NFL Picks, 2012 season, Week 6

by | Oct 11, 2012 | 2012 season, NFL Picks

Sometimes it just takes one.

The New Orleans Saints finally got in the win column Sunday night with a victory over the ever-inconsistent San Diego Chargers. The Saints dug themselves a hole early, but at least one Saints blogger gives the team a chance at a mid-season turnaround, noting that outside of Atlanta, the NFC is devoid of dominant teams.

Thus Travis Dauro, a contributing writer for Canal Street Chronicles (Twitter: CSCTweet), thinks New Orleans still might have a playoff run in its future.

“Now that the Saints have finally gotten into the win column, I am still quite optimistic about the rest of the season,” Dauro says. “While they are only 1-4, there are not that many dominant teams in the NFC this year.”

Dauro joins us for the week six pick segment, which to this point has featured bloggers making the best picks of all. Here’s the wrap-up from last week. Andy and Raising Zona editor Scott Allen hit 10 of 14 games, one more than Tony. That gives our collection of celebrity bloggers a one game lead for the season over Tony and a two game cushion over Andy. Unlike our “Best Bets” our picks are turning out halfway decently this season.

Week five Season
Celebrity Blogger 10-4 47-30
Tony 9-5 46-31
Andy 10-4 45-32

So … here are the picks for week five.

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NFL Best Bets: Week 5 – 2012

by | Oct 3, 2012 | 2012 season, NFL Gambling

I’m going to admit upfront, if you’re using our picks as a basis for gambling on games so far this season, you’re making a big mistake.

I’ve been a disaster and that continued into week four, as my 1-3 took me to 4-12 for the season.

Tony has been better, but not good. His 3-1 brought him to 8-8 for the year.

I feel a turnaround coming sometime soon here, but you’ve been warned.

Here are our picks for week five.

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NFL Picks, 2012 Season Week 5

by | Oct 2, 2012 | 2012 season, NFL Picks

The offensive line still isn’t very good. The running game needs a lot of work. And the quarterback play is … unpredictable. But the Arizona Cardinals are 4-0 for the first time since before I was born.

Scott Allen, editor of the Raising Zona blog, says he’s surprised at how well the season started but adds that expectations have now risen.

“I can see them winning at least the next two games, although the Miami game should teach the Cards to take nothing for granted,” he says. “Once they hit Minnesota on October 21st, all bets are off.”

Allen joined Zoneblitz with his picks for week five. He’s got a tough act to follow. Last week’s picker, The Viking Age’s senior blogger Dan Zinski, hit 11 of 15 games to pull our celebrity blogger contingent into a tie with Tony for first place.

Andy and Tony tied at 10-5, leaving Andy two games behind Tony and the bloggers for the season.

Week Four Season Total
Tony 10-5 37-26
Celebrity bloggers 11-4 37-26
Andy 10-5 35-28

Here are the picks for week five. (more…)

NFL Best Bets: Week 4 – 2012

by | Sep 27, 2012 | 2012 season, NFL Gambling

After two terrible weeks, I at least achieved respectability in week three. I still hit just two of four bets, but I did nail my upset of the week, Kansas City’s win over New Orleans at +330.

Tony, on the other hand, has followed up a strong week one by posting two straight 1-3 marks – though he also hit his upset last week, with Cincinnati’s win over Washington.

He violated one of his cardinal rules last week—never bet on “my” team — especially the Vikings, as usually they’ll find a way to lose the bet and the game. At least last week, they only lost the bet. He still leads me by two for the season, however, with a 5-7 overall mark. The first two weeks were rough to me. I’m straggling at 3-9.

Still, there’s no giving up now. I feel it starting to come together. Here are our Best Bets for week four. (more…)

After Objective Review…the Seahawks/Packers Call Stands

by | Sep 25, 2012 | 2012 season, Business of Football, Zebras Are Human Too

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:

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ZB Notebook 09-25-12

by | Sep 25, 2012 | 2012 season, NFL Random Thoughts

Lost in the barrage of anger and venom being directed toward the officials who made the bad call that cost the Packers a win on Monday Night Football against Seattle is the fact that Green Bay really didn’t play well enough to deserve to win.

The Packers controlled the second half, but still only scored 12 points in 60 minutes of football. And Aaron Rodgers got sacked something like 27 times. So yeah, anger about the call is justified to a point, but coaches say all the time their teams need to make sure they play well enough so the outcome of the game isn’t close enough to be affected by bad officiating.

Call was bad … really bad: That said, it was a really, really bad call. And what makes it worse is how goofy it looked. Golden Tate first pushed one defensive back to the ground for an obvious offensive pass interference. Then the Packers defensive back M.D. Jennings grabs the ball for an interception only to have Tate wisely attempt to latch on in an attempt to steal a “simultaneous possession” call.

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