Tuesday Night Week 12 Recap.

Week 12 Predictions heads up: 10-6

Week 12 Predictions against the Spread: 9-7

Record so far: 80-63

Just when you thought Peyton Manning couldn't throw any more interception he proves us all wrong. I think for the most part we all saw the Chargers catching up to everyone in the AFC west and looking to overtake them in the final weeks of the season. The luck of the interim head coach continued as the Vikings eked out an ugly one over the Redskins and the Bears have finally earned my beleaguered kudos in this week’s recap.

The Beasts of the East

Fun Fact: Brian Urlacher ate Donald Duck after this photo

After Watching the Falcons win a great game against the Packers I was ready to declare them the best team in the NFC. Then I saw the Bears beat the Eagles in a 31-26 game that wasn’t actually that close and I have to say the Bears are legit. I’ve been railing against the Bears and their early win’s against nobody for a while but after beating the team I thought was the best in the NFC handily I have to give them their due.  Jay Cutler was absolutely phenomenal throwing a more or less perfect game, 247 yards 4 touchdowns no interceptions. Their defense did an outstanding job shutting down the big plays that fuel the eagles and keeping everything in front of them with their cover 2 defense. They also did a great job of not over pursuing and creating running lanes for Michael Vick they kept him more or less in check for the entire game as far as running the football goes.  He got 44 yards but it came on 9 carries so he was held under 5 yards a carry and I’m sure most teams would take that. Michael Vick still played a pretty outstanding game, outside of one red zone interception he was patient moving down the field and taking what the Bears gave him and he made one of the best passes of the year on his 30 yard touchdown to Brent Celek however it wasn’t enough. Vick’s performance reminded me of Aaron Rodgers performance earlier in the day where he pretty much was all of the Green Bay Packers offense on the road and almost single handedly lead them to victory over a very tough Falcons team, but the Packers special teams undid what should have been an overtime forcing drive. The Green Bay Packers had 418 total yards and Rodgers was responsible for 395 of them. This game confirmed that both of these teams are among the top 3 or 4 of the NFC and if they meet again it could easily be 20-17 the other way around.

Ok fine. I admit it. The Bears are for real

I’ve been trying for weeks and weeks to write off the Bears as a fluky team lead by a defense that isn’t as good as people think and an offense that doesn’t have anyone a single reliable player but that’s simply not true. The Bears area a team lead by a damn good defense and an offense that doesn’t have a single reliable player. The Bears defense is based more around the turnover than it is completely shutting their opponents down. While their pass defense is ranked a mediocre 16^th in the league they have 16 interceptions which ties them for second in the league. The cover two style they play forces quarterbacks to be patient with their throws or force something and possibly end up with an interception and clearly a lot of quarterbacks lack patience which is what the Bears defense capitalize on.  This defense has been lead by the resurgence of Brian Urlacher into the all-pro form he had a few years ago, he’s roaming sideline to sideline playing that 3^rd safety role that the middle linebacker in a cover two has to do so well. Offensively this team won’t particularly wow you with anything they’re 22^nd in points scored and 28^th in total yardage. However as bad as Jay Cutler has looked at times this season and he has looked really really bad, if you told Bears fans Jay Cutler would have 16 touchdowns and 10 interceptions with a 90 QB rating they would have taken it.  Part of what makes up for their mediocre offense has been the return of stellar special teams play to the Bears sidelines, Devin Hester is almost back to his old self with two punt returns for touchdown this year the first he’s had since 2008. You combine all 3 things and this bears team has the classic composition of a Chicago football team, a team that’s lead by its defense has a competent but honestly not that good offense and relies on a special teams to generate field position.

Is this the beginning of the end for the Colts?

