Bad NFL Picks

Week 2 Pick: Cowboys -3 @ Niners

2011-09-18T10:47:00.000-04:00

Sincere apologies for last week's failure to make a pick; I was in Vegas losing real money on my bad sports picks! Never fear though, I'm back this week (just in the nick of time)!

And with my inaugural pick of the 2011 season, I'm ignoring my own previous promise and picking the Cowboys. The reasons are pretty simple:

1. The luck disparity: my season preview echoed a sentiment that is common among sharps this week -- value emerges from lines based on fluky results the previous week. Thus, there have been some wild swings in the lines this week, as handicappers try to determine whether surprising week 1 results reveal fundamental truths about teams, or whether they merely reflect the quirks of one solitary week in the NFL. For the most part, I'm going with the latter.

In that vein, the 0-1 Cowboys look much better than the 1-0 Niners. Yes, the Cowboys lost the game. But they dominated the game for 3+ quarters, and lost on an excruciating series of unlikely events: a fumble at the 1 yard line, a blocked punt, a great penultimate drive by the Sanchize (itself hard to believe), and a 50 yard game winning FG from the shaky Nick Folk. Of course, there was also the painful interception thrown by Romo to Revis with a minute left that set up that field goal. Peter King called that interception a "total, absolute, utter debacle for Romo." It does look horrible, but several scouts have suggested that it was actually more the result of a sterling coverage disguise by the Jets than any unforgivable brain freeze by Romo.

And on top of all of this, let's not forget the difficult environment facing the Cowboys: going into the Meadowlands on 9/11 and playing a primetime game on the road against a team that has been to two straight AFC Championship games, one that is generally considered a top-5 team in the NFL. Even though the loss was excruciating, all in all it reflected a pretty solid level of play by the Cowboys.

The contrast could scarcely be any more stark with the Niners uninspiring win week 1. Yes, the final score read 33-17, but that score was significantly inflated by two late consecutive returns by Ted Ginn Jr. In reality, this game was essentially 19-17 after 57 minutes. This should trouble Niners fans, as they were playing the Seattle Seahawks, a truly putrid team, one with a miserable offensive line, inexperience at almost all the key positions, and a rebuilding mindset. Not only that, but it's a team that has historically been decent at home but atrocious on the road. And I haven't even mentioned that they started Tavaris "why is a rebuilding team starting him?!?" Jackson at QB.

In other words, color me not impressed at all by the Niners week one win. I think the Cowboys are a significantly better team, and that this line would normally be -6 or even higher were it not for the fluky week 1 results. Thus, it's a perfect time to jump on the Boys.

2. The Hilton 150 theory.

I've explained this ad nauseum on this blog (most recently here), but the Hilton contest theory strongly counsels in favor of making this pick. But first, a proviso: we're going to need to up the number of picks that we require from 100, because the number of entrants this year is significantly higher. In fact, it looks like the contest has grown from 345 to 517. This is a 49% increase, which suggests that we boost the requirement from 100 to 150. So that's what we'll do. Of course, I'm a little concerned about this simple fix, given that the growth in the field could have diluted the quality of the entrants and thus devalued it as a prediction market. Case in point: last week the Hilton 150 theory went only 1-1, with the Bills easily covering but the Steelers falling woefully short.We'll have to continue to monitor it.

In any event, the Cowboys got a whopping 208 picks in the contest this week. That bodes well for them, even if the contest has been devalued (which I'm not prepared to admit yet).

THE COUNTER-ARGUMENT: ROMO IS DAMAGED GOODS?

There has been endless media speculation this week about whether Romo and the Cowboys are becoming accustomed to losing and are psychologically unable to recover from this game. These types of reports are exactly why I'm picking this game. The Jets game was frustrating for fans but was really pretty fluky; those types of close games, Football Outsiders pointed out repeatedly in their Almanac this year, turn essentially on chance. Plus, Romo actually has a pretty favorable history in big games, and in bouncing back from bad losses. Beating the Niners is a much easier task than beating the Jets. Boys will cover this line.

2011 Season Preview!

2011-09-06T21:15:00.000-04:00

Hello world, it's the news that everyone's been waiting for: BadNFL is back! Boy did I need these last 8 months off, after an extremely rough 2010 season. But I'm going to choose to take the view that the misfires last year reflected a mix of a) correctable mistakes and b) bad luck. Thus, it's a whole new season, and BadNFL has a clean slate. Before the week 1 pick, which should be coming soon, I wanted to recap some of the things we learned from last season.

1. The Hilton 100 theory:

For those who are new to the blog, I explained the basic theory here and tracked the results throughout the season. The results were freakish; 15-4 ATS, with a massive median margin of victory. It will certainly bear watching this year. Of course, if lowly BadNFL has spotted the trend, there is no question that sharps and linemakers have as well. Thus, I imagine that lines will shift rather quickly once the Hilton picks are released this year. Of course, if you were a professional bettor who monitored these things in real time, you may still have time to get in bets on the Hilton 100 candidates. But for an amateur blog like BadNFL, which is just for fun and which I usually don't publish until Friday or Saturday, there's not going to be that opportunity. Accordingly, it seems likely that the pattern of my Packers/Bears pick from last year will repeat itself: Hilton 100 says that Packers -6.5 is a lock, but by the time I wrote my entry the line had shifted to Packers -9, and of course the Packers won by 7.

Nonetheless, I will continue to monitor the viability of the Hilton contest as a prediction market. Somewhat relatedly, I will monitor the contrarian theory -- the idea that the public serves as an inverse prediction market (in short, the public is usually wrong about NFL games). Although I had mixed results deploying that logic last year, the overall stats still seem promising.

2. East Coast Travel

This theory is as simple as it is well-known: west coast teams struggle in early games played on the east coast. I documented some of the evidence supporting this theory here. I also performed some of my own calculations on the data ranging from 2008-2010, and West Coast teams traveling east are 17-24 ATS. Not bad, although hardly definitive over such a small sample size. Given that so much of the NFL is luck, I also focused in on those games where the west coast team failed to cover by over a TD -- i.e. those games where they severely underperformed. A good 16 of those 24 losses were by over a touchdown, and a shocking number of those games were complete blowouts. This bears further watching.

3. Picking against lucky teams

This year I'm going to focus on finding teams midseason that have either been significantly lucky or unlucky. I demonstrated this approach last year in a successful pick against both the Jets and the Redskins. The theory is that those teams will be misvalued based on their record, as opposed to their true ability, at a certain point in the season. You'll likely see my attempt to employ this logic in week 1.

Upon Further Review: Packers win but don't cover, 10-3

2011-01-08T10:24:00.000-05:00

A disappointing end to a disappointing season. The Packers struggled all game and eked out a hard-fought 10-3 win. This game was slightly frustrating in that, as I said, the Bears had nothing to play for, but yet they still played their starters the entire game. The Bears' defense looked pretty impressive, though, and the Packers looked fairly out-of-sync on offense. In fact, the Packers probably won this game by virtue of the big performances by some of their unheralded defensive backups.

One thought about why this game turned out poorly: the blowout theory. Indeed, the Packers were coming off a 45-17 drubbing of the Giants, and I've previously hypothesized that teams emerging from such blowouts rarely win big the following week. It's something that, if I have time, I'll check on in the offseason.

I plan on unwinding from this season and doing a little big picture thinking about what went wrong. I may then do a few offseason posts explaining the main lessons learned from this season and trying to regroup for a better season 3 of BadNFL. Until then.

Week 17 Pick: Packers -9 vs. Bears

2011-01-01T16:27:00.000-05:00

I think that the Bears will have little more than pride to play for, and the Hilton contestants overwhelmingly picked this game (albeit at -6.5, which is quite a bit better). I wouldn't be shocked if the Bears, should they fall behind, plug in their backups in the 2nd half. Packers will turn this one into a blowout late.

It's way too late to salvage a respectable season for BadNFL, but it'd be nice to at least end on a high note.

Upon Further Review: Raiders Lose 26-31

2011-01-01T16:23:00.000-05:00

Well the Raiders made a game of it, but didn't quite cover the 3-point line. For the second time (including my Chiefs/Seahawks pick), picking a strong running team against a porous run defense didn't work. The Raiders' top two RBs were held to a lackluster 64 yards on 14 carries.

Indy looks good heading into the stretch run. Other than that, I don't have a ton to say. This wasn't a great pick; I'm really running out of steam at the end of the year.

Week 16 Pick: Raiders +3 vs. Colts

2010-12-26T00:25:00.000-05:00

Well after Comcastgate last weekend, I won't be able to get back to .500 for the season. Disappointing, but hopefully things will still break favorably down the stretch. To try and bounce back from last week's loss, I'm going with the Raiders +3 at home against Indy. Here's why:

1. Raiders will control this game on the ground.

The Raiders are 2nd in the NFL in yards per game on the ground, and they also rush for the 2nd best per-carry average at a healthy 4.7 YPC. On the other hand, the Colts have surrendered the 5th most rushing yards in the league, and they also yield a healthy 4.7 YPC. These stats are not misleading in the aggregate, as the Raiders' ground game appears to be peaking at the right time. They absolutely destroyed the Broncos' rushing defense last week, which was typical of their ground dominance over the past 2 months. Moreover, the Colts have struggled against even mediocre rushing teams like the Cowboys; I don't see them patching up their undersized and injury-riddled defensive front this week. It's true that they stacked the box on over 40% of the Jags' offensive snaps last week, effectively shutting down the Jags' powerful run game. But that game seems like an outlier, and I don't think people should overreact to that one performance. The Raiders have run the ball well against all different types of fronts, and I think they'll have substantial success there on Sunday.

On the flip side, the Colts offense isn't powerful enough -- like it has been in years past -- to take huge leads and nullify the opposing ground game. For one, their own running game, notwithstanding one good game by Donald Brown last week, has been non-existent, which in turn has nullified Manning's play action fakes. In addition, they've now lost Austin Collie -- arguably their most effective receiver -- for the season. The Colts have admittedly won two in a row, but one was a narrow, pretty lucky win against Jacksonville, and the other came over a spiraling and decimated Titans' club. This is not the same Colts' team we remember; they'll struggle to overcome the Raiders' ball-control offensive gameplan.

2. This is a perfect opportunity to deploy contrarian logic.

I've written about the contrarian theory of betting before: the theory posits that popular conceptions about the NFL are usually wrong, and that therefore smart prognosticators pick against the crowd. This week, nearly 80% of the action is on the Colts. In games like that this year, the team receiving fewer bets has a record of approximately 60% against the spread. Nor is this a statistical anomaly, as shown in a nice writeup on the theory in the WSJ this week -- since 2003, the more popular a team is, the worse it performs against the spread. And the person who popularized the theory and runs the great website sportsinsight.com said this week that Oakland presents a perfect opportunity for bettors to utilize the insight of the contrarian logic. Indeed, Indy is a historically successful team who looked good last week (a week in which everything that hadn't been going well for them went well); both factors may lead many bettors to foolishly take them this week.

Moreover, Oakland is getting 3 points. Millman points to research this week showing that home dogs in weeks 15-17 cover about 60% of the time. I like that trend to continue here; this is a cross-country road trip for an Indy team that has always played better on turf.

The counter-argument is simple: Peyton Manning is a formidable QB whom I don't like picking against. But I think he has the worst team around him in quite a while, and while many people's first instinct may be to take the Colts, I like the Raiders getting the points.

Upon Further Review: Cowboys win, but don't cover, 33-30

2010-12-24T11:57:00.001-05:00

Thanks a lot, Comcast. Because of my non-existent Internet last week, I was unable to put together a well-researched prediction, and now I'm paying the price. The Cowboys won the game 33-30, but failed to cover the 7 point spread. The most frustrating part of it was that the Boys looked like they had this game well in hand, leading by 20 points midway through the third quarter. But then Rex Grossman went to work, ultimately throwing for 322 yards and 4 TDs. How the Cowboys allowed him to throw it so prolifically escapes me, given that the Skins mounted no credible rushing attack (only 14 attempts). But the Dallas secondary looked quite poor, especially after Gerald Sensabough went down with an injury. Not only that, but the Cowboys reverted to some of their stupid, penalty-inflicted habits characteristic of the Wade Phillips era. The result was a narrow 3-point win in what should have been an easy cover.

LESSONS LEARNED

1. As a commenter implored me, stop picking the Cowboys. The stats are undeniable: they are now 0-3 ATS when I pick them, yet I am 2-0 when I pick against them (the commenter forgot this game from last year). On the one hand, I know more about the Cowboys than any other team in the league; I follow them more closely, and I feel more attuned to their strengths and weaknesses. On the other hand, emotion might very well cloud impartial judgment when it comes to predicting their games -- this week I think I gravitated to it because my internet was out and it was the game with which I was already most familiar.

I hate to make a strict rule forbidding any picks of the Cowboys anymore (as I basically have already done for the Seahawks and Chiefs this season), but I should certainly not knee-jerk focus on the Cowboys like I did this week.

2. Beware the backup QB. I thought that the Redskins were in shambles -- the Shanahans had lost the team, they were forced to jettison their expensive and celebrated veteran QB, and they were coming off a brutal loss, courtesy of a bobbled snap on a PAT. But Grossman played pretty well, appearing to energize the sorry Redskins. I've said before that picking heavy favorites playing against backup QBs can be risky (witness the 14-point favorite Pats barely escaping Johnny Flynn last week). It's hard to say exactly why the Boys blew the lead like they did -- maybe they're just bad, or maybe the game demonstrated their resilience in winning a close one -- but they did appear to coast for a while in the second half, thinking that they had sealed things up.

3. The Hilton 100 theory went only 1-1. The Cowboys (at -6) amassed the most picks, followed closely by the Bears over the Vikings. The Cowboys obviously did not cover, missing by 3, while the Bears dominated the Vikings by 26. The theory now moves to 12-4, with a still impressive average margin of victory. Too bad it couldn't have come through for the Boys this week, since BadNFL really needed it.

I'm wishing that I had picked the Jets +6 @ Pittsburgh instead. I think that Troy Polamalu may be the most valuable player in the league, and I've really hated the way that the Steelers' offense looked. That game was the most picked game, by a wide margin, among Hilton top contestants, and it's one that I was strongly considering taking. Oh well.

4. East Coast Travel Theory is validated: the Cardinals had to travel for an early game at Carolina, whom I've said (and most agree) is now the worst team in the league. The Cardinals easily failed to cover that game, losing by a touchdown, and most analysts agree that they essentially self-destructed against a team that's generally even worse than they are. Interesting.

Week 15 Pick: Cowboys -7 vs. Redskins

2010-12-18T18:57:00.001-05:00

Unfortunately, the Internet is down at BadNFL HQ, thanks to the despicable incompetence of Comcast. Because of that, my research has been seriously abbreviated this week, and unfortunately this post will also have to be short. I don't love taking Dallas again, but the Redskins seem like they're an absolute mess, and they're starting Rex Grossman. The Cowboys should win by more than 7.

Upon Further Review: Jags Cover 38-31

2010-12-15T19:58:00.000-05:00

Another nice win for BadNFL, although I must admit that it was a nerve-wracking cover. The Jags ultimately won the game by 7, enough to cover, but it was hardly the type of comfortable blowout that BadNFL fans enjoyed last week. My pick, which was largely premised on the Raiders' struggles when traveling east, may have been right for the wrong reasons, as the Raiders actually came roaring out of the gate strong only to blow the lead late. In fact, many game recaps are crediting Maurice Jones-Drew's halftime speech with rallying the lethargic Jags and propelling them to an impressive second-half comeback. And comeback they did, scoring 31 second-half points and demonstrating impressive resolve in fending off a late Raiders' charge.

In doing so, the Jags exposed the Raiders' poor rush defense. The Jags' ground game continued to impress, generating 200+ yards for the 3rd week in a row and even deploying several sophisticated option plays that yielded significant positive yardage. Many analysts have pinned responsibility directly on the Raiders' defense, which continues to be vulnerable to committed rushing attacks. And in my defense, I predicted that this game would be decided in the trenches, and that the Jags' two-pronged attack would prevail over the Raiders' overexposed defense. Fortunately, the strength of that rushing attack was enough to overcome a superb day for Jason Campbell and a subpar day, YPA-wise (albeit with 3 TDs), for Gerrard.

