NFL - Week 5 Picks

Hello everybody, I'm Andy Roberts and I run the NFL portion of this here little sports blog enterprise. Anyways I make weekly NFL spread picks using the spreads on Yahoo, and I've been pretty terrible so far this year, but maybe publishing them on this blog will help my luck. Here are this week's picks. Home teams are in caps, and if you didn't know, "+" means I picked the underdog, "-" means I picked the favorite.

Atlanta (+8.5) over TENNESSEE
HOUSTON (-5.5) over Miami
Jacksonville (-2) over KANSAS CITY
Arizona (-3.5) over ST. LOUIS
NEW ENGLAND (-16.5) over Cleveland
NEW ORLEANS (-3) over Carolina
NY GIANTS (-3.5) over NY Jets
PITTSBURGH (-5.5) over Seattle
Detroit (+3.5) over WASHINGTON
INDIANAPOLIS (-10) over Tampa Bay
Baltimore (-3.5) over SAN FRANCISCO
GREEN BAY (-3) over Chicago
Dallas (-10) over BUFFALO

My thoughts on the NFL season so far:

There are 2 good teams in the NFL - everyone else sucks

New England and Indy are pretty much the only two teams that have a legitimate claim on being 'good'. We'll give Dallas a jury's out verdict since they've looked impressive but have yet to play anybody. However, if you can seriously tell me that Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Seattle, Detroit, Oakland (?) or any of the other 1st-place teams in the league besides those three even has a prayer of sniffing a championship this year, well, I have a new stadium I'd like to sell you.

It's official - David Carr was never going to be good in the NFL

As a Carolina Panthers fan since the team's inception in 1995, I have seen more than my fair share of bad quarterbacks. Kerry Collins (other than 1996), Chris Weinke, Randy Fasani, Rodney Peete, and Weinke again have taken starting jobs for Carolina. But I don't know if it's ever been quite as bad as it was last week, when at one point Carr had 34 pass attempts and 104 yards. That's a smidge above THREE YARDS per pass attempt for you math whizzes. It's not like Tampa Bay is some amazing defense, either. This ain't your older brother's Bucs defense.

Tony Kornheiser is good on Monday Night Football

Seriously, give the guy a break. He makes people laugh, he likes football, and he fills the Cosell role the way he was intended to.

Fantasy football is a pain in the butt

The consensus top guys have been borderline worthless this year. Steven Jackson's hurt, LaDaininan Tomlinson doesn't get the ball enough, Frank Gore is not the 2006 version of himself, etc. etc. Only Peyton Manning of the 'elite' fantasy players is doing what he should.

More coming.