NFL Picks, 2012 Season, Week 12

by | Nov 21, 2012 | 2012 season, NFL Picks

The New England Patriots scored a convincing win last weekend against Indianapolis, but it ended up being a costly one.

Star tight end Rob Gronkowski could miss a month or more with a broken arm suffered while blocking on an extra point late in the game.

Richard Hill, assistant editor for Pats Pulpit, acknowledges that Gronk is a tough loss to swallow, but adds that the team may be primed for another deep playoff run nonetheless.

Aaron Hernandez and three other lesser known tight ends will have to step up in his absence. And all three phases of the game will have to adjust and play better.

Nonetheless, the schedule plays out favorably for clinching a playoff spot, with two contests against Miami and single games against New York Jets and Jacksonville on the slate. A first-round bye, however, might be a tough get.

“It won’t be easy,” Hill says. “They’ll need the Ravens to either drop two games (likely) and beat the Broncos (possible, but it’s at Mile High), or they’ll need the Broncos to stumble along the way (not likely).”

Hill provided some longer thoughts that we’ve turned into its own post. He also joined us as our guest blogger for this Thanksgiving weekend’s slate of games.

Week 11 realistically saw a great week of picks across the board, but Andy’s 10-4 picks were far and away the worst of the week, finishing two games back of Derek Arnold from the Russell Street Report—who’s pick of Chicago on Monday night kept him from matching Tony’s 13-1 mark. The only game Tony missed was the Jets drubbing of the Rams, a game that Andy and Tony discussed as potentially going that way earlier in the week over lunch (you’re going to have to just trust us on that one, we really did discuss it).

That puts some distance between first and second place for the season:

Week 11 Season
Tony 13-1 105-54-1
Andy 10-4 102-57-1
Celebrity Bloggers 12-2 100-59-1

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NFL Picks, 2012 season, Week 11

by | Nov 14, 2012 | 2012 season, NFL Picks

Many observers were ready to bury the Baltimore Ravens after they lost Ray Lewis and Lardarius Webb during their Oct. 14 win over Dallas. But the Ravens have won two of three games since the defensive duo went down and, after putting up 55 points against Oakland on Sunday, the Ravens stand at 7-2 heading into next week’s division matchup with Pittsburgh.

Baltimore has remained competitive on defense, but has won by scoring points – 124 in the last four games, specifically. Derek Arnold, senior editor with the Russell Street Report, says that’s no accident.

“Despite their reputation, the Ravens are no longer a team that is carried by the defense,” he says. “They have become one of the NFL’s best red zone offenses and, as a result, are near the top of the league in points scored.”

Consistency is still an issue on offense and he’s not banking on another division title just yet.  But the offense is improving and seems to be understanding that it is going to need to score in the mid-20s many weeks to win.

“While not spectacular, Joe Flacco is an extremely capable quarterback,” Arnold says. “And when the offense runs through Ray Rice and utilizes play-action effectively, Torrey Smith can hit a home run at any time. Anquan Boldin, Dennis Pitta and Ed Dickson can keep the chains moving.”

Arnold joined Zoneblitz as its guest blogger for week 11. After pulling into a three way tie in Week 9, in Week 10 we saw Andy and myself continue in our tying ways, with a 9-4-1 record, while our collective of celebrity bloggers dropped eight games to break the three-way tie.

Week 10 Season
Tony 9-4-1 92-53-1
Andy 9-4-1 92-53-1
Celebrity Bloggers 5-8-1 88-57-1

Week 11 picks, where Andy and I finally don’t feel obligated to pick against the Vikings, sees us agree on all of the Sunday day games, but disagreeing on the night games:

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NFL Picks, 2012 season, Week 10

by | Nov 5, 2012 | 2012 season, NFL Picks

They’ve been criticized for playing a soft schedule, which so far has included only one opponent with a winning record at the time of their game. Their quarterback was demonized for shoving an offensive lineman during a nationally televised loss to Green Bay.

But since that week two loss, the Bears are 6-0 and they looked like the real deal Sunday in putting a 50-spot up against the Tennessee Titans. Like Jay Cutler or not, believe in that supposedly aging defense or not, it’s a team that, at this point, looks loaded.

“The 2012 Chicago Bears have what it takes to make a trip back to the Super Bowl,” says Jake Perper, owner of Bearsbacker.com. “The Bears’ defense is elite, the Bears’ special teams is rock solid and the Bears’ offense is coming together, especially the running game with Matt Forte. If they can continue to stay healthy and can continue to create turnovers at will on defense, they will be hard to stop.”