At the end of the day, the Raiders surged back to tie the game with under two minutes left, thanks to an incredible run by the streaking Darren McFadden. But luckily, the Jags got a nice kick return, and on their first play from scrimmage (as a 3-point non-cover is looking exceedingly likely), MJD busted a 30-yard gamewinning TD. It may not have been the prettiest victory, but I'll take it.

LESSONS LEARNED

1. What happened to the East Coast Travel theory? It's hard to say. Of course even a sound theory will fail to explain every single game, so it's possible that the Raiders' fast start here was simply an outlier. But looking back on it, there may be some other explanations. Some have pointed out that Tom Cable implemented a substantial schedule change regarding the road trip leading up to this game, and that the change may have helped the Raiders' biological clocks adjust. Of course, pointing to such a change seems like a simplistic explanation, given that other coaches have no doubt thought of such a stratagem before.

On the other hand, maybe this was a trap game for the Jags as they looked ahead to a huge division clash with Indy next week. BadNFL has obviously struggled with the concept of trap games, and I'm hestiant to blame the Jags' early struggles on the looming Colts, but it's a possibility.

Instead, maybe the East Coast travel factor weighs more heavily in games early in the season. I could see teams like the Raiders learning to adjust to the travel by the time December rolls around. That's one thing I intend to look into in the offseason -- a comprehensive analysis of East Coast travel, broken down by month and type of opponent.

Finally, it's possible that the Travel Theory did pay dividends after all. While logic would suggest that it would impact the beginning of games, as players' feel sluggishness commensurate with the time of day, it's also possible that the effects begin to catch up to players in a major way in the second half. That seemed to be what happened here, as the Raiders' defense completely wilted down the stretch.

2. The Seahawks continue to frustrate -- BadNFL fans undoubtedly noticed the 49ers absolutely waxing the Seahawks this last week. Yes, these were the same teams that played week 1, when BadNFL picked the 9ers -3. And it was primarily those same players, plus stud 49ers' RB Frank Gore, that participated in the Week 1 disgraceful Seahawks' blowout. Very aggravating.

3. Hilton 100 theory hits big again -- the only qualifying pick was Giants -3 @ Vikings, which shifted to -4 once the game moved to Ford Field in the wake of the Metrodome's collapse. Either way, the Giants easily covered, winning 21-3. Hilton 100 picks now have a record of 12-3, with a vast majority of those 12 being double-digit covers. Wow.

Update: Public, but not Hilton Contestants, Like the Pick

2010-12-11T15:40:00.000-05:00

I suspected that the Hilton Contestants might like the Jaguars this week, but they garnered only 55 picks, vs. 64 for the Raiders. Although surprising, I'm not that worried about it, since I've explained before that I think the Hilton Contest results are probative only when a game amasses a huge number (100+) of picks. Indeed, I've lacked support of the Hilton prediction market before, and it worked out well.

More troubling is the market data about the money coming in on the Jags. The public has stuck steadfastly with the Jags at just over 60% -- not a huge number but not that reassuring for a contrarian theorist -- even though the line has been moving steadily in the other direction, from Jags -5 down to Jags -4. This would suggest that there is some serious sharp money, placed by a small number of betters, coming in against the prevailing wisdom. Some analysts track this type of "smart money" and have noted that it tends to portend a result disfavorable to the public. I'm not sure what these bettors are thinking; it must be that the Jags' pythagorian W-L is worse than the Raiders'. I definitely sympathize with the perspective that the Jags' are overrated. However, they seem like the type of team who can exploit the Raiders' EST woes. We'll see.

The one entry in the Hilton 100 club this week is the Giants -2.5 @ Vikings. Although that line has now moved to -3, I tend to like it. It's also got a healthy margin of 89. Given that the Hilton 100 entries have gone 11-3 over a significant span, the Giants are probably a pretty good pick this week. But I'm sticking with the Jags.

Week 14 Pick: Jags -4 vs. Raiders

2010-12-11T12:35:00.001-05:00

We're officially entering the stretch run now, and BadNFL really needs to get its act together to try and preserve some modicum of respectability for this season. This week, I'm picking a team I have yet to pick even once: the Jacksonville Jaguars. Here's why:

1. Raiders are playing an early game on the East Coast.

This theory, bandied about by some prognosticators (like Simmons here), posits that West Coast teams struggle playing road games at 1:00 EST (10 PST). The reasoning is pretty simple: the players' biological clocks are out-of-sync for a 10:00 AM start, and they accordingly tend to play the sluggish way that their bodies feel (the same phenomenon tends to benefit West Coast home teams at night). It's an intuitively appealing theory. Do the stats back it up? One look at the stats answers resoundingly in the affirmative: in 2007, teams from the Pacific or Mountain time zones were 4-16 when playing in the Eastern Time Zone, and 18 of those 20 games had early start times. That included some really bad losses -- fully 50% of the 4 wins picked up by the awful pre-Matt Ryan Atlanta Falcons that year were in early home games against traveling west coasters.

To be sure, the raw stats reflect the skewed ineptitude of the Western teams in general. But although each coach is certainly different in his ability to prepare his team for an early start on the East Coast, almost without exception all West Coast teams have had significantly losing records in travel to the East Coast in recent years. Pat Kirwan ran the stats a few years ago and found:

Since 2003, when the Arizona Cardinals, San Diego Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, Oakland Raiders and Seattle Seahawks travel to the Eastern time zone for a 1 p.m. game, they have a combined record of 19-59 -- a winning percentage of .243. When you look at games played at 4 p.m. or at night, the West Coast teams are 3-5 (.375 percentage).

I don't think most people fully realize this degree of futility suffered by traveling West Coast teams. I know the AFC and particularly NFC West have been terrible, but a .243 winning percentage?! That suggests that the early start time theory really has some juice, irrespective of the basic talent disparities between the teams involved. Kirwan further spoke to several of the coaches involved, who

all felt it is a real issue, even though it's hard to put a finger on why it happens. They all mentioned a "sluggish" feeling, especially early in games. Anyone can dig up a game like Seattle's 42-0 win at Philadelphia in 2005 and say it's all hogwash, but the numbers over time suggest something different.

It's certainly not just true for bad teams. In 2009, the San Diego Chargers and Arizona Cardinals -- two playoff teams who went a combined 17-15, were 0-9 in games played east of the Mississippi River. And the same theory seems applicable to the Raiders. They've played two early road games this season (@ Ten in week 1 and @ Pit in Week 11) and been blown out in both by a combined score of 73-16. They seem to fit the pattern nicely, and I expect it to continue this week.

2. The Raiders are coming off a major win against a divisional rival.

The Raiders just played perhaps their best game in several years, manhandling the Chargers and doling them their first December loss in the Philip Rivers era. This 15-point win, which was never close, felt like a blowout for most of the game. I thus like the Raiders to regress back to normal this week. In recent weeks, I've remarked several times that teams coming off blowout wins seem to lack fire the following week. I also noted something similar in my preseason preview, arguing that teams emerging from cathartic, "now we've arrived" wins tend to dramatically underperform soon thereafter. Well, here we have that situation, and the trend seems to have been borne out by the Raiders' performance this season. They previously had only 1 win over a team with a winning record at the time (against the divisional rival Chiefs), and they followed it up by a 32-point thrashing by the Steelers.

Such inconsistency fits the mold of the Raiders' season in general, as wide fluctuations in quality of play have defined their season thus far. Thus, when ESPN bloggers proclaim the dominance of the Raiders' ground game, it makes me wonder how that rushing attack will look the week afterward. Particularly when the Raiders already have a reason -- the aforementioned time zone issue -- to play with less than exacting intensity.

3. The Jags will have success on the ground.

There seems little doubt that this game will be decided in the trenches. Indeed, neither the Jags or the Raiders pass the ball particularly well, while both have statistically impressive rushing attacks. I think the Jags will do what they do better than the Raiders -- the Jags have been remarkable at minimizing 3 and outs and controlling the time of possession, and the emergence of Rashad Jennings has given them a 1-2 pitch with MJD that is approaching elite level. Moreover, the Raiders are 23rd in rushing defense, which is not only bad but also artificially inflated by a great (21 yard) performance against San Diego last week that was somewhat anomalous. I thus expect the Jags to do what they did to Tennessee last week -- dominate on the ground and impose their will against a sluggish team.

THE COUNTER-ARGUMENT: THE JAGS HAVE BEEN LUCKY

The Jags have undoubtedly benefited from some lucky wins this year (the Mike Thomas Hail Mary and the 75-yard late game MJD screen pass come to mind). And I did just finish writing about the need to stay away from teams that have recently benefited from a spate of lucky wins. After all, the Jags probably aren't as good as their record, given their -43 point differential.

But in recent weeks, the Jags have looked like a legitimate team, not just a lucky one. And they certainly have shown they know how to blow out sluggish teams (see their whooping of the Wade Philips-era Cowboys). Ultimately, I think that the Jags are a mediocre team that plays fairly well at home, and that the Raiders' travel struggles will continue this week. I thought this line would be closer to 7 than to 4, and as such, the Jags will cover.

Upon Further Review: Pats Cover 45-3

2010-12-11T09:38:00.000-05:00

It feels good to be on the right side of a blowout for once. The Pats annihilated the Jets in a game that was as lopsided as some of the previous BadNFL blowout losses, dominating them 45-3. Tom Brady strengthened his position in the MVP race and threw for a whopping 11 YPA. Conversely, the Sanchize looked really bad -- he threw for less than 5 yards per attempt, barely completed 50% of his passes, and threw 3 INTs compared with 0 TDs. In other words, he looked as bad as I predicted he would the last time I (wrongly) predicted this match-up, and he gave the Jets absolutely no chance in this game.

Most of the reviews of this game note how dominating the Pats were in all phases of the game. Indeed, it was so bad that Rex Ryan stole a motivational ploy from Bill Belichick and buried the game ball afterward. In a game that lopsided, it's hard to pinpoint any one cause, but the loss of Jim Leonhard from the Jets secondary undoubtedly affected the Jets pass D -- particularly in the Jets' ability to defense the Pats various multiple-TE sets. Moreover, the vaunted Jets' pass rush, although getting to Brady a couple times early, never made much of an imprint on the game. And the Pats simply avoided throwing at Revis, exploiting the gaping holes all over the rest of the field.

LESSONS LEARNED

1. Does Mark Sanchez struggle in cold-weather games? Remember, he's a USC kid who lacks ideal NFL arm strength and sometimes tends to obsessively focus on short-yardage throws. That tendency obviously did not manifest itself last time the Jets pounded the Pats at home in week 2. But it's now December, and the weather has begun affecting games like it hasn't so far this season. It certainly looked like the cold windy conditions negatively affected Sanchez in this game; he unquestionably had the worst game of any QB last week. This is a possible trend that bears watching.

2. Picking against teams that have recently enjoyed several lucky wins pays off. One of my main rationales for this pick was the series of lucky, dramatic comeback wins against mediocre teams that the Jets had enjoyed of late. At the time, that led most pundits to label them "resilient" and "tough" etc; in retrospect, maybe they were just getting lucky. And once they played a motivated, streaking team on the road, that luck ran out in a major way.

3. The Broncos continue to frustrate. They have now officially imploded and fired their coach, 3 weeks after administering an asskicking to the (3-0 since) Chiefs in Week 10. My contrary pick, readers will remember, was premised on an assessment that the Broncos were on the verge of collapse and the Chiefs were picking up steam down the stretch. All that appears to have been correct, but just not that week. The result of that one game continues to frustrate me, but the general assessment was right on.

4. The Hilton 100 club had only 1 entry last week: Bears -3.5 @ Lions. I didn't like that pick at all, since BadNFL is a big fan of the covering Lions, especially at home. Nonetheless, the pick barely hit, as the Bears won 24-20. The theory now moves to 11-3, with 2 of the losses (albeit one of its wins now) coming by 1 point.

Not everything about the Hilton Contest appears helpful, however. The most popular pick last week among the contest leaders? Jets +3.5. That obviously didn't work out; maybe those top contestants should have read their BadNFL a little more carefully.

Week 13 Pick: Pats -3.5 vs. Jets

2010-12-04T17:59:00.000-05:00

This is a tough week for picking games. Initially, I liked the Browns +5, but then remembered that Jake Delhomme was still starting. Eventually, I settled instead on the Patriots. Essentially, I think that the Pats played remarkably poorly in their first meeting against the Jets, and they'll be at home this time and seem likely to play much better. The Jets also have been on an incredibly lucky streak -- excepting last week's win over the terrible Bengals -- winning 3 in a row in games they should have lost. That luck will run out this week, I think. The fact that this game's in Foxboro, the loss of defensive stalwart Jim Leonhard, and the Patriots' motivation to extract revenge after Brady's abysmal performance last time out all portend a substantial Pats victory.

Of course, it's possible that I'm merely repeating a mistake I've already made once this season. I still like that Pats pick week 2, however, and think that a lot of the same logic will be borne out this week. The Jets are touting their lucky late game wins as a sign of destiny; I think that it's a sign that they're not quite as good as their record indicates. We'll see.

Upon Further Review: Seahawks Lose 24-42

2010-11-30T21:26:00.000-05:00

It's hard to climb back to .500 when you can't win two in a row. I actually felt pretty good about this pick, but the 2.5 point underdog Seahawks were blown out to the tune of 42-24 by the Chiefs. The Chiefs offense was basically unstoppable, as Cassel generated 7.28 YPA and threw for 4 TDs with no interceptions. Moreover, their top 2 running backs combined for a whopping 42 carries, which yielded 241 yards. They were also able to consistently convert on 3rd down and keep Seattle's defense on the field, and ended up dominating the time of possession.

Dwayne Bowe was the main reason they were so successful on 3rd down; he was simply unstoppable, and seemingly all of his catches either resulted in 3rd down conversions or touchdowns. Seattle's failure to cover Bowe confounded logic. The film of his TD catches reveals that Seattle simply neglected to cover him, and they consistently refused to adjust their scheme to take him away. This failure was inexplicable given that Bowe has been on a torrid TD-catching streak and is rapidly emerging as a dominant WR. Indeed, Seattle made the Cassel-to-Bowe connection look unstoppable.

All that said, Seattle was in this game in the second half. They made some of the lucky plays that have characterized their home games, including a blocked FG and a blocked punt for a TD. In fact, at one point in the 2nd half they were down only 21-17 and were driving near midfield. But then, the wheels came off. Unlike last week, when a close game broke my way late, this week it broke even more dramatically the wrong way. As a result, the Seahawks came nowhere near covering.

LESSONS LEARNED

1. Stay away from the Seahawks and the Chiefs this year. Ugh. Those two teams obviously continue to befuddle me. I entered the year thinking that the Seahawks were atrocious. They immediately proceeded to win by 25 points. A few weeks later, I picked against them again, as they went on the road to Soldier field to play the (now 8-3 and coming off a convincing win over the Eagles) Bears. Of course, Seattle immediately won what I have little doubt will be their only road game of the year. Then, I finally pick them at home to continue their winning ways, and they get blown out by a Chiefs team that had at that point only 1 road win -- a 2 point squeaker over Jake Delhomme. And what do they do? They get eviscerated by 18 points. In short, I can't win with this team, and I'm done with them for this year.

Of course, I'd also predicted that the Chiefs would dominate the bad Broncos (who have since lost 2 straight and appear to be imploding) in Denver 2 weeks ago. I was expecting to get the type of performance we got this week. Instead, they were blown out. Then I decide to pick against them, and they become the ones doing the blowing out. Very frustrating.

This seems to be the type of season where no trend sustains itself for long. I said in the aftermath of the last Chiefs' loss that I would beware teams coming off huge blowouts. Although that was 2 weeks ago, perhaps I should have heeded that advice this week. In this weird NFL season, the fact that the Chiefs lost huge on the road last time out probably should have suggested that they'd inexplicably play great this time around.

Either way, Seattle by any statistical measure is quite bad. BadNFL will not be involved in any of their games for the rest of this season.