Seen this a lot more than usual

Part of me wanted to write an article about the Chargers here, but I think I’ve reference the comeback of the Chargers in this blog enough to where you all see where I would go with that. A much more unexpected storyline coming out of that Sunday Night game is that the Colts got absolutely blasted. They lost by 22 points and it should have been 35. I know that by and large the Chargers own the Colts and that Peyton always has bad games against them but the Colts are 6-5 at week 13. When was the last time we were this far into the season and the Colts were a game above .500? The closest I can come up with is the 2008 Colts and they were 7-4 in week 13 before ending the season on a 10 game winning streak. Hey maybe this Colts team will close the season on a 5 game winning streak and end up at 11-5 and we’ll forget that we ever had this conversation but I just can’t shake the fact this Colts team looks incredibly flawed. Normally the Colts can’t run the football, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it this bad. Peyton Manning is on pace to break the all time passes attempted in a season record which is no good for anyone who likes the blue horseshoes. He’s averaging around 45 passing attempts a game and is over 30 attempts ahead of the next closest player.  He’s thrown 7 interceptions in the past two games and it seems as though he’s regressing to his old interception happy days. Many many years ago my brother and I used to call Peyton Manning “intercepto”, we thought of him as a super hero who’s only power was the ability to throw interceptions.  In his rookie season Peyton Manning threw 28 interceptions which is still quite staggering, he followed that up two years later a 23 interception gem. Just to clear up any confusion no I don’t think he’s going back to the days of his early years where he every pass he threw had you worried, but part of me wonders if the days of me thinking Peyton Manning could do no wrong have finally come to an end. 

Just when you thought it was safe: Week 12 Preview

I'm truly a mad man, two articles in one day. Enjoy the Sunday picks on Saturday night, or read them and laugh as my predictions fail miserably during Sunday's game. Either way enjoy.

Green Bay @ Atlanta

Atlanta – 2

Expect some of this on Sunday

This game is a battle between the top of the 2^nd tier QB’s. Aaron Rodgers and Matt Ryan are trying to step up into the top tier of NFL quarterbacks, but for them to do that they’ll not only have to generate success during the NFL season but get their first post season wins. However this isn’t the post season, its week 12 and both of these teams are still fighting for playoff positioning in an incredibly competitive NFC. The Packers are trying to establish themselves as a team to be reckoned with and a win against a Falcons team who’s undefeated at the Georgia Dome would do it. Looking at this game and as well as the Falcons have played at home I honestly can’t give a reason why they’d lose this game. The thing is Aaron Rodgers finally slayed the Brett Favre Dragon last week in a coach killing season crushing 31-3 beat down, and I think a win like that could catapult Aaron Rodgers into the stratosphere and I think he wins here on his accent into the Brady, Manning, Vick tier.

Packers 31

Falcons 27

Pittsburgh @ Buffalo

Pittsburgh – 6

Pittsburgh did what an elite team is supposed to do and that’s handle business at home as they absolutely blasted what I thought would be a game Oakland team. Now they face Buffalo this week before a huge AFC North showdown on the road against the Ravens next week. This has the feeling of a classic trap game, a good team goes on the road against a team that isn’t very good but can take advantage of the good team’s weakness while the good team is looking ahead to a big game it has the next week. I think the Steelers are good, but I don’t think they’re good enough to avoid getting caught looking ahead to the Ravens especially while facing a very solid passing game lead by Ryan Fitzpatrick and Steve Johnson. I think the Steelers win, by on a last second field goal by their recently signed kicker.

Steelers 23

Buffalo 20

Carolina @ Cleveland

Cleveland – 9.5

He's like an even worse Carson Palmer

The fact that the spread is this high leads me to believe I’ve been given some bad information. The depth chart I’m looking at shows that Jake Delhomme is going to start this game, and that guy is terrible. He’s like Carson Palmer without any of the talent that Carson Palmer still has. He’s almost bad enough to make me pick the Panthers except the Browns still have Peyton Hillis and that guy is an absolute stud. So hopefully they can just hand the ball off to him 30 or 40 times to avoid the eventual Jake Delhomme interception onslaught. Browns in an ugly one.

Browns 17

Panthers 10

Tennessee @ Houston

Texans – 6

The Titans seem to be absolutely falling apart at the seams. Vince Young is going on injured reserve and more than likely has played his last game as a Tennessee Titan. Randy Moss is an absolute cadaver on the field and he has 1 catch in two games as a Titan and 2 catches over his last 3 games.  With all of that happening I still had to think a good bit about who to pick in this game because the Texans pass defense is just so unbelievably bad that I could be tempted to pick Rusty Smith against them. However I can’t despite how bad they’ve been and the back to back heartbreaking losses they’ve suffered I have to think the Texans will score too much for Rusty Smith to keep up.