Perper notes that the offense has to limit its mistakes and the team cannot afford many scares such as the one posed by a plucky Carolina squad a week ago. The tough part of the schedule, including back-to-back contests with Houston and San Francisco and four remaining division games, will determine where this team goes. But Perper is a believer.

“I think when it is all said and done, this year we will be calling them contenders.”

Hard to argue based on what we’ve seen so far.

Perper joined us for the week 10 pick segment. He follows Steve Isbitts from JoeBucsFan.com. Isbitts struggled to an 8-6 finish while Tony dominated at 11-3 and Andy was close behind at 10-4. That leaves the collective blogger community tied with the brothers heading into week 10. Ahh, the drama.

Week Nine Season
Celebrity Bloggers 8-6 83-49
Andy 10-4 83-49
Tony 11-3 83-49

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NFL Picks, 2012 season, Week 9

by | Oct 31, 2012 | 2012 season, NFL Picks

Josh Freeman has looked great for the better part of a month. Doug Martin seems to be getting it. And Tampa Bay’s run defense is right there with the best in the NFL. When the Bucs destroyed Minnesota last week, it put Tampa in a position to end the first half of the season at 4-4 and spend the second half chasing a playoff spot.

Fans talking playoffs may be jumping the gun a bit, but this team is on the right track, says Steve Isbitts, co-founder of JoeBucsFan.com.

“Sober, reasoned Bucs fans are largely happy this season is playing out as expected with encouraging, inconsistent football,” he says. “Look for the Bucs to continue to be very physical and explosive with mixed results. This is a .500 team on the right track. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

Isbitts joined Zoneblitz as our celebrity guest blogger for the week. He follows Barrett Walton from the Texans Bull Blog, who scored a 9-5 record in week eight. That tied with Tony. Both were two games behind my 11-3 record – which was good enough to overtake Tony and jump into second place for the season. I’m comin’!!!

Week Eight Season
Celebrity Bloggers 9-5 75-43
Andy 11-3 73-45
Tony 9-5 72-46

So here are the picks for week nine.

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NFL Picks, 2012 season, Week 8

by | Oct 24, 2012 | 2012 season, NFL Picks

The Houston Texans took advantage of an injury-depleted Baltimore Ravens defense on Sunday but also stymied what had been one of the league’s more interesting offenses at times during the 2012 season en route to putting an impressive beating on the once-vaunted purple-and-black.

It was the latest and most convincing win in a season full of them so far for the Texans. It also erased the sour taste of a blowout defeat at the hands of the surging Packers from a week earlier.

It leaves the Texans with a 6-1 record heading into the bye. And don’t expect them to let up once they return from a week off. “This team is one of the more focused in the league,” says Barrett Walton, managing editor of Texans Bull Blog. “The rest of the schedule is fairly weak with only the Patriots and Bears looking like reasonable challenges.”

Walton sent a lengthy collection of thoughts that we’ll soon turn into another post. In the meantime, suffice it to say that he thinks this is a team that football fans should get comfortable watching for the next few years. “This franchise is built to last,” he says. “And you can expect to see this team on top for several years to come.”

Walton also joined us as this week’s guest blogger for the pick segment for week eight.

By all appearances, week seven was the easiest one for picking so far. In our confidence pools, several people got every game right or missed just one. On Zoneblitz, an easy week means Andy and I only got three wrong, while our guest blogger Kevin McCauley from the Acme Packing Company missed just two.

That moves our guest celebrity bloggers to a three game lead over me and a four game lead over Andy for the season: (more…)

NFL Picks, 2012 Season, Week 7

by | Oct 16, 2012 | 2012 season, NFL Picks

It’s been an up and down season for Green Bay so far, but the Packers came out of hiding on Sunday night. A six touchdown performance by Aaron Rodgers showed that the green and gold still has at least the opportunity and talent to put a beat down on any team in the league.

But they still need to gain some consistency.

“I think we’ll know whether or not the Packers are back on track if they can put together a consistent string of victories,” says Kevin McCauley, managing editor of the Acme Packing Company blog. “While the win over the Texans was great and could end up as the catalyst that jump-started the Packers’ season, we didn’t learn anything on Sunday night. We know the Packers have the talent to drop six touchdowns on anyone. What we don’t know is whether or not they have the mindset, depth and coaching to perform consistently.”

McCauley is our celebrity guest blogger for week seven. Week six was another close week, despite there being numerous differences in picks amongst the three of us—our guest blogger eked out a one game margin, going 8-6 for the week vs. 7-7 for Andy and Tony.

Week Six Season
Celebrity Blogger 8-6 55-36
Tony 7-7 53-38
Andy 7-7 52-39

This week, not nearly as much differentiation, as Andy & Tony matched all picks, while McCauley places his faith in the Vikings, Buccaneers and Steelers.

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