2. BadNFL's continued inability to make coherent use of home/road splits. I have now picked twice on the theory that one team was atrocious on the road, and both times that team has won. I don't know what it is; as one commenter pointed out, Seattle's home wins have come over uniformly atrocious teams. Maybe that was a sign. It seems that by the time a home/road split deepens enough to where its noticeable, the team in question performs the opposite of expectations the following week.

3. The Hilton 100 theory: 2-0 this week, as the Vikings +2 and the Chargers +3 both covered. The Vikings game was pretty close, but the Chargers covered by 25 points. I'm wishing I had picked that Chargers game instead -- they historically match-up quite well against the Colts, and as I noted last year, the Chargers start to dominate at this time of year, and appear primed to do it again.

In any event, the Hilton 100 theory now moves to 10-3, with mostly dominating cover margins. It really does, at least of late, look like a freakishly accurate prediction market. Maybe I should just start piggybacking BadNFL on its results (although that in some ways defeats the point of the website). Hopefully I'll get it back on track next week.

Week 12 Pick: Seahawks +2.5 vs. Chiefs

2010-11-27T11:40:00.001-05:00

BadNFL tries to continue its painful journey back to respectability this week by jumping on a game involving two teams who have screwed me this year -- the Chiefs (when I picked them) and the Seahawks twice (when I picked against them). I'm finally picking the Seahawks, so hopefully they'll continue their trend of winning handily in games that I pick. Here's why:

The game is at Qwest Field.

Pretty simple logic, really. Both of these teams have generally played well at home and poorly on the road. Specifically, the Chiefs are 1-4 in their 5 road games thus far this year, and their only win was a 2 point squeaker. Conversely, the Seahawks are 3-1 at home, with 3 pretty convincing wins and 1 bad loss to the Giants. Importantly, the Seahawks were quarterbacked by Charlie Whitehurst -- making his first career start -- in that loss. He will not be quarterbacking this game. If the pattern holds, the Chiefs will again turn in a lackluster performance, particularly since they are playing at Qwest Field -- one of the most hostile environments in the NFL. It's really a perfect storm: the Chiefs, who are perhaps more dependent on the Arrowhead advantage than any team in the NFL, going on the road to play in a venue that is traditionally the hardest on visiting teams. I rarely think that home-field advantage has decisive statistical relevance, but given the particular makeup of these two teams, I think that the venue takes on paramount importance.

I also think that the Seahawks match-up fairly well against the Chiefs' running game, which is their primary strength. Indeed, while the Seahawks' total run defense is above average at 13th in the NFL, their per-carry defense is very solid at 8th in the NFL (3.9 YPC). Not only that, but Hasselbeck has been playing well, and and thus there's a chance that the early home-field advantage could propel the Seahawks to a big early lead; if that happens, I think you'll see KC abandon the run, like they did in that ill-fated Denver game.

THE COUNTER-ARGUMENT: SEAHAWKS' INJURIES

It's true that the Seahawks have suffered a lot of injuries, most noticeably to their starting nosetackle and best WR. There's a chance that the Seahawks will play worse this week than they have in their previous home games because of these injuries. But they have Hasselbeck back, which seems to distinguish this game from the only Seahawks' home loss of the year, and the Chiefs have been too lackluster on the road this year to justify this spread. The Chiefs are also 2-4 against the spread as favorites this year, and 0-2 outright in games in which they were road favorites. I expect that trend to continue.

Finally, I'm not worried that this home/road split argument is too obvious, because the line has moved steadily in the Chiefs' favor, and 75% of the public money now sits on the Chiefs. In other words, this looks like a great candidate for another successful contrarian bet. The Seahawks are off a bad loss to the Saints and the Chiefs are off a dominating home win against Arizona. Which makes it the perfect time to pick the Seahawks. Seattle covers.

Upon Further Review: Ravens Cover 37-13

2010-11-24T20:55:00.001-05:00

BadNFL continued its long arduous trek back to .500 with the Ravens' 37-13 defeat of the Panthers last weekend. Although the final score reveals that the Ravens covered the 11 point spread by a cool 13 points, this was not an easy cover. In fact, the Ravens lacked fire and focus early in the game, committing unseemly mistakes -- a muffed hand-off in the redzone comes to mind -- that kept the Panthers in the game. Flacco did little to dispel my fears that he remains significantly overrated, as he played an uneven game. Thus, the Panthers kept it close, and they were within 7 points late in the 4th quarter. As a result, the Ravens weren't nearly as impressive as the final score would seem to indicate.

That said, the Ravens did surge late, courtesy of two back-to-back pick-6 interceptions by the two longtime stars of their defense, Ed Reed and Ray Lewis. This is somewhat in line with my prediction, since the primary reason for picking the Ravens this week was the nearly unprecedented lack of experience of Brian St. Pierre. And BSP was pretty bad on the day, completing only 13 of 28 passes and throwing 2 INTs. Because of their opportunistic defense and the Panthers' general ineptitude, the Ravens were able to convert a relatively close game into a blowout late.

LESSONS LEARNED

1. The Ravens certainly lacked focus and motivation in this one, perhaps confirming one of my biggest fears -- that big favorites against teams missing key offensive players tend to underperform. Or perhaps that is just typical of the Ravens, who have especially tended to play to the level of their competition this year. But luckily, the Panthers were so bad late that the pick still paid off.

2. I was right that the Panthers look atrocious. John Fox is a dead man walking on the sidelines, and the continuous roster shuffling has deprived them of any semblance of offensive rhythm. It's hard to see them winning any games right now; it's almost as hard to see them covering even significant spreads.

3. Hilton 100 theory pays off again -- the margin and absolute pick #s were extremely high for this game, and it obviously came through. It's now 8-3 ATS in the five weeks that I've tracked it, with a consistently high margin of victory ATS.

4. Blowouts: the Chiefs and the Redskins, who both were blown out in week 10, both won their games and easily covered this week. On the other hand, the Broncos, who delivered an unforeseen beating to the Chiefs last week, followed it up with a miserable performance. I'm starting to wonder what the stats are on teams following either blowout wins or losses -- because one potentially promising theory of prediction would rely on the "regression to the mean" theory and anticipate teams coming off blowout wins to fail to cover the following week, and vice versa. It's something I'll be following for the rest of the year.

Update: A Good Sign?

2010-11-21T12:12:00.001-05:00

The Hilton contestants absolutely love BadNFL's pick this week. The Ravens received 124 picks, safely making them a member of the "Hilton 100," and they enjoyed a whopping +117 margin. The only game I've seen getting that type of a margin was the Giants at the Seahawks a few weeks back, a game in which the Giants covered by 4 TD's. Hopefully that bodes well for my pick this week. If the Hilton is truly to serve as a useful prediction market, it better.

Week 11 Pick: Ravens -11 @ Panthers

2010-11-20T10:49:00.000-05:00

Somewhat surprisingly, my first double digit favorite pick of the year comes in week 11. I've had some success picking these before, but I've also had some spectacular failures. But this one just seems too ripe for the picking. The reason that I think the Ravens will cover is simple: the Panthers are sporting one of the most pathetic offenses I've ever seen. To be specific, they are starting a QB this week, named Brian St. Pierre, who was literally a stay-at-home dad at this time last week. He appears to have thrown a total of 5 passes in the last 7 years. And this is a passing attack that was already miserable; they generated a net sum at sixty-eight passing yards in their recent loss to the Saints.

Not only that, but the Panthers' top three running backs are all out this week. In short, they'll be lucky to put up more than 7 points for the game. It is true that the Ravens don't have a great secondary, but the Panthers are so woefully ill-suited to exploit the Ravens' weakness that I expect the Ravens to dominate this game.

Admittedly, the Ravens haven't blown out many teams this year -- in fact, they've won by a double digit margin in only 2 games. But they haven't played anyone as bad as the Panthers -- the team last in the NFL in point-differential and one that specializes in succumbing to the blowout. I think that the Ravens will be motivated coming off a tough road loss to the Falcons, and Ray Rice is chomping at the bit to redeem himself against one of the worst rushing defenses in the league. The Ravens should be able to win this one by 2 TD's at least.

THE COUNTER-ARGUMENT: THIS LOOKS TOO EASY

This just seems like one of those games where there's no way anyone can even envision an argument for how the Panthers can win. And that scares me. In fact, last year one of my lessons learned in the wake of a failed Cardinals pick against the injury-depleted Lions was to shy away from huge favorites against teams missing their starting QB and RB. I'm not heeding my own advice this week, because the Panthers just seem so bad.
It seems like the only way the Panthers can stay in this game is through either some crazy series of special teams successes or creative wacky plays like wildcat formations, surprise flea-flickers, etc. But John Fox -- perhaps the league's most conservative coach -- never tries things like that. Fox's coaching style seems more suited for a solid front-runner like he had earlier this decade, not the young huge underdog that he has now. Without some weird turn of events, I just can't see the Panthers staying in this game. Ravens cover.

Upon Further Review: Chiefs Lose 29-49

2010-11-17T21:30:00.002-05:00

And just like that, the Chiefs bring BadNFL's three game winning streak to a screeching halt. This game perpetuates the trend of BadNFL predictions missing by a mile, as the favored Chiefs lost by 20. And it wasn't pretty; the Broncos jumped out to a huge 28-0 lead by way of 21 1st quarter points (after they had scored 7 first quarter points all season). The huge early lead for the Broncos totally negated the Chiefs' vaunted running game, which was my primary reason for picking the Chiefs. Indeed, the "dynamic" duo of Thomas Jones and Jamaal Charles combined for an unsightly 44 yards on 18 carries.

Obviously, had I known that the Broncos would come roaring out of the gate on offense like that, I never would have picked the Chiefs. To be fair to myself, it was difficult to foresee -- the Broncos had their highest scoring game in 47 years, and many analysts referred to it as a "stunning" loss for the chiefs. The question is, why did it happen? Several theories have been bandied about: maybe it was the Elway pep talk he gave before the game, maybe their quick passing attack surprised the Chiefs and put them on their heels, maybe it was the injuries to the Chiefs' underrated safeties. Or maybe the Chiefs just came out flat and played poorly, yet again, on the road. Others, including some friends of BadNFL, claimed that crazy things happen in divisional games like this -- although I looked up the stats, and the Broncos had been 0-4 under McDaniels in home games against the AFC West. This much is certain: pretty much nothing the Chiefs did, in any phase of the game, looked good. Things were going so bad that even the replay machine broke when the Chiefs tried to challenge a questionable call.

In any event, some pundits are proclaiming the Broncos' season re-energized. They certainly dominated this game, and the bet was nowhere close.

LESSONS LEARNED

1. Don't just cite aggregate rushing statistics, but break down them game by game. It is true that the Broncos' rushing defense statics were ugly coming into the game, but in retrospect, they had been distorted by one atrocious loss against the Raiders. In fact, they'd had some decent games, especially when health had permitted them to play their 3-4 scheme of choice. That fact, combined with the fact that an early deficit can pretty much eliminate a ball control offensive strategy, should have inspired some caution about relying so heavily on the ground game match-up. After all, in my preseason preview, I noted some research showing that it is actually the match-up of pass offense vs. pass defense that matters much more in today's NFL.

2. Beware the team coming off the massive blowout. I just noted the statistical effect that the Oakland blowout had on my analysis, but I think that it may have also affected the psychology of the game. I need to do this statistical research next summer, but I wonder what teams' records are against the spread in the 3 or 4 weeks following huge blowouts. Probably pretty good. Far preferable is finding an overrated team who has had some ugly wins and not that bad losses -- which, combined with other factors, may be the sign that a dominating loss is on the horizon (the Skins' ugly loss to the Eagles on MNF this week is a good example).

On the other hand, the Chiefs had led some smart analysts, like FO's Aaron Schatz, to label them Super Bowl contenders. But then the wheels just totally came off. I obviously thought that the poor performance by the Chiefs in Oakland last week was an anomaly, but instead it looks now like it may have portended things to come.

3. Detroit covered yet again. They are now 8-1 against the spread. Just sayin'.

4. The "Hilton 100" theory moves to 7-3 since I've begun tracking it. The top three picks -- the Rams +6 @ Niners, Vikings -1 @ Bears, and Bucs -6.5 vs. Panthers -- went 2-1 this week. The Rams +6 line looks like a miscalculation by oddsmakers in retrospect. I hated the Vikings line, but liked the Bucs line, and stayed away from it because it was getting so much public action. But of course, so were the Chiefs, and that didn't dissuade me. In retrospect, Bucs probably should have been the pick last week.

Week 10 Pick: Chiefs -1 @ Broncos

2010-11-13T11:34:00.001-05:00

I'm really pushing my luck this week, as for the second straight week, I'm going with a pick that public money seems to love. Even so, I couldn't find a line I was quite as happy about, so despite the 75% of public money backing the Chiefs, I'm picking them to cover this spread. Here's why:

1. Chiefs should dominate the game on the ground.

This is, at least on paper, a dream match-up between the Chiefs' greatest strength and the Broncos' biggest weakness. The key to the Chiefs' surprising turnaround this year has been their superlative rushing attack; they rank 3rd in yards-per-carry and 1st overall in total yards rushing. On the other hand, the Broncos surrender the 2nd most yards per game on the ground, and they yield the 5th worst YPC for opposing running backs. There's little reason to think that the overall trends won't hold in this game; remember, last time these teams played, Jamaal Charles ran for 259 yards and 2 TDs. I expect the duo of Charles and the perennially underappreciated Thomas Jones to enjoy similar success this week.

If the Chiefs do dominate on the ground in the manner of which they are capable, they should win this game fairly easily. Indeed, the Broncos typically fare poorly against teams that control the game on the ground. Just look at the 20-point drubbing the Chiefs administered at Denver last time that Charles ran wild, or the Raiders' domination of the Broncos a few weeks ago behind DMC's career best day on the ground. Kansas City should again be able to control the time of possession and field position and put up plenty of points to beat the Broncos.

I have little faith that the Broncos' defense will step up their game and reverse these prevailing trends. Put simply, they're a total mess. Injuries have forced them to waffle between a 3-4 and 4-3 defense, despite not having the personnel to effectively run either scheme. In addition, D.J. Williams' DUI will likely deprive the Broncos one of their only playmakers on defense for this game. Moreover, I doubt the Broncos' coaching staff's ability to schematically compensate for their defensive shortcomings and take the Chiefs' ground game away. The Broncos have been gashed by all sorts of running games -- zone blocking attacks, outside speed, inside power -- and their staff has demonstrated no clue how to stop the pounding.

So this is not as simple as identifying one glaring flaw in the defense and applying a fix. And even if it was, the Broncos' players may be tuning out McDaniels' shrill and overbearing voice. Indeed, this has the trappings of a lost season in Denver, and the players may be just playing out the string. I'm not sure where leadership is going to come from within the organization, but at this point, it's reminding far too much of Dallas. In sum, ground game asymmetry is something that an in sync and respected coaching staff may be able to scheme around, but I don't see that happening in Denver.

It is true that the Broncos are coming off a bye, which is a factor in why the line is this low (Broncos are 6-2 ATS in their last 8 post-bye games), and perhaps a reason why the Broncos will be more prepared this week. But as Simmons pointed out this week, the bye historically exerts little influence on game outcomes, particularly with subpar coaches. Last year the Broncos' came out of their bye and lost by 21 points to the Ravens. This year, their bye comes on the heels of a loss to a bad 49ers team in London. In short, look for the Chiefs to conduct business as usual on the ground, at the expense of the Broncos' porous front-7.

2. The Chiefs are undervalued because of their fluky loss last weekend.

As most of you know, the Chiefs lost a heartbreaker last week in Oakland. I've discussed previously the role of recency bias in spread formulation, and there are those who have overreacted to he Chiefs' ugly failure to close out the Raiders last week. The line is this low in part because people will have a hard time overlooking the Chiefs' sloppy play last week. But I'm not all that worried about it.

The Chiefs lost for two basic reasons last week: penalties and poor special teams play. I think both are correctable, especially given that some of the calls were questionable and that special teams have been quite a strength for Kansas City this year. Moreover, the play of the game consisted of an long pass completion inexplicably going right through Brandon Flowers' hands. I have faith in an outstanding Chiefs' coaching staff -- led by the fiery Todd Haley and perhaps the best pair of coordinators in football -- to use that game as a teaching moment and bounce back this week.

