"Gotta use that LATEX...

...or you'll get that "I think I'm late!" text."
-Lil Weezy

NFL LINES & PICKS: WEEK 15

LATE AFTERNOOON GAMES

Bengals @ SAN DIEGO -6.5

It’s tough to predict how teams will perform in emotional games. Football is a physical sport that requires concentration, control and aggression. Teams usually benefit from higher degrees of focus and aggression, especially on defense. But people deal with tragedy in different ways. Some get extra emotional. Some people shut down. And even if the majority of players play with heightened aggression, it’s not always tempered with focus.

Given the fact that this isn’t a home game and that the Bengals traditionally don’t do well on the West coast, as well as the fact the Chargers are one of the best teams in football right now, I’m going to go with the home team.

Chargers.

Raiders @ MILE HIGH -14

The Autumn Wind blows into Denver’s Mile High Stadium but its winter in Colorado and the Raiders are starting their 3^rd string quarterback. What’s worse is the fact that their starting QB is perfectly healthy, he just stinks like hot garbage on ice. So Charlie Frye will be running an offense built on the running of Fargas, McFadden and the pass-catching of Zach Miller and Louis Murphy.

Speaking of which, TE Zach Miller was recently heard talking to rookie receiver, Darrius Heyward-Bey, in the locker room after a loss to the Chiefs.

[quote]”You can definitely work on catching the ball. It’s something you can improve on, just catching the ball the right way and catching a lot in practice”[/quote]

This is a conversation between 2 NFL receivers, the absurdity of which being properly reported on in the latest issue of ESPN magazine.

Let’s go with the Broncos.

PACKERS @ City of Champions -2.5

I’m still giving the Pittsburgh Steelers their proper respect as defending champions but they are ever so close to losing the right to be referred to as such; they’ve lost to the Chiefs, Raiders and Browns over the past few weeks.

Meanwhile, back at Green Bay, the Packers have won 5 straight since getting upset by the Bucs.

They’ve gotten healthier on the offensive line which has given Aaron Rodgers the time to slice through secondaries, but it’s really the improved play of the defense, despite (or perhaps BECAUSE of) the absence of LB Aaron Kampman.

Unfortunately for the Steelers the opposite is true of their defensive play without Troy Polamalu. I’ve been watching football for 25 years and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a defense so negatively affected by the loss of one player, especially a safety. Polamalu is not the most technically gifted safety. He’s neither the fastest, strongest nor smartest safety in the league. But he plays with great instincts. He closes on the ball quickly and is a destructive force as a blitzer, run-stopper and as a defender in coverage. Commentators often say that it’s like there are 2 of him out there and I have to agree, because when you look at the Steelers defense it looks like they’re literally playing with a man short.

I’m taking the Packers.

NINERS @ Philadelphia -7

Some have criticized Coach Singletary for the way in which he welcomed rookie Michael Crabtree, making him a starter immediately after a contract holdout that went 2 months into the season.

I don’t wanna hear no never-mind about that. This kid is a player. With Vernon Davis and Frank Gore ready to ascend to elite player status, the Niners now boast 3 weapons on offense that defensive coordinators have to gameplan for. If they can get any consistency out of the quarterback position and that defense maintains its current level of play, they will division title contenders for years to come.

The Eagles, meanwhile continue to vex me as they have for the past decade. Just when I thought their reign of terror might soon be at an end with the aging of Westbrook and the uncertainty of McNabb and Reid’s futures with the team, they hit home-runs in back to back drafts adding speedy play-makers like Maclin, McCoy, Celek and DeSean friggin Jackson. That dude is electric, pure and simple. If Andy Reid ever gets around to developing a truly consistently ground game, and if McNabb could stop chucking balls at his receivers feet, these guys would give the Saints a run for their money.

Their defense sucks though. I never liked Brian Dawkins but I respected him.

San Francisco should be able to move the ball enough to score some points and their defense should make enough stops and force enough turnovers to keep it respectable.

Niners cover.

Bears @ CHARM CITY -10.5

Finally the Ravens have figured it out. Joe Flacco looked good last year as a rookie but he’s still a young quarterback in a league where the average starting linebackers and DBs knows more about the intricacies of an offense than any first year quarterback does. Gone (at least for now) are the days when the Ravens defense didn’t ask much more of the offense but to score 10 points and not turn it over. The irony is that this should have made the coordinators a little MORE conservative on offense than less. Flacco’s got a great arm and he’ll be a stud one day, but they don’t have any real play-makers in the passing game. The receivers can’t get any separation, so to ask Flacco to try to read coverages and make plays in the passing game is unfair.

But now the Ravens are using their best asset, Ray Rice to jab their opponents into submission. Sprinkle some play action and-POOF!-Derrick Mason starts hauling in balls, McGahee starts vulturing goalline carries, Lewis and Reed do the “U-Cane head-butt” thing and all is right with the world.

As for the Bears, they stink.

Ravens and the over (39)….EASY!

Bucs @ SEATTLE -6.5

Part of me wishes that Tampa Bay would wear their old “creamsicle” unis against the hawks in those garish “melon-ball” unis.

Check that—ALL of me wishes that would happen.

…

……

Wow. I have nothing else to say about this game.

Home team and the over (39).

SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL

VIKINGS @ Carolina +8.5

One of the reasons I’m putting these picks out so late (as in this afternoon versus this morning) was that I spent about an hour and a half shoveling snow. It actually might have been closer to two and half hours because I took numerous 5 minute breaks and a couple of 20 minute ones. Now I’m a relatively young man in relatively good shape and have always used proper technique when doing anything that requires lifting, pushing, pulling, and bending over. But lemme tell you, my back is killing me right now.

Why do I bring this up? Because the great Bill Simmons once made a point about how you don’t send a 50 year old man to go shovel the snow, you find his 25 year old son and make him do it. This was his theory as to why Brett Favre has recently eaten balls late in the season.

This is all I thought of while shoveling.

(That and the inexplicability of my not living in San Diego right now.)

Forecasted temperature at kickoff is about 32 degrees, getting down to about 26 by mid-game.

Percy Harvin is still suffering migraines and AD fumbles rock.

Still taking the ‘kings to cover but I’m also betting the under (42.5).