29
Green Bay at DALLAS
This should be a good game with both teams coming in at 10-1. I'm still a little skeptical because neither of them have played many tough teams yet (except when Dallas got throttled by New England) but I'll give the home edge to Tony Romo and the Cowgirls.

Sunday, Dec. 2
SAN DIEGO at Kansas City
KC has only scored 162 points all year. 'Nuff said.

Houston at TENNESSEE
Vince Young can look scarey good or he can look scarey bad at times. I hope he plays scarey good this week.

Jacksonville at INDIANAPOLIS
I hate picking Indy under any circumstance but I just don't see the Jags pulling this game off unless they stop pumping crowd noise into the RCA Dome.

BUFFALO at Washington
Buffalo has looked solid the past month (Pats game excluded) and I like the way the team plays when Trent Edwards is the QB. If you're a Bills fan, you can only hope that JP Losman has played his last game for Buffalo.

San Francisco at CAROLINA
I will be picking against San Fran the remainder of the season because the Pats have their first round pick, which is currently number 4.

Detroit at MINNESOTA
I think that Detroit is a fraud.

NY JETS at Miami
I guess the Jets, only because I'm imposing a rule that I can't pick a tie. If you have tickets to this game, do you go?

Atlanta at ST. LOUIS
Atlanta stinks and St. Louis isn't much better but I'll go with the formerly known as greatest team on turf.

SEATTLE at Philadelphia
I think that Seattle may have finally figured out that Shaun Alexander isn't that good anymore and they've gone to more of a passing game lately. If they keep it up, they'll easily win in Philly.

CLEVELAND at Arizona
After losing to the Red Sox in the ALCS, Cleveland deserves something good to happen.

DENVER at Oakland
When is JaMarcus Russell going to play for the Raiders? Seriously, your team sucks and you took a QB with the number 1 pick in the draft. You're not paying him to sit on the bench. Isn't it time to play him or do you need a little more time to evaluate if Dante Culpepper is really your QB of the future?

NY GIANTS at Chicago
I don't like either of these teams. Eli Manning looks like a scared kid but I have no confidence in Rex Grossman and it looks like 'Da Bears don't either. As long as the Giants don't kick to Devern Hester they should be okay.

TAMPA BAY at New Orleans
Tampa Bay has looked good for most of the year, while New Orleans has yet to find a rythm to anything they've done.

Cincinnati at PITTSBURGH
Can we stop including Carson Palmer among the best QBs in the NFL?

Monday, Dec. 3
NEW ENGLAND at Baltimore
Baltimore has only score 182 points all year. Their highly touted defense has given up 243 points. By comparison, New England has scored 442 points so far (I'm pretty sure that's more than twice as many as Baltimore) and their defense has only given up 185 points all year.

And just for fun, I think the final score will be 38-9, although, I'm not really sure how Baltimore could possibly manage to score that many points. For that matter, I'm not really sure how New England only scores 38. Okay, so I'm going with 45-6.

Is Mike Lowell Insane?

I can't tell if Mike Lowell is a sincerely nice guy or if he's totally nuts. I mean, he just resigned with the Red Sox for 3 years at about $13 million a year. He said he always wanted to stay in Boston, that he's financially all set and that he wants to drink World Championship champagne again in a Red Sox uniform.

That's all great but he had offers on the table for 4 years and more than $50 million. That seems nuts to leave that much money hanging out there, even if it meant he would have had to play for the Phillies. As an added bonus, the Red Sox no longer needed to pursue A-Rod.

The fact remains that Lowell's still making less than J.D. Drew, who has 4 years and $56 million coming his way (excuse me while I puke in my mouth). How can Lowell honestly say he's not worth as much as J.D. Drew? Anyway, I'm glad Lowell resigned with the Sox and even happier that he did it for less money. Now we have more money to go after Johan Santana.

Oh, and in case you're wondering about the photo- it's Doug Mientkiewicz after Mike Lowell plowed into him last year. I don't like Doug Mientkiewicz and, apparently, neither does Mike Lowell.

Breaking News: Pats Win

The Patriots escaped with a three point victory against the Eagles last night. They're now 11-0 and played about as poorly a game as they've played all year. For most of the game, Tom Brady was in shot gun formation, giving the Eagles defense a pretty good idea that he was going to throw it. I don't think you need to be a genius defensive coordinator to figure that one out. The Eagles defense hit Brady as hard as I've ever seen him hit. This should be a good wake-up call for any of the Patriots who think that they can just show up and win by 25 points every game. The Eagles played a good game and almost came away with a W. Apparently, being close now counts in horseshoes and losses to the Patriots.