After all, the Chiefs' success has not been a statistical mirage this year; they are exhibiting few unsustainable statistical trends or runs of inexplicable luck to account for their victories. As such, I consider the Raiders' sloppiness last week more of an aberration than a burgeoning trend.

And even if the Chiefs were to play that sloppy again, I think they'll win anyway. The Raiders are displaying newfound swagger and poise in big moments, whereas the Broncos have consistently found ways to beat themselves. The Chiefs should be supremely motivated to bounce back from a bad game, particularly given their position in their division. In addition to their rushing attack analyzed above, I expect their young talented defense to be flying around the field. The way that the Raiders beat them -- exploiting their quarters coverages with deep straight-line speed -- is not something that plays well to Orton's weak arm and quick-throw offense.

In other words, I like the fact that the Chiefs lost a game they probably shouldn't have last week. That's a great time to pick a team.

THE COUNTER-ARGUMENT: WHAT ABOUT THE CHIEFS' ROAD WOES?

Admittedly, the Chiefs have struggled on the road this year. Their inability to close teams out on the road have led some Chiefs' blogs to pick against the Chiefs this week. While I would be much more comfortable with this pick were it in Arrowhead, the fact it's in Denver is not enough to sway me off this pick. First, the Chiefs have not played anyone this bad on the road -- indeed, their 4 road games have been a win at Cleveland, and for the most part narrow losses to the Colts, Texans, and Raiders. All 4 teams are significantly better than the Broncos. Moreover, last year the road team won both games between these two teams, with the Chiefs dominating by 20 at Denver. And the Denver homefield advantage has significantly eroded; they are 5-15 ATS in their past 20 home games. And just to put their struggles in perspective, since their very surprising and chimerical 6-0 start last year, the Broncos have lost 14 out of their last 18 games. In part because of that fact, one statistical projection system (Advanced NFL Stats, about which I've written here), projects that the Chiefs have a 65% chance of winning this game. I think that this system, which factors in the home/road splits, underestimates the disarray of the Broncos' team and locker room. Thus, although the road factor worries me, I think the quality differential between the two teams is too much to overcome. Chiefs cover.

Upon Further Review: Packers Cover 45-7

2010-11-09T21:13:00.001-05:00

Well that may be the most correct I've ever been about a prediction. The Packers utterly annihilated the Cowboys. Philips was clearly at a complete loss, and the players expended very little effort. The game wasn't close; the Packers dominated in every phase.

As everyone now knows, the game caused Jerry to finally put Wade out of his misery. There's not much else to say, other than the 2010 Cowboys are perhaps the most pathetic team in NFL history. This was the easiest cover I can remember.

LESSONS LEARNED

1. Sometimes teams are so psychologically broken that they fail to rebound even from rock bottom. The big concern I had entering the game was the laughably pathetic showing the Cowboys had made against Jacksonville the week before. But I explained at length my reasons for thinking that the miserable Boys would fail to improve on that effort, and they incredibly turned in an even worse performance than I expected.

One of the real tricks to assessing football teams is deciphering the true meaning of an extraordinarily poor performance coupled with player discontent. We saw it last week with Dallas, and they followed up with yet more ineptitude. But we also had it weeks 2 and 3 with the Giants, who were first pummeled on national TV by Eli's big brother and then taken advantage of by the Titans the following week. The media had begun to call for Coughlin's head, and players were openly grousing -- the team looked on the brink of collapse. Yet the Giants rallied, won five straight, and are now perhaps the NFC favorite to make the Super Bowl.

The situations are difficult to distinguish. Obviously one could say simply that Coughlin is a better coach than Philips. But I wonder if it that's simple; after all, the Giants imploded last year after a 5-0 start, and there was credible talk that Coughlin's hard-charging style had irretrievably alienated his players.

Upon reflection, there were ample warning signs that portended the Cowboys absolute collapse against the spread. Most prominent was the catalytic event of Romo's injury. I wrote last year in the wake of the Eagles' inexplicable loss to the woeful Raiders of the importance of catalytic events re-orienting the makeup of a team. There, it was Antonio Pierce's harsh criticism of the Raiders, whom his Giants had just destroyed. Here, we had the opposite type of event -- a team that was teetering on the edge of the abyss, laboring under the daunting weight of inflated expectations and its owner/GM's despicable and preening incompetence. When Romo went down, the team deflated, and I witnessed a disturbing lack of effort for the next game and a half. That was what inspired me to pick against them this week, and I'm glad I did so.

On the other hand, the Giants had flown under the radar somewhat heading into the season, and they had a coach with credibility born of Super Bowl success. They were down, but they weren't dead. Hopefully the comparison between the early-season Giants, the Eagles-Raiders, and the 2010 Cowboys will help BadNFL Nation in future weeks sniff out the teams that we should leave for dead, and the ones that we should expect to bounce back.

2. The "Hilton 100" theory suffered two losses this week. While the Giants, who were the runaway leaders in both pick quantity and margin, beat the spread by 28+ points, the Chiefs and Jets both failed to cover, albeit by 1 point each. Thus, the theory is now 6-2 in the last 3 weeks, with a spread differential of about 13 in wins and a loss differential of 1. Still pretty impressive. And as Millman grouses, only fluke plays prevented both losers from covering.

3. Finally, I noted that I was going to monitor the "situation vs. scouting" clash on display in the Colts-Eagles game. Well, the post-bye week Eagles won but failed to cover by 1 point. The excessive citation of the bye-week stat caused me concern, and perhaps for good reason. We heard so much that week about Andy Reid's post-bye week success that I think there was little value in relying on that particular stat. Who knows -- but when I look for situations in the future, I'm much more inclined to seek out those that receive less media attention.

Update: Hilton Contestants Not In Tune with BadNFL This Week

2010-11-06T15:27:00.000-04:00

Well, unlike last week, in which my prediction comported with the consensus of Hilton contestants, this week, not too many contestants are on my side. In fact, the Cowboys at +7.5 received the 5th most votes and the 4th biggest margin. Moreover, among the contestants that are leading the field right now, the Cowboys at +7.5 received the most votes. Yikes.

I have little doubt why that's the case -- simply see the counter-argument noted in my prediction post. Cowboys sunk to rock bottom last week and the line overreacted -- or so the theory goes. I explained why I don't think that's applicable this week, but I admit that it's a powerful argument, particularly when the dumb public is betting the Packers so heavily.

On the other hand, we have 3 more candidates for our "Hilton 100" club, being led by the Giants at -5.5 (received a whopping 151 picks). The Giants also crushed the field in margin, with an absurd +123. I agree that that line seemed pretty solid, although when I looked by the time it was ready to do my post, it had shifted from Giants -5.5 to Giants -7; a shift that certainly would have dissuaded some of the contestants who picked them. The other two picks reaching triple digits were Kansas City +2.5 and Jets -4. Both games were difficult to call for me; I do think that KC will run the ball on Oakland, but they've been bad on the road. And as readers of this blog know, all Detroit does is cover spreads. This will be a real test for the Hilton 100 theory this week.

And here's hoping that all those top contestants were wrong about the Boys. I think they are.

Update: An interesting clash of situation vs. scouting

2010-11-06T15:10:00.000-04:00

The two primary types of analysis in which handicappers engage is technical team analysis and situational analysis. The first focuses on the way that the teams are playing that season -- their yards/attempt stats, advanced metrics like DVOA, the quality of their special teams play, etc. (some call this "technical analysis"). The latter focuses on the two teams' situations -- how they match-up against the opposing team historically, how they do when coming off of a brutal loss, heading for a back-to-back road game, traveling from east to west coast, etc. Most good handicappers seem to focus on a blend between the two. This blog also tries to take both types of analysis into account, although obviously time limitations preclude me from being too sophisticated in the mathematical underpinnings of my technical analysis.

I write about this topic now because one game this weekend starkly demonstrates the clash between these two theories of game prediction: Colts @ Eagles. Many of the key stats and match-ups favor the resurgent Colts, and the Peyton Manning-led Colts have traditionally dominated Andy Reid's Eagles. But then there's this shocking stat: Andy Reid has won all 12 of the post-bye week games that he's coached, many by significant margins. It's true that when you parse the numbers of the teams that he's played, their records don't overwhelm. But that stat is impressive nonetheless, impressive enough to singlehandedly convince some prognosticators, like Bill Simmons, to pick the Eagles this week.

Colts +3 looked good to me initially, but the Andy Reid bye week stat caused me to back off and focus instead on the Packers/Boys. BadNFL will be following the game closely to see how the teams play and how the general media covers the interaction between the X's and O's and the overwhelming history of bye week success that surround this game. Perhaps we can learn something.

Week 9 Pick: Packers -7.5 vs. Cowboys

2010-11-06T12:30:00.002-04:00

As we head into Week 9, this just looks too easy. I knew this was going to be the pick last Sunday afternoon, because let's face it: the Cowboys are an absolute disaster. I was kind of hoping I'd be able to find this line at -6.5, out of some naive hope that the people still thought that the Cowboys would get things together, but I'll have to settle for 7.5 Here's why:

1. The Cowboys -- particularly on defense -- are just going through the motions.

The Cowboys were blown out by a mediocre Jacksonville team last week. It wasn't just the trouncing on the scoreboard that perturbed me; it was the way that the Cowboys totally sacrificed their dignity. Put simply, the Cowboys didn't look like they were trying, and they looked like they really didn't want to be on the field. The team that marched out there last Sunday had no chance, and it's one that was so deflated that the players didn't care about -- and were helpless to stop -- the drubbing that was taking place.

I don't see that mentality letting up soon. Wade Phillips, as much as I've occasionally defended him in the past, is the lamest of ducks. And given that, it's obvious that accountability throughout the organization has simply vanished into the abyss of this disgraceful season. Part of it is that Wade himself is way too lax, part of it is that the players exploit his soft reputation, but the real explanation is that because everyone knows he's gone after the season, he's lost any remaining modicum of credibility in the locker room.

You can see the symptoms everywhere -- players criticizing the coaches' gameplanning, the Cowboys' talented pass rushers failing to generate any pressure on the QB, and the coaches sticking with the stupifying and putrid Alan Ball at free safety. But most of all, you can see it in the body language on the field. The Cowboys don't care anymore, and the score has started to reflect that. As such, I expect the same sorry attitude on the field to continue, and if the Cowboys play anything close to how they did last week, it will be another blowout. Ever since Romo broke his clavicle, that's the way it's been.

2. The Packers are well-suited to exploit the Cowboys' weaknesses.

First and foremost, the Cowboys never play well at Lambeau field. This year, that trend will likely continue, primarily because of the Packers' defensive scheme. Don Capers, even though being forced to adjust to significant defensive injuries, has schemed up one of the most creative defensive systems in football. They might not have as many big name players as we're used to, but the varied defensive fronts, zone blitzes, and pre-snap movement has proved quite confusing to opposing offenses. The film last week of the Packers' shutout of the Jets is impressive indeed, as the Packers totally confused and shut down a talented Jets squad.

This spells particular trouble for the Cowboys, because creative defensive alignments traditionally give Dallas fits. This exact same defense all but shutout the Cowboys last year in Green Bay, and that Cowboys team had its starting quarterback and a lot more pride. In short, the Cowboys have a stupid and poorly coached offensive line that struggles with pre-snap movement, and with the ultra-stationary Jon Kitna in the pocket, things won't likely get better for them this week. The problem will only be compounded by the match-up between the injured and crappy Marc Colombo at RT and the frenetic NFL sack leader Clay Matthews at strong side OLB.

You might say the Cowboys will be able to run the ball against Green Bay to take the pressure off Kitna? Not a chance; the Jaguars ranked in the bottom 3rd of the league stopping the run, and the Cowboys got nothing against them. And although the Packers' rush defense has mediocre overall numbers, they've actually been pretty effective in stopping opposing running backs; it's the mobile QBs like Michael Vick that have tormented them. Since Kitna is obviously anything but mobile, I expect the Packers to easily handle the Cowboys' pitiful running game.

It is true that the Packers' offense has been quite inconsistent this year. But they've averaged 27.5 points a game at home, and the underachieving Cowboys' defense should be just the tonic they need to get going. The Packers have probably weathered the worst of the storm this year, and at 5-3 they possess a nice mixture of confident and motivated. Their film exhibits the opposite mindset from the Cowboys, as they are fiery, intense, and motivated. They should be able to win handily.

THE COUNTER-ARGUMENT: COWBOYS AT ROCK BOTTOM?

I have to admit that everything just seems too easy with this game. The entire nation saw the Cowboys embarrassed last week, and there's a decent chance that I'm hopping on the anti-Cowboys' bandwagon a week too late. Particularly worrisome is the sizable amount of public money coming in on the Packers, which both confirms my fears about a letdown game and further worries the contrarian theorist in me.

The game that I worry this might be scarily similar to? Last year's Raiders-Eagles game, heading into which everyone had written off the Raiders because of a similar laughter-inducing "they've totally given up on the season" type performance the week before. And I did note before the season that Year 1 -- and that Raiders' game in particular -- had taught us the perils of betting against a team that had just reached rock bottom.

I nonetheless love the Packers this week, because I think a couple of factors distinguish this game from games like those I discussed in my preseason preview. Primarily, I see little incentive for the Cowboys to rebound from the rock bottom performance, because, unlike Tom Cable (who is now leading that same Oakland squad back to respectability), Wade Phillips is a lame duck who has totally lost the locker room. Second, Oakland had few expectations heading into last year, which made it less devastating when they played poorly. Conversely, the Cowboys were horrifically overhyped this year, causing Romo's injury and the pathetic play to inflict particularly severe psychological wounds. Unlike the perpetually bad Raiders, I think these Cowboys are mentally regrouping for next year. Finally, the Raiders were at home, while the Cowboys have to travel to Lambeau, a place they never play well. I said early on this year that I need to pay more attention to home/road splits, and this is one circumstance in which the Packers' home mojo makes me less worried about a letdown.

Ultimately, I think that I am, like many sharps, surprised that this line isn't higher. I think the Cowboys might keep it close for a while, but once they fall behind, I see no sign that this team is capable of climbing back into it. Accordingly, I think the Packers might turn it into a laugher in the 4th quarter. I was going to take this game at anything under 10. Packers cover.

Upon Further Review: Lions Cover 37-25

2010-11-02T20:54:00.000-04:00

And just like that, BadNFL is showing signs of life. My week 7 pick turned out quite nicely, and overall I'm feeling cautiously more in tune with the games. We'll see if it continues, but in the meantime, your week 7 Upon Further Review is here.

Don't be fooled by the final score; this game was too close for comfort for 57 minutes. Although the Lions played generally better than the Redskins for most of the game, they were still behind heading into the latter half of the 4th quarter. There were two reasons: the Redskins' Brandon Banks and his seemingly out-of-nowhere dominance in the return game, and Nate Burleson's idiotic fumble. The Burleson play was quite sloppy and took sure points off the board for Detroit, but the real story of the game for the Redskins was Brandon Banks, without whom the Skins would have been blown out of the building.

But blown out they were not, and this was an extremely tight game most of the way through. It was at the end, however, that the fireworks started. The Lions surged to a late 3-point lead, at which point they were covering the spread, and Shanahan proceeded inexplicably to bench McNabb in favor of Rex Grossman. As Bears' fans could have predicted, Grossman immediately turned the ball over, and the incomparable rookie DT Ndamukong Suh scooped the ball up and took it in for a score.

Along the way, many of my expectations for this game proved correct. The Skins' offense continued to struggle, failing to generate much yardage. In particular, the offensive line stunk, yielding 7 sacks and countless hits on McNabb. The Lions were able to run the ball well, for over 4 YPC. But more importantly, Stafford shook off some early rust and threw for 4 touchdowns. My feeling about DeAngelo Hall also proved somewhat accurate -- although he had a nice early interception in the redzone, Calvin Johnson exploded against him for 101 yards and 3 TDs. I also located a statistic, courtesy of Peter King, to back up my assertion that Hall remains wildly overrated: this year, he has allowed the highest completion percentage against of any cornerback in football.

