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.

(more…)

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 Picks, 2012 Season Week 4

by | Sep 25, 2012 | 2012 season, NFL Picks

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:

(more…)

NFL Picks, 2012 Season Week 3

by | Sep 18, 2012 | 2012 season, NFL Picks

After two weeks of the regular season Philadelphia has turned the ball over nine times – and won two one-point games. When congratulated on the start, Chris Meares of The Mole & Meares Show described the feat as … well, Un$%&@believable.

We’ll see if Meares can match his favorite team by beating us at our picks for week three.

Last week, bloggers from The Landry Hat and HogsHaven both took their best shot. The Landry Hat struggled during a tough week to a 7-9 finish. HogsHaven matched Andy with a 9-7 mark. Tony grabbed top honors for week two with a 10-6 mark. So here is where we stand for the season so far.

Week two Total
Celebrity bloggers 9-7 20-12
Tony 10-6 18-14
Andy 9-7 17-15

(more…)

NFL Picks, 2012 Season Week 2

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

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:
(more…)

NFL Picks, 2012 Season Week 1

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

Looking back at 2011, both Andy and I had pretty solid seasons picking games straight up–Andy edged me slightly at the end of the year, with an 11-5 record in Week 17 to my 9-7, putting him at 171-85 for the year (67%) to my 167-88 (65.5%). But while we were alright at picking games, we’ve got to keep pushing ourselves–so we’re adding celebrity team blogger to the picks each week. This week Neal Coolong (@NealCoolong), editor with Behind the Steel Curtain, was kind enough to join us.

(more…)