Texans 24

Titans 17

Jacksonville @ NY Giants

NY Giants – 7

Earlier in the year I had the feeling that the Giants were an elite team and now they sit here at 6-4 and looking at the teams they’ve beaten I don’t know if you can count an elite team among them. The closet to an elite team they’ve beaten is a 7-3 Bears team and despite that record I still just can’t quite believe in that team. The Jaguars are a lot more comparable to the Giants than would appear, and at least they have a victory against an elite team beating the Colts at home in week 4. The question it all comes down to is which David Garrard shows up. He’s been absolutely lights out in victories and not even an NFL quality quarterback in their losses. I think Mike Sims Walker comes back and David Garrard has another outstanding performance.

Jaguars 27

Giants 24

Minnesota @ Washington

Minnesota -1

The first game of the Leslie Frazier era and after watching the Cowboys come out and play hard for Jason Garrett these past few weeks I can’t help but expect the same from the Vikings especially since most of their players apparently like Frazier. I still don’t like much of what you get from the Redskins; their win over a listless Tennessee team didn't really tell me anything I didn’t know about them, they can beat teams that are in even more disarray than them. I think the firing of Childress took some of the madness out of the Minnesota locker room and hopefully they can translate that to a solid performance on the field.

Minnesota 24

Washington 20

Miami @ Oakland

Oakland – 2.5

Oakland got absolutely hammered last week in Pittsburgh and after it Tom Cable confirmed that the QB for the Miami game would be Jason Campbell. Now for the past few days all the news has been that Bruce Gradkowski will actually be the starter. It seems like the move a desperate team and that’s never a good sign. However as desperate as that move appears you would think the Dolphins would have to be even more desperate after that Thursday night disaster of a shut out at home against the Bears. I hope they try to at least run the football this week because if their game plan is to put it in the hands of Tyler Thigpen they can expect another loss, I sure do.

Raiders 17

Dolphins 10

Kansas City @ Seattle

Kansas City –2.5

Matt Hassleback as Brad Childress in Mustache: The Brad Childress Story

Seattle is the only team in the NFC West that’s at least at .500 and they play the AFC West leading Chiefs who just pasted the Cardinals at home. However this game is on the road and that’s where the Chiefs have struggled this year they've only managed to go 1-5 on the road with their only win coming against the Browns. Seattle on the other hand is 4-1 at home with their only loss being an absolute blow out to the Giants when they started Charlie Whitehurst. I think as long as they start the Bald Bomber known as Matt Hasselback the Seahawks will have a chance at Qwest field, I don’t know what it is but almost everyone struggles when they play there. Count the Chiefs in that category.

Seahawks 20

Chiefs 14

Tampa Bay @ Baltimore

Baltimore – 8

As said on a previous installment of Screen and Roll Out the Buccaneers are a team that beats the teams they’re supposed to beat and no one else. Well they’re not supposed to beat the Ravens.

Ravens 31

Bucs 24

Philadelphia @ Chicago

Philadelphia – 3

I’m sorry but week after week Chicago wins but I still feel the same way about them. I just can’t trust a team lead by Jay Cutler to be a legitimate threat for anything. If the Bears make the playoffs I can easily see Jay Cutler putting up a Jake Delhomme type 4 interception game in wild card weekend to the dismay of all the Chicago fans. The Chicago defense has been carrying this team all year, but I don’t think they’re good enough to carry them through the playoffs, however if they were able to shut down this Eagles attack I suppose I’d have to change my tune. I don’t count on having to do that though.

Eagles 23

Bears 13

St. Louis @ Denver

Denver - 4

"Josh this is why I cut my sleeves, so people know i don't have anything up them"

I think Denver coach Josh McDaniel just put the last nail in his coffin with his transfer of the New England spy gate methods over to Denver. After getting blown out last week the last thing Denver needed was some news like this. St. Louis is fighting for their playoff lives and they desperately need a road win to keep themselves afloat in the mediocre NFC West. I think they beat a Broncos team I think will quit on their lame duck coach pretty soon if not this week.