Here are my thoughts about last nights game:

∙ I'm not sure I agree with Bill Belicheat's game plan to let the Eagles cover the spread. I think he may have bet money on the Eagles to help pay off the $500,000 fine for videotaping signals. Don't expect Belicheat to be so nice when the Patriots play the Jets next month.

∙ This was only the second time all season that Tom Brady was still playing when the game ended.

∙ Laurence Maroney might be a fraud. He somehow managed to not make it onto the field in the first half. When he does play, he's usually running side to side or trying to start and stop too frequently. The Patriots had two running plays in the first half (one on a Brady scramble) and 16 for the entire game. If the defense knows you're throwing 95 percent of the time, I would think you should be able to hold a team to less than 31 points.

∙ When Brady breaks the single season touchdown record, they should put an asterisk next to it that denotes how many touchdown passes Randy Moss had taken away on phanton pass interfence calls. The number is at three right now. On last night's penalty there was a good five yards between Moss and the defender. I think that penalty was payback for Moss stealing the referees lunch money in grade school.

∙ I didn't realize the Patriots still employed a field goal kicker. However, I did notice that he might not be very good.

∙ I'm sure that a lot will be said about the play of A.J. Feeley of the Eagles and how he should replace McNabb as the QB in Philly. I wouldn't get too excited about a career backup throwing three interceptions and losing a close game. Although, it does seem as though McNabb is always hurt this time of year. At least it saves him from having those embarassing dry-heave moments in big games.

∙ Is business so bad that Bob Kraft can only afford one dress shirt? Seriously, every time they show him, he's wearing the same shirt.

∙ The hardest hit that Rodney HGHarrison delivered was a head-numbing play on Ellis Hobbs. Unfortunately, Hobbs also plays for the Patriots and he never came back on the field. I also enjoyed watching HGHarrison trying to tackle one of the Eagles in the end zone, about five seconds after he had already scored and the extra point unit was coming onto the field. I would never condone drug use but HGHarrison might need to start looking into some other type of supplement.

∙ I think that Keith Olberman is the dumbest person alive. What happened to the days of showing a recap of each game and some of the best plays of the day at halftime? Now we have to listen to that fraud wax poetic about a punter from a team that probably won't even make the playoffs?

∙ Apparently there are only 2 more episodes of Heroes left this season, just in case you missed one of their 942 commercials.

∙ Did the receivers for the Patriots make a bet to see who could drop the most passes last night? I think Randy Moss may have won the bet.

∙ I don't understand why NBC broadcasts Petyon Manning commercials in New England. A homeless guy in Boston wouldn't take that junk if Manning were giving it away and he personally delivered it under the bridge where said homeless guy lives.

∙ Statistically, this wasn't a very good game for Brady. He only threw one TD, which is fine if you're Kyle Boller, but he had at least three TDs in each of the first 10 games. However, Brady needed to have a game like this where he was hit frequently, rushed and forced out of the pocket. Even in the win at Indianapolis, Brady had a lot of time in the pocket. And the Philly defense was good all game, not just on one or two series. I am a little concerned that, even in the second half, our offensive line couldn't make any adjustments to give him more time.

∙ Next up is Baltimore and I give the Ravens no chance of winning this game unless Belicheat is going to cash in on a huge wager on Baltimore to win.

AL Cy Young went to the wrong guy

I've heard a lot of talk about the AL Cy Young voting since it was announced and everyone seems to be in complete agreement that C.C. Sabathia deserved it based on the following numbers:

Sabathia went 19-7 with a 3.21 ERA and 209 strikeouts, pitching a major league-high 241 innings. He finished the voting with 119 points.

Josh Beckett, 20-7, became the only big leaguer to win 20 games since 2005, compiling a 3.27 ERA with 194 strikeouts in 200 2/3 innings. He finished the voting with 86 points.

So the only thing separating these two candidates was the fact that C.C. pitched 40 more innings? Well, good for him. It took him forty extra innings to win one less game than Beckett. I don't get why this was never brought up in any of the discussions I heard. Granted, those discussions were about staff meetings, what time to close the office on Friday and office supplies, but still, I never heard one mention of this. Anyway, congratulations C.C., you're the AL Cy Young winner for 2007.

Too bad the votes are cast before the playoffs start. C.C. was 1-2 with an 8.80 ERA and 13 walks in three playoff outings. Beckett mowed through the Indians two times in the AL championship series and went 4-0 with a 1.20 ERA in four postseason starts, striking out 35 and walking two. Congratulations, you're a World Series Champion!