Add it all up, and it produced a nice cover by the Lions. Perhaps I should have gone with the Dolphins, who I liked but leaned away from because of the contrarian theory, but the Lions ended up working out just fine.

LESSONS LEARNED

1. Keep an eye on the Lions. They now sport a nice +18 point differential on the year, including +45 at home. They also move to 6-1 against the spread. As I noted last week, they continue to be underrated among prognosticators, particularly at home.

2. The Skins are a mess, but the window for exploiting their failings may be closing. Many analysts are now recognizing that McNabb's numbers have been horrendous, and the claim that the Skins were suffering bad luck remains ludicrous. More worrisome is Shanahan's decision to bench McNabb and bring on Rex Grossman, as well as his conflicting and incoherent explanations for his decision. They have a bye week next week, but it seems unlikely that the marketplace will continue to overvalue the Redskins moving forward.

3. Keep a long-term perspective. An 0-6 start was pretty depressing, but in the long-run, it's important to stick to one's instincts -- BadNFL is still way under .500, but at least I'm no longer staring directly into the abyss. The importance of the long-term perspective, and riding out anomalies in the first few weeks of the season, is demonstrated by the recent performance by the Raiders. All year long, the sharps have loved Oakland (readers will remember that BadNFL did too). And despite some early struggles, Oakland has now reached 4-4 and is looking like a legitimately competitive team. One can only hope that we'll be able to use similar adjectives about BadNFL someday.

4. The "Hilton 100 theory" picks up steam. I noted last week that those picks were 2-0, beating the spread by an average of 10.5 points. This week, the three qualifying picks (including the Lions pick) went 3-0, beating the spread by an average of 9.75 points. I recognize that the sample size is small, but in the two weeks I've tracked it, we're now at 5-0 with a double digit differential. That's pretty incredible. I'll keep tracking it on this blog, and may try to further work in some Hilton stats into my predictions.

Update: Lions Are Consensus Hilton Pick

2010-10-30T16:22:00.001-04:00

Last week I wrote briefly about a theory that the Hilton Super Contest serves as a prediction market for NFL games, and I also said I'd track the performance of games that receive over 100 picks. This week, there were 3 such games: Saints -1 (110), Lions -2.5 (103), and Miami +2.5 (102). We'll see how these picks do -- keeping in mind that the Fins pick was one that I almost made. Overall, the top 5 picks from the Hilton contest don't do all that well, although that doesn't disprove my theory, because often the level of support for the 4th and 5th games will fall off dramatically.

But most intriguingly, my Lions pick enjoys by far the biggest margin of support this week (+61, or 103 Lions picks vs. 42 Redskins picks). It's a delicate line to tow, given that I premised my pick in large part on betting against the public. But I'm proceeding under a working hypothesis that Hilton contestants enjoy an advantage against the general public, and that this news is thus good news. At the very least, it means that my thinking this week is consistent with those who actually gamble, for a living (for the most part, at least -- I was inclined to take the Steelers and not at all impressed by the Saints -1 line). We'll see.

Week 8 Pick: Lions -2.5 vs. Redskins

2010-10-30T13:26:00.003-04:00

Fresh off my first win of the season, will the success continue this week? I started out tempted by Dolphins +1.5 @ Bengals, for reasons essentially captured by Simmons this week, but I couldn't pull the trigger in large part because of the overwhelming amount of public money on the Dolphins. For reasons explained below, I ended up going with the Lions instead.

1. The Skins are deceptively bad right now.

Most writers seem to think that the Skins have acquired an aura of respectability. Peter King even thinks that they may have a shot in the NFC title race. Of course, they're off what seems like a good road win last week against the 4-3 Bears. But their 4-3 record is full of a lot of really close, somewhat fluky wins, wins that have masked some serious deficiencies. Their offensive line is quite precarious and struggling with injury, and McNabb's play has epitomized maddening inconsistency.

But most troublingly, the Redskins' yardage stats are atrocious: they are next-to-last in the NFL in yards allowed on defense. In other words, this has been an extremely porous unit worse than the maligned defenses of the Bills, Cardinals, and Jaguars. To be sure, there have been the predictable stories about how the Redskins are forcing lots of turnovers, due to coordinator's Jim Haslett's practice techniques. In those stories, the Skins' players and commentators compare the Skins defense to that of the 2009 Saints, which was a porous but turnover-forcing unit. But those Saints were able to win with a historically high-powered offense driven by Drew Brees and his array of weapons, something to which this Skins offense, ranked 19th in the league in offensive DVOA, pales in comparison. Moreover, even adjusting for turnovers (as FO's defensive DVOA does), the Skins defense is in the bottom third of the league.

As I pointed out in my preseason analysis of the Saints' likely crash back down to earth (which does appear to be happening), turnovers are a tricky thing that fluctuate wildly week to week. To that point, not every game is going to be as ridiculously ugly as the Skins win over the Bears last week. Instead, this week I expect the Skins' atrocious 4.7 YPC allowed on the ground to rear its head, a facet of the game that will energize Best and the entire Lions' offense.

What is McNabb's explanation for their shaky play, notwithstanding their 4-3 record? Incredibly, he claims that they've been unlucky and that breaks haven't generally gone their way. But to claim that the Skins have suffered bad luck this year severely strains credulity. Let us review the ways in which the Skins have won games this year:

A holding call on Alex Barron negates what otherwise would have been the gamewinning touchdown for the Cowboys, converting a sure loss into a Skins win.
Against the Packers, in a game in which the Packers lost their Pro Bowl LB and TE to fluky injuries in the 1st quarter, Green Bay's FG bounces off the left upright as time expires to send the game to OT, allowing the Skins to win the game on a field goal.
Last week, the Redskins went 7 for 8 in recovering their own fumbles, which has to be an NFL all-time record. As people who read either this blog or FO know, fumble recoveries are generally pure luck. Seven for eight is, needless to say, quite lucky.
In that same game, McNabb had what would have been a backbreaking pick-6 negated by his own delay-of-game penalty that nobody heard (remember: they won this game by 3 points).
He's also had passes like this: deflected balls that rebound right to his receivers.
Key players on opposing teams have gotten hurt at an absurd rate in the middle of Redskins' games -- and not because of hard hits, but because of pulled hamstrings and other random events.

In other words, the Redskins have been the luckiest team in the league this year. But I'm not sure people in general -- and certainly not McNabb -- have realized it. Instead, they win ugly games, like last week's, in which Jay Cutler was more responsible for the Redskins' victory than anything Washington did. Of course, much is being made of DeAngelo Hall's undeniably nice game, in which he had 4 interceptions. But as I pointed out last week, Cutler is playing scared because of all the hard hits and sacks to which he's been subjected, and the interceptions were largely the fruit of his erratic play. Watch these interceptions: while the first one is a legitimately nice play, the others are classic Cutler -- back foot, wild throws that are easy pickings. This week, Hall is going to be matched up with the supremely talented Calvin Johnson, who is quite an upgrade over the Bears' middling WRs from last week. Given that DeAngelo Hall tends to be inconsistent from week to week, and is generally overrated, I expect him to have a subpar performance this week.

But why did I start out by emphasizing the Skins' inflated value? Because this pick presents a great opportunity to test out the contrarian theory that I briefly explored last week. In short, the Redskins are receiving 70% of the money this week, a fact that the stats suggest is a bad sign for them covering. Also, if you track the betting trends throughout the week (and the way that the line has been pushed up while the overall money stays heavily on the Skins), it confirms what Millman recently reported: that the Sharps have been buying the Lions strong while the public stays on the overrated Skins. The contrarian theory -- perhaps particularly appropriate in a year in which nothing related to the NFL seems to make much sense and in which the public is usually wrong -- suggests that now is a great time to pick the Lions.

2. Lions are significantly underrated, particularly at home.

The Lions are the best team in the league against the spread with a 5-1 record. Particularly intriguing is their point differential: despite their 1-5 record, they've scored more points than they've allowed. Given this point differential, their pythagorean record, which is in the long run a more accurate assessment of a team's quality than its actual win-loss record -- is closer to 4-3. They're also showing signs of improvement each week and might be a late blooming team this year.

I particularly like the Lions' defensive line, and the Lions' consonant ability to stop the Redskins' zone-blocking rushing scheme. But primarily, the Lions have been somewhat banged up, but they're coming out of their bye week much healthier than they've been. And although they've been somewhat inconsistent in the red zone, as BadNFL followers painfully remember, there are reasons to think that they'll perform better coming off a bye and a previous poor performance. Moreover, the Lions beat the Skins last year to snap a 19 game losing streak, and they look much better at home this year.

THE COUNTER-ARGUMENT: STAFFORD GROWING PAINS?

My main worry is that Stafford, in his first game back and pressing too much, might throw a lot of Cutler-esque interceptions. But he's looked good in practice and should be ready to run the entire offense. And more importantly, I expect the rejuvenated and talented rookie Jahvid Best to control the game on the ground against the Skins' porous rush defense, obviating the need for Stafford to sling it around too much.

Ultimately, this is the 2nd of back-to-back road trips for the Skins, and they've demonstrated a tendency to play down to the level of weaker opponents this year. I don't think they'll have the same turnover-inducing magic that they did last week, and thus I like the Lions to win. Admittedly, given the Skins' penchant for close games this year, I wouldn't like this game nearly as much if it were at -3. But if it stays below that key number, I'm taking it. Lions cover.

Upon Further Review: Skins Cover!!!

2010-10-26T22:43:00.001-04:00

Jay Cutler and the Bears' O-Line, I love you! Oh how sweet it feels; for the first time since January, BadNFL has a positive week. Although the Skins did everything possible to blow this game, they did manage to cover. Put simply, the QB play was atrocious.

Cutler obviously threw some backbreaking interceptions, but his fumble on the 1 yard-line on a QB sneak was particularly devastating. To be sure, Lovie probably should have challenged it, but that failure speaks volumes about the state of the Bears' organization. Some analysts argue that the breakdown extends beyond Cutler to the entire offensive system, as the breakdowns across the board leave the team in danger of unraveling.

He was under a lot of pressure from the Redskins' defensive line, which was bolstered by Albert Haynesworth long overdue emergence. And as I predicted, Orapko was a constant presence. But overall, this was about Cutler, and the Bears, being still significantly overrated. It is true that the Bears outgained the Skins by nearly a yard and a half per play. It is also true that the Redskins' offense failed to take advantage of numerous opportunities to close out the game. But this game was about the Bears' self-inflicted wounds (reminds me of the Cowboys) and allowing the Redskins to cover in an exceedingly sloppy game.

LESSON LEARNED

1. Identify QBs who are structurally flawed. Jay Cutler, take a bow. To his credit, he's taken a lot of hits, but because of it he's looked like he's playing scared, unable to make good decisions. Last week, that resulted in him holding the ball too long and getting repeatedly sacked -- something that BadNFL fans watched in agony. This week, it resulted in him chucking the ball up for grabs. His INTs were the story of the game, and despite a very uneven performance by the Skins, they still covered.

Next time we see a gunshy QB like that, one who has been seriously rattled by the pressure, picking against is a great idea. Of course, the counter-argument is that Sanchez looked totally overwhelmed week 1, and we all know what happened with his improbable bounceback against the Pats the following week.

2. The Skins' have been ugly but effective. This was yet another Skins' game that was so ugly it was hard to watch. But like most of their games (5 of their last 6 have been decided by 5 points or fewer, and 4 by exactly 3 points), it came down to 3 points, and this time the Skins' managed to pull it off. Morale of the story? The Skins are looking like a team I would never want to pick if they were favored, but as 3+ point underdog, they've proven pretty reliable.

3. Pay attention to the actual Hilton Contest. For those of you who don't know, this is a collection of mostly sharps who play for a major prize, picking 5 games each week. Given the number of participants, general quality of the players, and huge economic incentive for well thought-out picks, I've pondered whether the pool of Hilton contestants might serve as a prediction market (a concept that is gaining favor among many economists as outperforming statistical prediction) in which the wisdom of qualified crowds generates accurate predictions.

I've started systematically tracking the results this week, and I'm going to keep track of the performance, against the spread, of any pick that receives at least 100 Hilton picks (there are usually only 2 teams per week that qualify). This week, those two picks were Seattle -5.5 vs. Cardinals and Chiefs -7 vs. Jacksonville. Both teams covered easily, by an average of 10.5 points beyond the spread. That will be an interesting trend to monitor.

4. Conversely, beware the "wisdom" of the public. Chad Millman had a post this week in which he pointed out some remarkable stats: since 2003, when 65% of the public money comes in on one team, the other team covers 56% of the time. This year, such public-backed teams were 18-26 coming into Week 7 -- only a 40% win percentage.

Very interesting. The game singled out by Millman as being well-suited to the deployment of "contrarian logic" (i.e. betting against the public) was the Browns +13 @ Saints. Well, that obviously would have been a great pick. Especially betting against an overrated team like the Saints, coming off what was apparently a one-week mirage against the Bucs. In retrospect, I think that may have been the soundest pick of the week. In any event, check back next week to see if I can get that elusive 2nd win of the season.

Week 7 Pick: Redskins +3 @ Bears

2010-10-23T11:40:00.000-04:00

Short post this week, because I'm too busy being elated about the Rangers to really care much about my crappy picks. In short: Cutler looks like a deer in the headlights, Orapko is going to have a huge game against the Bears' horrendous offensive line, and the Bears aren't going to score many points. Meanwhile, if the Bears do win, they typically win close ones, and I like the points.

Or, alternatively, this post guarantees that the Bears are going to dominate the Redskins. Such has been the way things are going this year. I'll get up the stamina and motivation to write lengthy posts again if I ever manage to make a successful pick. Which doesn't seem all that likely right now.

Week 6 Pick: Bears -6.5 vs. Seahawks

2010-10-13T22:02:00.002-04:00

I despise Jay Cutler. But I'm going with him this week. I basically only have one reason: Seattle is atrocious on the road. Look at their point differentials: they're +32 at home and -34 on the road. This is also not just a 1-year anomaly, as they were just as putrid on the road last year. For those of you who have followed the BadNFL carnage this year, you'll remember week 1 and my underestimation of the Qwest Field advantage. The flip side of that advantage is that the Seahawks play without energy on the road, and they consequently tend to get spanked.

Cutler also seems good to go for this week, and despite the Bears' extraordinarily sloppy win over the Panthers last week, I think that Cutler will make them a lot better (I also think that his bad performance against the Giants can be attributed to the Giants' dominating D-line and Cutler's ongoing struggles at night). This is a day game, against a team that I continue to think is bad, playing at Soldier field. He'll be fine.

More importantly, I've been much impressed by the Bears' defense. Peppers is dominating, and the Seattle offensive line -- including Russell Okung playing his first full game in the NFL, coming off an ankle injury, will struggle. The Bears have shown a tendency to generate points off defense and special teams, eerily reminiscent of their 2006 season. I expect that trend to continue this week.

Yes, Cutler's Bears have not won many blowouts; their largest win, before last week's slopfest against Carolina, was by 7 over Dallas. But Seattle has made a habit of being blown out on the road. I thus think the Bears will cover this.

OTHER PICKS -- HILTON STYLE

As I said last week, I'm going to pick a few more games, in abbreviated form, just for fun at the bottom of each post. I unsurprisingly started off terribly last week, going 1-4. This week, I like:

Falcons + 3 @ Eagles. Falcons are playing like the NFC's best team, and the Eagles have been quite inconsistent. I like the points here.
Bucs +4.5 vs. Saints. I almost picked this game as my main pick -- the Saints are playing really bad football and Tampa Bay is young and energetic, and they're playing at home. Tampa Bay is certainly better than the Cardinals, to whom the Saints lost rather handily last week. I thought this game would be a pick 'em, so at +4.5, I love the Bucs.
Colts -3 @ Redskins. You never pick against Peyton Manning in a night game. I'm sure that's what Simmons will write this week, and I subscribe to that theory.
Chiefs +4.5 @ Texans. The Chiefs acquitted themselves well in a narrow loss against Indy last week, and I think we may be overrating the Texans based upon their admittedly impressive week 1 performance. But it's now week 6, and the Chiefs shouldn't be getting this many points.

Only the Cowboys need a win more than BadNFL this week. LET'S GO BEARS!!

