Just a quick post, as we need to get these up before the game starts tonight–we both continued our brutal seasons last week, each going 1-3, and both hitting our upsets of the week. So as long as we’re betting 5x the amount on our upsets as our regular bets, we’re doing good, right? So Andy is now 7-17 on the year, while I am 11-13.
Here we go again, on our own…
I watched last nights game and followed along on Twitter with much amusement. There’s seriously nothing funnier in the sports community than watching Twitter blow up after a questionable call. Unfortunately, less than twelve hours later, and it feels to me like very few people have really thought this through rationally or objectively, and instead are just insisting that we need to get these refs out of our sacred game, so we can get back to…yelling at the regular refs for blowing calls.
Here are some of my (somewhat disorganized) thoughts on the current situation with the referees:
Nobody gave the Vikings a chance to beat San Francisco, not even Dan Zinski (@VikingAgeDan, @TheVikingAge), senior blogger at Viking Age Guy. “Honestly I thought they had no shot,” he says. “I’m not ashamed to say that. I figured they’d scrap through and maybe make it interesting before San Fran took control. I wasn’t ready for them just out-muscling the 49ers.”
But Zinski and the rest of the world were wrong. Minnesota beat San Francisco at its own game for what I believe is the upset of the season so far. I think the Vikings are still a year or two away from being a real contender, but Christian Ponder is giving the team’s fans reason for optimism. Zinski originally believed the Vikings were a four win team at best, but he’s revised his outlook, now giving the team a shot at 8-8.
“They should be in most games,” he says. “I’m still concerned about their defense and the lack of a deep passing game. But I’m becoming a Ponder believer and he has some legit weapons in Percy Harvin and Kyle Rudolph.”
Zinski joined Zoneblitz as the site’s celebrity game pick blogger for week four.
Week three was pretty brutal across the board, with my picks (Tony) edging Andy’s by one game (9-7 vs 8-8), while our guest blogger @moleandmeares finished 6-10 for the week. For the season, I’ve taken the lead, but we’re all separated by only two games:
| Week Three | Season Total | |
| Tony | 9-7 | 27-21 |
| Celebrity bloggers | 6-10 | 26-22 |
| Andy | 8-8 | 25-23 |
Week four picks:
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to watch the whole game last night, but I did have a few thoughts based on what I did see and hear on the radio:
1) I don’t think the Packers actually won the game—the Bears just beat themselves. Right Jarrett Bush & Clay Matthews?
2) While the OL deserves some heat, I am not sure they are the top ones to blame:
a. Mike Tice – Way to not appear to adjust the game plan when it was clear the OL was struggling. Not leaving in a TE to help, continuing to take deep drops in the pocket…not wise for someone who presumably wants another shot at a head coach role.
b. Brandon Marshall – If he catches that touchdown pass to make it 10-7 (or 13-7), it’s a whole different ballgame
c. Jay Cutler – Yes, he was under duress. But he looked terrible under duress.
3) Yes, Packer fans have to be happy with the win this morning (as well as hung over, undoubtedly). But 23 points, 7 of which came from a desperation fake field goal? The Pack put up 35 points on 5 ARodg TD passes against the Bears last December 25 in a game not nearly as close as the score, and 27 in Week 3 of last year in another ARodg 3 TD performance. To manage only one offensive TD—on a short field after an INT in the fourth quarter—has to be a little demoralizing. The Packers offense, at least early in 2012, certainly doesn’t seem to be dictating games like it did in 2011.
And, since their defense is suspect—I mean, again, clearly it was not the Packers defense playing well that stopped the Bears, the Bears stopped themselves—how could you not be at least a little on edge in Green Bay?
Also important to note—with Minnesota playing a still rebuilding Colts, and the Lions taking on possibly the best team in the NFC, if not NFL—there is a reasonable chance that the Minnesota Vikings could enter week 3 sitting alone on top of the NFC North…Super Bowl, Baby!
When we were talking about ways to make the weekly pick segment more interesting we decided to add a team blogger to the mix. I think we’re going to change the segment up on the fly and try to see if we can make sure that whoever we contact for “celebrity blogger” status is covering a team that had something interesting happen the previous week.
This week we have two: Kevin Ewoldt, managing editor of Hogs Haven, and Steven Mullenax, editor of The Landry Hat. The Landry Hat got to watch its underdog Dallas Cowboys convincingly put it to the New York Giants in the season opener last Wednesday.
Mullenax celebrated his team’s win with a series of A-Team awards, singling out the performances of a number of Cowboys’ players from the win.
One of the most exciting parts of week one was watching the performance of Robert Griffin III, or RGIII, or as Ewoldt calls him, RG!!!. While the Redskins have a way to go, the team appears to finally have a franchise quarterback for the first time in 20 years, much to the delight of Ewoldt, managing editor of Hogs Haven.
He acknowledges the advantages Washington had in preparing for the game, which included distractions from bounty-gate, the absence of head coach Sean Payton and the lack of any ability to game-plan against the Redskins’ rookie quarterback. But Ewoldt also expressed excitement at how Griffin was able to live up to — and perhaps exceed – an almost insurmountable amount of hype leading up to the opener.
“It’ll be very interesting to see how RGIII plays against the Rams,” he says. “He took a lot of hits despite that great performance and how the secret is out on our personnel. If he’s going to play 16 weeks, the Redskins need to protect him better. But it’s clear Washington D.C. finally has a franchise-worthy QB again. … It only took us 20 years and three extra draft picks.”
Last week’s guest, Neal Coolong from Behind the Steel Curtain, beat us both with his Minnesota, NY Jets and Tampa Bay picks. For purposes of keeping score, we’ll use the score from whichever of the two guests gets the most games correct.
| Celebrity Bloggers | 11-5 |
| Tony | 8-8 |
| Andy | 8-8 |
Without further ado, here are all four of our thoughts on who will win in week two:
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