Rams 17

Broncos 16

San Diego @ Indianapolis

Indianapolis – 3

A great Sunday night game between the Colts and Chargers and with the Chargers on a roll and the Colts coming in struggling with not only injuries but with their play in general this seems like another win as the Chargers charge into the playoffs. Then you look on the sideline and Peyton Manning is still there and he’s still great and it’s going to be at night so it would violate a rule that I stole from Bill Simmons. Never bet against Peyton Manning at night. As much as I’d like to break that rule I just can’t do it, I don’t think Peyton is going to have back to back bad games no matter who he’s throwing to. After that 3 interception travesty last week he’ll rebound against a team that for the most part has owned him throughout his career.

Colts 31

Chargers 27

San Francisco @ Arizona

Pick em

In one of the worst Monday night games we’ve had in a while it’s a battle to decide which NFC West team’s playoff hope’s remain on life support. If either of these teams makes it into the playoffs they’ll be a one and done and it won’t even be a competitive one, but hey ya never know what could happen right?  After running off two straight under Troy Smith the niners were brought back down to earth hard by the Bucs last week, but somehow at 3-7 they’re still alive in their division race.  The Cardinals have lost 5 straight after a 3-2 start. The winner of this game will be the team that makes fewer mistakes and while both have terrible turnover ratios the 49’ers have been better about in the past few games

49’ers 17

Cardinals 13

Week 12 Thanksgiving Spectacular.

Week 11 Predictions heads up: 13-3

Week 11 Predictions against the Spread: 7-8

Record so far: 70-57

Week 12 started out pretty ugly with a Bears 16-0 win over Miami and it didn’t get much prettier throughout as most of the games during the week were blowouts. The Raiders showed they’re not ready to make the next step quite yet getting blown out by the Steelers, Aaron Rodgers finally put a stake in the heart of the zombie that is Brett Favre, and Tom Terrific finally turned the tables and beat Peyton for the first time in years. I’m writing this from my desk at work so let’s try to get into the quick hits faster than usual this week. Also since we have a few games even earlier than Thursday this week I'm going to put these Thanksgiving day games up tonight and get to the rest of the picks on Friday after a jazzy new NBA piece. 

San Diego SUPER CHARGERS

This year like every year under Norv Turner the Chargers got off to a slow start and like usual they’ve strung off a few wins to get themselves back into contention for a division title. They’re now sitting at 5-5 after starting this year 2-5. With two tough wins over the Titans and the Texans combined with a blowout of a divisional foe in the Broncos they’re sitting exactly where they want to be. The Chargers not only control their own destiny in the AFC West they have the easiest remaining schedule of the remaining AFC West teams with the remaining teams on their schedule having a 25-35 record. The only above .500 teams they still have to play are the Colts and Chiefs and the Chargers are 4-1 over their past 5 games against the Colts so that match up isn’t as daunting for them as it would be for other teams. Phillip Rivers is continually building his MVP resume with game after game of fantastic performances with an undermanned squad. Once again he was without his top 3 receivers and still sliced and diced a team to the tune of 233 yards and 4 touchdowns. You combine that with a defense that has been playing at a high level pretty much the entire year and these Chargers are starting to look as dangerous as they always do. Oh yeah but what about those special teams? Those same special teams that have cost the Chargers at least two games if not more this year. Well they’ve held up surprisingly well in kick coverage and punt protection ever since Norv made the declaration that anther punt wouldn’t get blocked for the rest of the year. Although something like that isn’t a crazy prediction in the NFL; if you saw the Chargers special teams of the first few weeks you’d realize how big a leap Norv was making with that. However it looks like things are paying off for him as the Chargers seem once again poised for a solid playoff run.

Is this the return of the early 2000 Pats?