Upon Further Review: Cowboys Lose 27-34.

2010-10-11T16:32:00.001-04:00

Yet another Monday leaves me trotting out the same old tired refrain: things did not go as expected. What a disappointing weekend. I was obviously wrong about the Cowboys being mentally prepared emerging from their bye; they lost despite having a 400 yard passer and well over 100 yards on the ground. Jean-Jacques Taylor of the DMN put it well:

It happened Sunday because these Cowboys play with the consistency of a six-year-old’s flag football team. Mental mistakes. Physical mistakes. Dumb mistakes.

That was the story of the game, and the Cowboys blew it with mistake after mistake. I'm at a loss to explain it, except that the Cowboys have some stupid players and lax coaches. So much for the great practices and bye week history of success that I wrote about.

Also give credit to the Titans; they found a way to make plays when it mattered, and their defensive line was very impressive. In fact, they've now won 2 games in which they've been seriously outgained (the other was the game where the Giants imploded even worse than the Cowboys). Sharps and stats people generally say that such trends aren't sustainable. We'll see.

My only consolation is that many actual bettors and sharps did terribly this week. As Millman wrote:

But this year, no one -- 'dogs or favorites -- has been showing enough consistency that people can get a read on where the value is. When I was trolling through the viewfromvegas.com forums last week, people were lamenting how tough it was to handicap this week's 'dog slate.

No kidding. The underdogs have been dominating lately, but it's been difficult to get a good sense of which dogs will play well. Detroit is the most obvious example -- they've now covered in 4 of their 5 games, the lone exception being when they were a double-digit dog to the 1-2 Vikings (and of course the one week that BadNFL picked them).

What do I wish my strategy had been through this point in the season? I wish I had stayed true to two of my preseason convictions -- that the Saints were seriously overrated and that the Bills were the worst team in the league. The Saints have stayed true to the form that I thought they would take, failing to cover in 3 straight now, including an awful loss to the Cardinals. The Bills look as bad as ever, losing handily to a Jacksonville team that struggles mightily on the road. If my predictions had simply stuck to those convictions, my record would be much better. As it stands, however, the blog falls to 0-5, and my Hilton Contest feature that I debuted last week opens with a putrid 1-4 (thanks Atlanta!).

I've essentially now written off this season, but am going to stick with this in the hopes that I can continue to learn and wow everyone with an amazing Year 3.

Week 5 Pick: Cowboys -6.5 vs. Titans

2010-10-07T22:44:00.000-04:00

Well, it's come to this: desperate to break a miserable streak to start the season, I must be crazy, because I'm latching onto the Cowboys (readers will remember how poorly this went last time I tried it). But despite my general dislike of much that goes on at Valley Ranch these days, I feel good about this line. Here's why:

1. The Cowboys are coming off a bye.

It may surprise many, if not most of you, that I am actually touting Wade Phillips as a reason to like the Cowboys this week. After all, the man does have his detractors. But I've always been a little higher on him than most from a tactical standpoint, and I'm particularly high on his ability to coach after the bye week. Admittedly, the bye statistically unimportant in general (a fact I've pointed out before). But with the Cowboys -- particularly in the Wade Phillips era -- it makes a difference. In short, the Cowboys have been fantastic after byes under the Phillips regime. I went back and looked at the stats: they had a 36-21 win vs. the Falcons, a 14-10 win at Washington, and a 38-17 win vs. the Eagles. They covered the spread in all 3 games, and all 3 opponents were .500 or better. The Cowboys streak of post-bye wins also extends back 2 additional years into the Parcells' era.

Of course, it's possible with a sample size that small that the Cowboys' recent bye week success is just an anomoly -- a random fluctuation that has little relationship to what will happen this year. But I think it reflects Wade's ability to use the time off to ratchet up the sophistication level of the Cowboys' defensive schemes. Using Pro Football Reference, I went back and cross-checked the post-bye performances of Phillips' Chargers when he was the defensive coordinator, and they gave up an average of only 14.3 points in those games. Likewise, recent history suggests that the Cowboys have been effective at bouncing back from losses and using the bye to establish momentum.

I like their chances to do so again this year. The vibes are fantastic coming out of Valley Ranch; the Boys have been practicing intensely and well during the time off, with a focus on football and a blessed lack of hype or distraction. Moreover, they are, for the first time this year, quite healthy. And most importantly, I think scheme -- and time to gameplan -- matters an unusual amount when playing the Titans. The Titans present a unique schematic problem for opposing coordinators: Vince Young's ability to run the ball, combined with Chris Johnson's shifty and explosive running style, make scheme and defensive discipline paramount. The Cowboys have been making progress on both those fronts, and I think the bye hastens that progress.

I also just really like where this Cowboys team is right now. They're not too hyped (they're last in the division), but given the dearth of dominant NFC teams, they're far from dead. For those of us familiar with the Cowboys' history, that's exactly when this team thrives. They're flying under the radar, but they are coming off a terrific performance against a good Texans' team, and their front 7 on defense has the makings of a truly elite unit.

Thus, although more people are starting to pick up on the Boys' bye week secret, this line still seems a little low.

2. The Cowboys can take away what the Titans do best.

Put simply, the Cowboys' 3-4 scheme excels in stopping the run. They are terrific at containing elite running backs, as only 3 backs have rushed for 100 yards in the past 2 seasons (look at what AP did against them last time). Indeed, one of the real trademarks of the Phillips scheme has been its relative invulnerability to dominant rushing teams. Given the time to scheme provided by the bye, I think that the rush defense will be even stronger than usual.

If they can do that, I like their chances to win handily. VY, while an exciting young QB, has yet to show that he can take over a game through the air against a good team. In fact, this year the Titans' have shown an alarming inability to generate explosive vertical plays -- something teams really need to be successful in this wide-open league. Part of this is undoubtedly playcalling, but part of it is that both Chris Johnson and the offensive line look out of sync. You know they're in trouble because last week they had the game against the Broncos well in hand yet allowed the Broncos back in the game. If the Cowboys can limit their exposure to explosive running plays, which I think they can, I think they can generate a significant lead.

THE COUNTER-ARGUMENT: THE TITANS PASS RUSH

Faithful readers know how much emphasis BadNFL places on a good pass rush, and the Titans have had a good one. Actually, they're tied for 1st in the NFL with 16 sacks. That said, it doesn't overly worry me this week. The Titans have impressively rallied to overcome injury thus far, but the loss of Derrick Morgan will really stretch their already precarious depth. It was arguably their lack of depth -- and the corresponding propensity of their defense to wear down late in games -- that enabled the Orton-led comeback last week.

Moreover, the Cowboys have been decent in protection this year. Doug Free, who was for many the team's biggest question mark as the season began, has played admirably. Surprisingly, the Cowboys also lead the league in fewest sacks allowed (although Alex Barron's holds saved a few otherwise sacks). While the Titans will get some pressure, I expect the Boys to be able to put up plenty of points to cover this spread. Before I even saw this line, I knew I would likely be taking it -- and at under a touchdown, I'm loving it.

Cowboys cover, and BadNFL finally gets off the schneid this week.

NEW FEATURE

At the behest of one of BadNFL's good buddies, one of the co-authors of the fine blog that is Vandy Sports Line (a must read for any SEC or even CFB fan), I'm taking this opportunity to add a new feature. Modeled on the Las Vegas Hilton Suprecontest, about which I wrote here, I'm going to pick 4 additional games each week at the bottom of my main post. Although the focus will still be on my main prediction, and my analysis will be quite brief of the additional games, I figure it'll be a good chance to get more predictions out there and, in times like these, balance out tough-to-swallow loss streaks. This week, my additional games are:

Atlanta -3 @ Cleveland. Cleveland, while better than we thought, isn't a great team, and they're coming off a feel-good win against the Bengals. I think Atlanta is still underrated, and like their chances to cover on the road.

St. Louis +3 @ Detroit. St. Louis has looked quite good in the past 2 weeks, and Detroit has yet to win a game. Although I'm a little concerned about the Rams going on the road, I think it'll be a close game and I like the points.

Denver +7 @ Baltimore. That was a huge, huge win for Flacco and the Ravens last week. I expect a major letdown against a frisky Broncos team this week. Seven points is too many.

NO -7 @ Arizona. I don't love New Orleans right now, but Arizona is absolutely atrocious, and I think the Saints will eek out a double digit win.

Check back next week to see how I do!

Update: Not Helping Matters

2010-10-04T22:20:00.000-04:00

Millman today writes about the scene in Vegas when the Ravens won the game on their final drive, explaining that:

And when you have picked the Pittsburgh Steelers minus-1.5 over the Baltimore Ravens and they are up by four with 68 seconds left and the Ravens have to drive 60 yards against the best defense in the league, you should expect to be able to comfortably change the channel so you can lend your betting karma to the Cleveland Browns.

Not when BadNFL has picked the Steelers though. I'm just shaking my head.

Upon Further Review: the misery continues

2010-10-03T16:43:00.000-04:00

If any of you happen to take a trip to Vegas in the near future, you might want to just place a bet down on the opposite of whatever BadNFL picks, because that is a surefire lock. I'm not even going to wait for the recaps to come out on this game, because I'm just too pissed and want to get this off my chest.

1. The Steelers imploded in the final 2 minutes. They had a 4-point lead and the ball with 2:40 left, and the Ravens had one timeout. In other words, it's looking pretty good, right? But the play-by-play at that point reads like the description of a poorly coached high school team. False start, false start, holding, interspersed with 3 bad runs. The result is that the Ravens get the ball back at the Steelers 39 yard line. Of course, given that it's the Steelers defense against Joe Flacco, at Heinz field, with no timeouts and only 1 minute remaining, I would normally like my chances. But the football gods knew that BadNFL picked the Steelers, and the Ravens scored on 4 easy plays -- that last of which saw T.J. "so washed up that he was cut by the offensively challenged Seahawks" Houshmandzadeh horribly burning the Steelers on a double move. Why a smart defensive unit like the Steelers falls for a double f'ing move with only 30 seconds left, up by 4 I have no idea. But it happened, and my prediction bombs again.

2. The Lions. I absolutely love that they play the Packers, in Lambeau, to a 2-point game this week. I guess they got all of their punt muffing, dual goal line pick-throwing, non-Percy Harvin covering incompetence out of their system last week, I guess. They've now easily covered in 3 of their 4 games, as have the Steelers. Guess which one in which they didn't? That's right, in weeks that BadNFL picked them.

3. Charlie Batch was not good -- he missed several deep balls that he should have had, looked very nervous in the pocket, and didn't generate much of anything through the air. Of course nobody is that surprised by that. But Mendenhall barely averaging over 3 yards per carry, a week after Peyton Hillis abused the Ravens' defense? Yep, makes sense, I guess.

4. Jeff Reed. At least one pattern continued: every team that BadNFL has picked this year has missed at least 1 FG, usually 2. Reed was 0/2, which didn't help anything.

5. What I should have picked: Jets -6 @ the Bills. I already said the Bills were the worst team in the league, so it's unclear why I wouldn't pick an OK team against them. The Jets absolutely abused them, and that one I should have seen coming.

Update: Hilton Contestants Following BadNFL?

2010-10-03T09:32:00.001-04:00

Courtesy of Chad Millman, we find out this morning that Steelers -1.5 is one of the consensus picks in the Las Vegas Hilton Supercontest. Although when I checked the pick compilations, it looks like 100 contestants have picked Steelers -1.5, while 86 have picked Ravens +1.5 (so it seems like far from a solid consensus). Still, I'm surprised at how much action this game is getting on both sides; it has to be the most heavily picked game of the contest.

One explanation may be the desire to bet against the "hot" team. Millman explained this basic theory earlier this week; the idea is that by betting against the hot team, you capitalize on the recency bias that infects many prognosticators' approach to these games (a topic we've covered extensively here before on BadNFL).

Still, that 100 people picked the same game I did is interesting; it was the 3rd most popular prediction of the week, and that was at -1.5, whereas the line was at -1 at the time of my post. We'll see. I'm feeling good about it, but we all know that hasn't meant much of anything this year...

Week 4 Pick: Steelers -1 vs. Ravens

2010-09-29T22:11:00.000-04:00

I hope I'm not a week too late jumping on the bandwagon. I loved the Steelers heading into the season, and
I strongly considered picking the Steelers in week 2 (+6 @ Titans) and last week (-4 @ Bucs), but both times was dissuaded by their crappy QB situation. I also pondered picking against the Ravens both the last two weeks when they failed to cover. Not again. Thus, while I strongly looked at Rams +1 and Miami +1 this week, I love the Steelers. Here's why:

1. The Ravens will struggle mightily to score points.

As loyal readers of this blog know, I am no Joe Flacco fan. As I pointed out here, he struggles to throw the ball vertically (despite great natural arm strength) and holds the ball way too long -- as typified by this horrible sack-fumble. The general public -- and the pundits -- seem to continue to be high on Flacco, despite his pitiful 66.3 QB rating. While it is true that he's coming off a good day, I can't emphasize enough that it was against the Browns, a team that decided it was smart to play Boldin in single coverage with a below-average corner for most of the game. On top of that, Flacco's best throw of the day was on a horribly busted coverage.

He's not going to get those same opportunities this week. In 2 road games this year, Flacco has put up a total of 20 points. And while I admit that one of those games was against the Jets, their defense hasn't been all that great of late. Flacco has not performed well historically against the Steelers; he's 1-4 against them. That one win was last year, in which he did have a decent day on the way to 20 points, but of course the Steelers were missing Troy Polamalu and Aaron Smith. Polamalu is, I think, the best defensive player in the NFL; his versatility is the linchpin of Dick LeBeau's defense, and the Steelers are a totally different team without him. In addition, Aaron Smith is a very solid and underrated DE in that 3-4 scheme. Flacco is not going to have the same success this week that he had in that 1 home win last year.

And make no mistake, the Steelers' defense is playing at a dominant level right now. They have beaten three teams who are all 2-1 and who have lost only to the Steelers. They are executing LeBeau's game plan to perfection and generating pressure even when their superb pair of OLBs don't get to the QB. In short, I expect Flacco to have a fairly miserable day. And while Ray Rice has had success in the past against the Steelers, he's banged up, and his success in the past against the Steelers has stemmed from bouncing the ball outside, something significantly complicated by the return of Aaron Smith. While I think he'll give the Steelers' rush defense their stiffest test of late, that defense has been simply suffocating -- a trend I expect to continue.

2. The Steelers will generate plenty of yardage on the ground.

Here's something most people find surprising: the Ravens are yielding a healthy 4.7 yards per rush attempt this year. Peyton Hillis just ran right through them last week. And the Steelers are well-situated to exploit the Ravens' porous rush defense. The Steelers call the most rushes of any team in the league, and Mendenhall looks fantastic thus far. The return of Max Starks, coupled with steady improvement by the rest of the line, has given Mendenhall plenty of holes through which to run. I think the success on the ground enables the Steelers to score enough to win this week.

Of course, the Ravens will likely take their scouts' advice and deploy 8-man fronts to slow down the Pittsburgh ground game. After all, they're starting Charlie Batch! The thing is, Batch was actually decent last week. I especially liked Batch's ability to make adjustments after getting picked off early (by the solid Aqib Talib). No, I don't necessarily expect him to throw for 3 TD's again, since he's not playing the Bucs again. \But I also think prognosticators err when they equate this Ravens' secondary with those of the past. Look at the QB's they've played against: the inconsistent Mark Sanchez on a day when he never even attempted to throw the ball downfield, Carson Palmer -- who is having an abysmal year, and Seneca Wallace. And Wallace played pretty decently against the Ravens' secondary. Don't forget, the Ravens were losing 14-17 in the 4th quarter against a bad Browns team. While Batch is obviously nothing to write home about, I think he could have some success against the Ravens if they load up against the run. At bottom, the Ravens' pass defense was bad heading into the year, and I think the poor quality of QB's they've faced thus far have masked their deficiencies. In other words, it's a perfect time to bet against them.

THE COUNTER-ARGUMENT: STEELERS TAKE IT EASY AS BIG BEN'S RETURN APPROACHES?

I'm a little worried that the Steelers will rest on their laurels now that they've secured a winning sans-Ben record. And the media coverage of Roethlisberger's return is already heating up. But I think that this team has been playing with a chip on its shoulder, and I suspect that continues this week. They seem inspired by Batch, and there's certainly no love lost between these heated AFC North rivals.

I certainly don't anticipate another Steelers' blowout. But this line is so small that it's too hard to pass up. The Steelers have been the best team in the NFL thus far, while the Ravens are overrated. In fact, I think that after the Steelers expose the Ravens this week, there will be plenty of stories about how "the Ravens aren't who we thought they were" or about waiting for Ed Reed to get back. So picking against them now comes at the right time, because they're coming off a win, but one in which they really weren't that impressive. There are enough people out there saying that "a win is a win" that I think this line is kept artificially low. In fact, I employed virtually the same logic last year, successfully picking against the Ravens coming off a unimpressive win over the Browns.

Ultimately, using FO's DVOA metrics -- something I vowed to do more of this year -- the Steelers are ranked 3rd and the Ravens 18th. Plus, the Steelers are at home, a place where they've already knocked off a very good Atlanta team and where Flacco typically struggles. While I wouldn't be at all shocked if this game was decided by a field goal, I think that as long as the line is under 3, I'm taking the Steelers and feeling good about it. Pittsburgh covers.

Upon Further Review: Lions Lose 10-24

2010-09-27T21:43:00.001-04:00

I'm one loss away from changing this site's name to AtrociousNFL. I simply couldn't pick my way out of a paper bag right now. What's weird is that, like I pointed out last week, I'm actually feeling pretty in tune with the NFL right now, given that of the 5 lines I circled to potentially pick (Titans +3, Cowboys +3, Falcons +3.5, Colts -5.5, and Lions +11.5), only 1 failed to cover. Of course, that one pick was the one I wrote up, and now I have to figure out what happened. Again.

As you know, the Vikings got their first win of the season at the Lions' expense, and the 14-point margin of victory was enough to cover the 11.5 spread. The game was frustrating because, in large part, the premise of the prediction looked accurate. Brett Favre again looked terrible -- he threw 2 more INTs, and almost as importantly had 2 more negated by stupid Lions' penalties. The Lions' defensive line played well, and they beat up on Favre. But the story of the game was simply Lions' mistakes. They botched a punt, blew a coverage (even Favre and the dysfunctional Vikings' offense can hit this), and threw some backbreaking interceptions. In other words, they played like the Lions' usually do on the road.

LESSON LEARNED

Not much. I knew that the Lions' were a risk, and were likely to implode and lose the game. But they should have covered this spread. They missed an easily makeable low-pressure FG that would have caused them to cover, and even more brutally, Shawn Hill threw not one, but two backbreaking goalline interceptions in the final 4 minutes -- either of which would have easily been enough to cover. Their phenom running back, Jahvid Best, was injured midway through the 2nd quarter. Adrian Peterson, whom Brad Childress usually has trouble sticking with, broke off an 80 yard run and singlehandedly willed the Vikings' offense to respectability.

In other words, this game really should have been closer. I guess the lesson is to beware betting on teams that are really bad. But that's obvious. It looked for most of this game like the Lions were going to cover, and they didn't, because of a combination of bad luck and idiotic mistakes. While I'm kicking myself for not picking the Colts -5.5 instead -- Peyton Manning is just so much less risky than the Lions -- I still like this bet and am rueful at my bad luck that it didn't cover. But there's no huge lesson learned here, I don't think: the Vikings still look bad and Detroit should have kept it close enough to cover.

Week 3 Pick: Lions +11.5 @ Vikings

2010-09-24T22:09:00.000-04:00

Well it's hard to feel confident after starting off the season in such disappointing fashion. In any event, I'm taking the Lions. Here's why:

1. The Vikings are discombobulated on offense.

If you've watched the Vikings' first two games, you know what I mean. In week 1, Favre missed tons of open receivers against a mediocre Saints' defense. Then last week, he was simply awful, displaying legendarily poor decisionmaking and turning the ball over repeatedly.

Favre's public statements give me little confidence they'll get things turned around. He's old, he's not on the same page as his receivers, and their offensive line is a mess. I think Simmons was right on in his NFL preview this year; the Vikings had a magical season last year but are primed for a major regression, and are in fact showing such a regression.

The team they most remind me of? The 2009 Tennessee Titans. Those Titans were coming off a magical and unexpected season, had an elite running back, but also had an older QB who had enjoyed somewhat of a renaissance the year before. And they also started 0-2, yet everyone (including me) kept insisting they would turn it around. They didn't, at least not until Vince Young provided them a spark.

In my notes after the game in which Tennessee was annihilated week 3 by a bad Jacksonville team, I laid out some principles to look for in the future. In particular, focus on the veteran QB primed for a return to reality (Kerry Collins and Favre), the offseason loss of a key player (Haynesworth and Sidney Rice/Chester Taylor), and a prior fantastic regular season but brutal playoff loss (obviously true of both). In short, I think Minnesota is in real trouble, and won't get it together for quite some time.

2. The Lions are an improving club.

I love the Lions' defensive line. The arrival of Vanden Bosch and Suh have transformed this unit. It's true that Stafford is out again, but the Lions -- and particularly Jahvid Best -- have demonstrated an improving ability to put up points. They certainly did struggle to contain Vick last week, but I think they'll have a better chance against what is a pretty bad Vikings' offense. I think a good defensive line is the backbone for a good team, and I think the Lions' front-4 have a chance to be the story of this game.

But the real key is that this line is huge. I initially saw it and expected it to be around 6, and thought I might like the Lions even then. But +11.5 is a ton of points, especially with a bad 0-2 team who is probably taking this game for granted. Favre looks like he wants no part of playing, and I think the Vikings will act like it, which won't be good against a solid Lions squad that has suffered two narrow losses -- one of which inaugurated the "Calvin Johnson rule" -- in which they deserved better.

THE COUNTER-ARGUMENT: THE VIKINGS HAVE PLAYED 2 REALLY GOOD TEAMS SO FAR

It's true, the Vikings have suffered close losses to the Saints and the Dolphins, both of whom certainly look better than the Lions. But they've also scored only 19 points in that time, and after looking at the film of both losses, I think they demonstrated more about the Vikings' shortcomings than the strengths of the other team.

It's entirely possible that the Vikings get things turned around this week. If they do, I will likely be writing next week about the bounceback game for Favre (and mournfully analogizing it to that Sanchez game this week) and about how the Lions never ever win in the Metrodome.

But I just hate everything I've seen from the Vikings this year, and while it's possible -- even probable -- that the Lions will blow it against them, 11.5 is just too many points to be giving for what has looked like an old, slow, injured, out-of-sync and poorly coached team. Lions cover.

Upon Further Review: Pats Lose 14-28

2010-09-24T19:24:00.001-04:00

Yuck, what a terrible week 2. Cowboys played terribly and BadNFL moved to 0-2. Definitely did not see that coming. It was made even more disappointing because I wrote out a list of 5 games to pick, and I hit 4 out of 5, yet decided to write up the Pats for the blog, and it backfired. I now proceed to the unpleasant task of explaining why.

In short, Mark Sanchez outplayed Tom Brady. In fact, the Sanchize without a doubt played the best game of his career. In contrast, Brady summed it up best when he said "we sucked." The Pats' offensive ineptitude was even more disappointing given that Revis was out with a pulled hamstring. But in spite of that, Moss had a limited impact and started dropping passes at an alarming rate. And Darius Butler was absolutely torched by a thus-far unimpressive Jets offense.

All in all, the Pats started off strong, but the Jets dominated the 2nd half. It was frustrating, because many of the basic tenets of the prediction were borne out: Joe Flacco struggled against the Bengals' defense (supporting the conclusion that the Jets' defensive performance wasn't that impressive week 1), and the Jets' off-the-field distractions continued to escalate. Nonetheless, the Patriots weren't able to capitalize on what I continue to think is an overrated Jets' defense, and it was in large part because Brady had a really bad day. Which I did not expect.

LESSONS LEARNED

1. Pay more attention to home/road splits. I normally do not factor in homefield advantage that much, and because of the 3-point swing Vegas awards, I find myself taking road favorites quite a bit. In fact, I've done that 12 times out of the 18 picks I've made overall on this blog thus far. My picks have gone 5-7 in those games. Last week, I noted that Qwest Field was undoubtedly one of the factors that contributed to Seattle's surprising win over the 49ers week 1. I probably should have factored that in more here; after all, the Pats last year went 8-0 at home and 2-6 on the road. Maybe this Patriots team is one that really does disappoint away from Foxboro.

2. Is the Belichick defensive reputation no longer deserved? Maybe so; his defense certainly looked terrible last week, in both execution and scheme. I never thought they had a great defense, but to get carved up by Sanchez is just unforgivable.

3. Beware picking against a player coming off rock bottom. My arguments against the Jets were heavily premised on how historically atrocious Sanchez looked week 1. Maybe he was just due for the bounceback game. Indeed, this game reminded me of the shocking Oakland upset of Philly last year, when Oakland was rebounding from what was a laughably low point of their season. While I'm still surprised Sanchez rebounded, in the future those "rock bottom" moments will make me more wary.

Stay tuned to see if I can stave off falling to an embarrassing 0-3.

Week 2 Pick: Pats -2.5 @ Jets

2010-09-16T23:25:00.001-04:00

After a rough week 1, BadNFL returns to the match-up where it all started: Patriots @ Jets. Except this time, I'm taking the Patriots. Although I feel quite strongly about this pick, it does potentially pit two of my early season maxims against each other: the need not to overreact to week 1 (which I may be doing), and the need to pick against excessively hyped teams (which I hope I am doing). Regardless, I expect the Pats to win handily. Here's why:

1. The Pats' passing offense will have substantial success against the Jets' secondary.

The Patriots may have the best offense in the league this year. Their offense was nearly unstoppable week 1, as they returned to their high flying ways that remind of their famous 2007 season. Brady appears rejuvenated and much more confident in his knee -- two factors that have him returning to his MVP form. They simply overwhelmed the Bengals early in week 1, leading to a game that was never in doubt.

Of course, prognosticators should tread carefully when drawing grand lessons from week 1. But I'm convinced that the Patriots' week 1 success reflected structural improvements. Adding the two exciting young TEs into the system has given their offense a new look, and Brady has more weapons than ever. Remember, the Bengals were thought to be a stout defensive club; after all, they return virtually the same secondary that totally shut down the Ravens last year (the team that the Jets just "held" to 10 points). The ease with which the Pats' generated 38 points is thus quite impressive. But most importantly, Brady is now in year 2 of his recovery from knee surgery. I think the Pats' offense is back in a major way.

Readers are no doubt thinking to themselves "but you're picking against the best defense in the league." I admit that I've been a huge fan of the Jets' defense. But I think that the Pats will have some serious success through the air. It's true that the remarkable Darrelle Revis will likely lock up Randy Moss again. But Brady just has too many other weapons, most notably Wes Welker -- who was targeted 11 times (more than Moss) in week 1 and dominated the game. He, and the rest of the Patriots' weapons, are undoubtedly salivating at the prospect of exploiting the remainder of the Jets' secondary. Anquan Boldin absolutely abused Kyle Wilson in week 1, leading to an absurd 13.1 YPA allowed by the overmatched rookie. Antonio Cromartie, on the other hand, is a high risk high reward player -- who made a spectacular interception in week 1 but also gambled and lost several times. Put simply, he's the type of player that a smart veteran QB like Brady can exploit. And the Pats look as though they're gameplanning to do just that.

None of that will matter if the Jets are able to subject Brady to unrelenting pressure. But the Jets' blitz packages may be less effective this year. FO before the year noted that teams were likely to adjust to Rex Ryan's schemes more effectively this year, and week 1 bore that out: the Jets blitzes on key third downs were totally ineffective. Moreover, they've lost Kris Jenkins again, who is one of the top nose tackles in the league and the Jets' most important defensive player not named Revis. That will undoubtedly undermine their run defense, making it harder to gear up their famous zero-coverage blitzes.

The Jets' performance against Baltimore week 1 does nothing to reassure me. Critics might point out that they forced 3 turnovers and caused 2 Flacco fumbles. But the Jets' pressure largely derived from Flacco's incompetence, not defensive brilliance. Watch this first fumble: the Ravens' line executes a quick cut-block protection, clearly anticipating a 3-step drop. Yet Flacco stands like a statue in the pocket for a full 4 seconds, his eyes never straying from a singular target down the left side of the field. Yes, the Jets get to him and knock the ball loose. As any competent defense should.

This interception to Antonio Cromartie was similarly terrible. Maybe it was a route mix-up, or maybe it was simply atrocious decisionmaking by Flacco, but he flings the ball up for grabs, off his back foot, into triple coverage. There was nothing particularly special by the Jets' defense that sparked the miscue.

Put simply, Flacco is the type of QB who will look bad against the Jets. He typically puts up bad vertical numbers, and he holds the ball too long. Tom Brady is the opposite of those two things. When he's healthy, as he seems now to be, he is adept at feeling the rush and adapting to blitzes. That spells trouble for the Jets' defense.

2. The Jets are poorly situated to exploit New England's primary vulnerability.

The concern about the Patriots heading into the season was their pass defense. Scouts, Inc. this week predicts a close Pats victory but points out that the Jets will attempt to exploit New England's somewhat soft secondary. Of course, Rex Ryan is already proclaiming the Jets' intention to throw more downfield in week 2.

There's only one problem: the Jets boast a pathetically inept passing attack. In week 1, the Jets put on their worst offensive performance in 30 years. The numbers are staggering: Sanchez was 10/21 for 74 yards, fewer than 4 yards/attempt. I absolutely abhor that I'm linking to anything that mentions Skip Bayless, but as this post points out, Sanchez only threw beyond 10 yards down the field 4 times all night! The Sanchize and the offense were so atrocious that, although the scoreboard rent 10-9, the game really never felt that close.

Some pundits have chalked up the Jets' struggles to the Ravens' superior defense. Admittedly, the Ravens have a good defense. But let's not go overboard: the Ravens' pass defense is nothing to write home about. Last year, the secondary actually performed quite poorly in most advanced metrics. The pass rush was also surprisingly anemic. Moreover, they were missing 2 of their 4 starters in the secondary last week, including their best player in Ed Reed. Despite this apparent weakness, the Jets were totally unable to exploit the Ravens' flaws.

I have little faith that they'll improve dramatically in week 2. Sanchez is not a veteran quarterback who knows how to bounce back from a bad loss; to the contrary, his confidence has to be shaken, and he's now preparing for a Bill Belichick defense on a short week. In addition, the young players in the NE secondary look much improved, and I think the Pats' pass defense, while not great, will be adequate. Certainly more than enough to stifle the uninspiring Sanchize.

THE COUNTER-ARGUMENT: THE JETS AREN'T GOING 0-2?

As stated above, the Jets, as a putative super bowl contender, will no doubt be motivated to avoid going 0-2. But I wrote before the season that I thought the Jets overrated, and week 1 did nothing to shake my belief. Remember, the Jets barely snuck into the playoffs last year; they were 7-7 entering week 16, and needed a win over the Colts' second-stringers in week 17 even to make the postseason. And the main thing they did in the offseason was downgrade their offensive line and lose backfield depth.

But a more fundamental point is that the Jets are an overhyped and distraction-infested mess right now. Rex Ryan cultivated a Hard Knocks-enabled party atmosphere in the preseason (Cowboys' fans having painful 2008 flashbacks), and they acted all offseason like they believed their own hype. They then proceeded to play like a distracted and sloppy team in week 1, a week that witnessed 125 yards of penalties and an overall lack of discipline. Maybe they'll spend this week getting focused? Nah, instead they appear to be focusing on some fiasco with a female TV reporter.

At the end of the day, one of my preseason convictions was that this is a passing league and that a big disparity in the quality of two passing offenses is a recipe for covering a big spread. This spread isn't even big, and it shouldn't be under a field goal. The last time the Pats played these Jets, they beat them by 17. Pats cover.