The only respectable cut offs of any kind

37 seconds left the Colts are down by 3, Peyton Manning in the shotgun and............he throws in an interception to end the game. That sounds like a script from the early 2000’s Patriot Colt rivalry because for the past 2 or 3 years Manning has owned the Patriots to the tune of a 4-1 record in the past five meetings.  The Patriots were the team that changed their formula to success building a modern day super team that ran roughshod through the NFL for 18 games before losing in the most important one of the year in their Super Bowl loss to the New York Giants. However they seem to be reverting to form now, the Patriots of all were a team that revolved around Tom Brady with a group of quick undersized receivers and a running back by committee approach and this Patriots team uses that exact blueprint on offense to a solid amount of success. On defense they’re a lot younger than those Patriot championship teams of lore, but their bread and butter are still turnovers and without them they struggle to keep great offenses at bay. They’re not a dominant defense by any means, but they try to employ a bend but don’t break strategy and outside of their week 9 loss to the Browns where they were broken by Peyton Hillis they've managed to implement it rather well. However games like that happen to the best teams, and that’s what the Patriots are shaping up to be one of the best teams in the league.

Chilly Willy finally gets the axe

In the second most overdue coach firing of the year, the Vikings finally let the hammer fall on everyone’s least favorite mustache aficionado. Brad Childress had alienated his team, alienated his fan base, and alienated the owner I don’t know how he had survived for so long up to that point. When a report comes out the week before the game with several players both talking about how they absolutely hate you and hate playing for you and the other half talking about how they’ve essentially stopped playing for you and things don’t seem to be going your way. The best part of this if you’re a Vikings fan is that you’re replacing him with someone who was one of the hottest head coaching candidates for the past few years in Leslie Frazier. If he can string together a series of respectable performances along with some wins the Vikings may have found their coach of the future. Despite all of the turmoil the Vikings still present one of the most if not the most attractive available coaching position going into next year. As many jobs as Frazier has interviewed for in the past 2 years or so I doubt he ever thought his first shot at head coaching would be coming at week 11

New England @ Detroit

New England – 7

So I just got done talking about the current Patriots resembling the actual championship variety Patriots, so clearly this is a game those team’s won. Indeed it is, and the Pats will beat this overmatched Lions team, but something that might get some attention because of the audience of this game is the excellent defensive line play of the Lions. Ndamukong Suh has been an absolute man on a mission and has bucked the trend of shoddy play by first year defensive lineman. If he wasn’t a rookie I’m sure he’d be getting more attention for the defensive player of the year category but even so he’s having an absolutely brilliant year so expect to see him flash a few times during this game despite the fact he’s matched up with All-Pro Logan Mankins. However him flashing won’t be enough to deter Tom Brady, who hasn’t practiced this week but won’t need to as his last game was a mere four days ago. Patriots give the Lions what they tend to get every year for Thanksgiving, a loss at home.

Patriots 24

Lions 16

New Orleans @ Dallas

New Orleans -4

Ginger kid definitely, head coach...maybe

If the Cowboys were to win this game it would make it 3 straight under Jason Garrett and you would begin to hear the drumbeat for the interim tag to be removed from his title. Looking at the two Cowboy win’s I think they snuck up on a Giants team that was obviously looking past them, and then beat a deflated Lions team that just lost their starting QB for the year. The Saints won’t be looking past this Cowboys team, and I don’t think the Boys’ will be able to hold up under an elite teams (or at least a good teams) full attention.

Saints 27

Cowboys 20

Cincinnati @ New York Jets

New York Jets – 9

The power of Santonio Holmes can’t be denied, he’s launched the Jets into 3 straight victories with excellent crunch time performances in each game. At the price of a 5^th round pick he seems like the smartest acquisition of an offseason that was filled with team’s trading for wide outs. Also as far as last second drives go, Mark Sanchez put together one of the best I’ve seen over a 40 or 50 second span. Games like that make me wonder whether Sanchez has made it into the second tier of QB’s beneath the top 5 or 6, but right alongside the Matt Ryan’s and Joe Flacco’s of the NFL. I do know one QB who used to be considered a top tier QB who has fallen out of the good graces of pretty much everyone. Of course I’m talking about Screen and Roll out favorite Carson Palmer. Combine his normally erratic play with an actually good defense, and T.O. calling Darrelle Revis an “average corner” and you have a recipe for a Jets blowout. I don’t think the final score will tell the story because the Bengals have done a great job scoring points in garbage time this year.

Jets 31

Bengals 23