Upon Further Review: 49ers Spanked 6-31

2010-09-14T19:00:00.005-04:00

Ouch. What a disappointing opening to the 2010 season for BadNFL. As some commenters have noted, this week 1 performance hearkened back to some of my worst weeks. After all, when BadNFL misses, it usually misses huge. And there's much left to be desired by my preseason analysis, as my instinct that the Raiders would start strong looked ridiculous after their atrocious and unexpected lack of improvement.

But that's not why we're here. We're here to discuss the Week 1 debacle that was the San Francisco 49ers. Alex Smith was the MVP of the game -- for the Seahawks. What people who simply look at the box score might not realize is that San Francisco started out quite strong. Hasselbeck threw an interception on the first play of the game, and the 49ers proceeded to march down the field with impressive efficiency. But then they (mainly Smith) proceeded to make the first of a slew of dumb errors. A touchdown overruled because the WR couldn't get his feet down, a series of blown 4th down opportunities, and some really terrible throws by Smith eviscerated the momentum that they came in with.

And despite the Niners' defensive dominance of the Seahawks in the first half, they entered halftime down, thanks to two absolutely brutal interceptions that led immediately to Seattle TD's (watch this pick 6 in which Smith overthrows his receiver by about 10 yards!). All in all, Smith's performance was at the bottom of the league in week 1, as his 1/12 performance on 3rd down was the cherry on top of his crap sundae. But it was his backbreakingly bad play over a crucial first half span that lost the game; his incompetence enabled Seattle to score 4 TDs in the span of 7 minutes, and just like that, the game was over.

By the second half, it was evident that the Niners had essentially given up. As a result, Hasselbeck actually looked pretty good, and their very shaky offensive line held up OK (the Niners only registered 1 sack). In other words, the prediction looks really stupid in retrospect.

LESSONS LEARNED

1. The danger of an unproven QB and rookie offensive lines opening the season in a loud arena.

I know I previously acknowledged and then dismissed the "Qwest Field" argument. That appears to have been misguided. For those of you who missed the game, it's difficult to overestimate how out-of-sync the Niners were early in the game; they burned all 3 of their timeouts with 9 minutes left in the 2nd quarter, they didn't seem to have the right plays called, and in general nobody was on the same page. Early in the season, before teams are used to playing in real game environments, perhaps the loud environment was particularly impactful. Arrowhead seemed to have a similar effect on the Chargers last night.

But ultimately, as FO put it, "every San Francisco projection in the world ends with, '...if Alex Smith can prove that he's at least a replacement-level NFL quarterback.' So far, no good." There's not much else to be said about that. I blew off discussing Alex Smith in my analysis of this game, and I'm paying for it.

2. Beware the hype.

This game almost seemed too easy. The sharps were all over the Niners in this game, and several pundits have labeled Seattle's upset week 1's "biggest surprise." In addition, as I observed earlier, the line had been moving in San Francisco's direction. But as a commenter pointed out, this maybe should have served as a warning sign. The Niners were a chic pick to win the division, they were a young confident team that finished well last year, and they had dominated the preseason. Yet they appeared overconfident and underprepared. Week 1 is about finding undervalued teams, and the Niners clearly were not that.

3. Where do we go from here? Don't freak out.

Week 1 results are notoriously difficult to gauge, if merely because our sample size is so small. The Niners were clearly unprepared, but it's important not to overreact to one week's results. I still think that the Seahawks are a bad team, and if they weren't playing the pathetic Broncos this week, I might pick against them again. After all, remember that they dominated week 1 last year before proceeding to have a miserable season. At BadNFL, we plan on sticking to our instincts and trying to bounce back next week, perhaps exploiting some typical week 2 overreaction along the way.

Update: Remember the Preseason

2010-09-12T09:45:00.000-04:00

This long-awaited day -- my favorite day of the year -- is finally upon us. Let's remember articles like this one, from Yahoo Sports, arguing that the Jets and Cowboys aren't real contenders because the "preseason has revealed" their weaknesses. After the season, when I do my Year 2 Review, I'll be returning to this post as part of my project to assess whether or not the preseason really matters. Simmons argues that weeks 1 and 2 are the easiest to bet because you know as much as Vegas does. That may be true, although the linemakers have certainly broken down the preseason much more extensively than people like I have. We'll see if it ends up mattering.

In the meantime, real football is here, and there appear to be no significant new injury developments in the 49ers/Seahawks game. I can't wait!

Update: The Line is Really Moving

2010-09-10T13:43:00.002-04:00

I didn't realize this until listening to this Simmons-Millman podcast after I already posted my prediction, but apparently the line in this Seattle and 49ers game has shifted dramatically, going from an opening of Seattle -1 to now 49ers -3. That obviously means that the action has been coming in heavy on the 49ers. While obviously I wish that the prediction could have been made when the line was at 49ers +1, this rapid movement suggests that I'm not alone in thinking that the Seahawks have been significantly overvalued to start the season. Time will tell, but I wouldn't be shocked if the line moves even further to -3.5 by Sunday.

Week One Pick: 49ers -3 @ Seahawks

2010-09-09T21:59:00.009-04:00

And just like that, BadNFL's weekly predictions are back! The week one pick: San Francisco wins handily @ Seattle. Here's why:

1. San Francisco's swarming front 7 will decimate Seattle's depleted offensive line.

Seattle's offensive line is atrocious -- so bad, in fact, that it's approaching Bills territory. The line was already a question mark heading into the season, as their sheer lack of talent made the situation precarious to begin with. Indeed, the offensive line was undoubtedly one of the reasons why the Seahawks struggled so mightily on offense last year (their offensive DVOA was near the bottom of the league). And it has undoubtedly worsened over the past week or so. First, the Seahawks have ruled out Russell Okung, their high 1st round draft choice and presumptive starting LT, for the game. The loss of their left tackle, which as I've pointed out before is arguably the game's 2nd most important position, makes a bad situation even worse, particularly given the very shaky depth behind Okung.

Second, Alex Gibbs, the legendary godfather of the fabled Denver zone blocking scheme, abruptly resigned as offensive line coach last week. While Gibbs is not well known among the general public, his loss is potentially devastating, particularly coming so close to the start of the season. Besides robbing the Seahawks of his expertise, Gibbs' resignation further adds to the general chaos and instability of the situation -- two characteristics that contributed significantly to the lackluster line play last year.

Put simply, I don't expect the Seahawks to keep Matt Hasselbeck upright in the game, and because of that, I expect the Seahawks' offensive futility of the past few years to continue. The 49ers certainly have the athletic, young, and aggressive front-7 that should be able to exploit Seattle's ineptitude. Everyone knows that the 49ers defense began to break out last year under Mike Singletary, and I expect it to continue to improve this year. I think that the superb Patrick Willis will emerge as not only a shutdown MLB but also the stalwart leader that Singletary once was to the Bears; he looks to spearhead an emerging and potentially dominant defense. And particularly because Seattle is starting Justin Forsett in the backfield -- who qualifies as "quality depth" at best -- Seattle should become relatively one-dimensional and easy for the 49ers defense to tee off on.

Last year, when the 49ers defense roared out of the gate and surprised some people, they were able to easily blow out 2 bad divisional opponents early in the year (beating the Seahawks by 13 and the Rams by 35). I expect their defense to carve up Seattle's offensive line and generate a sizeable lead against another terrible NFC West opponent this week.

2. Seattle is a team in transition.

To be frank, I'm not a huge Pete Carroll fan. He obviously was not successful his last time around in the NFL, and I think the hoopla surrounding his move to Seattle will become a distracting headache. But more importantly, I'm not impressed with his approach to the season thus far. The front office has basically admitted -- amid squabbles with Carroll over personnel authority -- that this season is essentially an elongated audition for young players for the future. Because of all the offseason change and recent upheaval, Seattle's gameplan will likely be unusually simple, since the staff hasn't had time to install sophisticated packages or acclimate the players to the playbook. Even the quotes coming from Carroll seem to suggest bad mojo and a team that's already rebuilding -- something that will be particularly evident with their very young and very bad defense.

But here's the thing: they're rebuilding with a washed up and oft-injured QB. Most analysts agree that the Seahawks will be terrible this year, but that they're counting on Hasselbeck to try and get them close to .500. Of course, Hasselbeck has been atrocious in recent years, and at his age, he's unlikely to go anywhere but further down.

In short, the 9ers should win this division, and the Seahawks should finish near the bottom. If that's the case, I just don't see how this game will be as close as this line suggests.

THE COUNTER: QWEST FIELD?

Qwest Field is generally thought to generate a significant home field advantage. It certainly is very loud, and it might rattle some of the 49ers' younger players on offense. And admittedly, they beat the 49ers there last season. But that game was somewhat fluky -- Seattle won on a last second field goal, and the game was plagued by a lot of weird 49ers mistakes, epitomized by a botched reverse attempt on a punt return.

That said, the 49ers are a young team that has likely improved and learned from that game. Their young talent is really emerging, and they've upgraded their offensive line in the offseason. In general, the 49ers took care of business against their division last year, and I expect that general trend to continue -- while Alex Smith continues to improve -- against a bad Seattle team. Thus, Scouts' Inc.'s 24-17 prediction sounds more accurate (although I might have gone with a higher win differential) than the 3 point line. Seattle makes clear this week that they are a bottom feeder, and the Niners cover.

Looking Ahead

2010-09-09T20:03:00.004-04:00

I unfortunately don't have time to write up a formal pick for the game tonight, but I fully expect the Saints to steamroll the Vikings tonight, easily covering the -5 line. I am professedly down on the Saints as a team this year, but I like them to win handily nonetheless. Primarily, I think the Saints will receive yet another Katrina-related emotional boost tonight; on the NFL Network right now, I'm watching them celebrate the city's championship, triggering memories of the Superdome's tragic role in Katrina, and the Saints are summoning that Who Dat mojo once more. I think that the emotional lift will propel them tonight.

I know, I know, BadNFL promised to limit its reliance on psychology this year. But this is one of the few circumstances where I feel that it's valid; the Saints have shown that they're one of those teams who can summon a special emotional edge in important Superdome moments (remember the first post-Katrina game? Still sends shivers through my spines, as did the Saints' dominance). Moreover, in the past 10 years, the Super Bowl champs are 10-0 in their opening games, and they perform especially well in Thursday night games like this one.

I also agree with Bill Simmons that the Vikings are primed for a regression this year. Too many injuries, Favre won't repeat his best season at age 40, and I think the loss of Chester Taylor is bigger than people think. The Saints, for all their flaws, were a team that really showed the ability to blow teams out, particularly early last year. I think they're going to cover this spread tonight.

I'm also betting that people will overvalue what I expect to be a good Saints' performance tonight; ignoring the temporary spike of the opening Superdome magic and the somewhat down nature of the Vikings, people will flock to the Saints' bandwagon. And then we'll see if BadNFL's preseason logic holds.

Regardless, I'm working on my actual pick for this week, and faithful readers can expect that sometime tomorrow!

Some 2010 Preseason Thoughts

2010-08-29T11:39:00.030-04:00

For those of you who have been chomping at the bit all summer for BadNFL's return, your appetite was probably barely whetted by my previous post on betting strategy reflections from Year 1. Thus, here are my thoughts on some teams heading into Year 2, thoughts will undoubtedly inform my early season analysis.

1. The Bills are the worst team in football. My opinion of the Bills last year was well documented (fueled mainly by the atrocity that was their offensive line), and I think they've worsened. Their offensive line isn't noticeably better, they are still likely starting Trent Edwards, and they have again been wracked by injuries--most dramatically to two of the few team strengths of running back and safety. Moreover, they have inexplicably shifted to a 3-4 defense without the personnel or experience to really pull it off (for instance, they have no NT): as Football Outsiders put it in their indispensable 2010 Almanac:

That means that the best explanation
for Buffalo’s [marginal pass defense success] was scheme — the scheme
the new Bills administration promptly chucked out
the window, designed by the interim head coach who
is now plying his trade downstate. And while strong
pass defense is a reason for optimism, the pass defense
is also likely to regress a bit, considering that the
Bills ranked just 22nd in pass defense DVOA in 2008
— you know, when their defense was populated by all
those guys whose return from injury is supposed to
make fans optimistic about 2010.

Moreover, one of the few strengths in recent years of the Bills has been their special teams play -- not withstanding Leodis McKelvin's boneheaded fumble that blew week 1 against the Pats last year -- but they jettisoned their special teams' coach in the offseason and replaced him with the eminently mediocre Bruce DeHaven, who despite an inexplicable uncited superlative contained on a wiki page, was the coach whose unit was victimized by the Music City Miracle and never did much to impress in his 4 years with the Cowboys.

They also have what is likely the worst LB corps in the league. And finally, they play in the tough AFC East, where the other 3 teams (Fins, Pats, Jets) should all be playoff contenders. It will take a miracle for the Bills to avoid going 0-6 in the division, and they will almost certainly finish last. They are a bad team, one that I'm planning to use two ways early in the season: to potentially bet against if the lines are juicy, but more importantly, to discount success against the Bills in my early season rankings (see my Week 2 pick from Year 1 for an example of how this can work well).

2. I expect the Saints to come crashing back down to earth this year. Of course, this is hardly a revelation, as talk of the "Super Bowl hangover" abounds. There is something to that talk, as 5 of the last 11 Super Bowl champs missed the postseason the next year, and nearly all have suffered a precipitous decline. Depressed motivation, lapses in concentration, and an absence of energy are all symptoms of this disease, and there's evidence from the preseason that the Saints are suffering from it. It is true that they might open the season on fire -- witness their recent offensive explosion at the Superdome against the Texans. But I doubt they'll be able to sustain that intensity and good mojo throughout the grueling NFL season; their performance might somewhat mirror the 2000 Rams', who started off 6-0 before stumbling to a 4-6 finish. Or it might mirror the Payton/Brees Saints' own performance last time they were coming off a Super Bowl appearance, when they went 7-9.

But primarily, I think the Saints had a pretty lucky 2009, one that is unlikely to repeat this year. There are many reasons they were lucky, but chief among them was their huge number (8) of defensive TD's last year. But defensive TD's are notorious in their dependence on luck, and the Saints will simply not repeat that performance. As Football Outsiders explains:

In addition, defensive touchdowns, while exciting, are
a volatile investment. As we discussed in Football
Outsiders Almanac 2009 (p. 92), the year-to-year correlation
for defensive touchdowns is essentially zero
and almost totally dependent upon the number of turnovers
a team gets. That figure should also decline for
the Saints; while Sharper picked off a league-high nine
passes last year, he won’t pick off that many passes
in 2010. From 1990 through 2008, there were 25 instances
of a player picking off nine passes or more; in
the season afterwards, those players averaged fewer
than three interceptions. Not a single player managed
back-to-back nine-interception seasons, and it is unlikely
Sharper will be an exception.

This random variance is further on display by comparing the 2009 Saints and 2008 Saints; despite returning virtually the same roster (except for the addition of Darren Sharper), the 2009 Saints saw their defensive TDs jump by 8, as they had generated zero in 2008. True, Sharper had a sublime season, but it is not one that he is likely to repeat. Not only is there little historical track record for a repeat, as FO explained above, but Sharper is 34 and is unlikely to be healthy this year. True, he remains one of the better safeties in the game, but he is not going to repeat his defensive MVP-caliber performance of last year. And for those of you who followed the Saints closely last year, you'll remember how many close games they played where a key pick-6 swung the momentum late.

While all acknowledge that the Saints' defense was opportunistic yet far from dominant last year, some predict that their offseason moves have seriously upgraded the defense. They say that mainly because Sedrick Ellis might return healthy, but one, there's no guarantee that he will stay healthy coming off such a serious injury, and second, he's been underwhelming when in the lineup. The Saints haven't really added anyone of note, and Sharper will be far less effective this year. While they will be a solid team, I do not think they will be the powerhouse they were last year, and I doubt they will cover the spread as often.

3. I like the Raiders more than most this year. Yes, they're still Al Davis's crazy pathetic team, but there's actually some reason for optimism. For one, they've looked really good in the preseason, sowing the seeds of what could turn out to be a very solid defense. They have probably the best non-holding-out CB in the league, a decent pass rush, and improved overall on defense. But most importantly, they finally ended the putrid JaMarcus era at QB. Jason Campbell has always been underrated in my opinion, mostly because he was victimized by horrendous offensive lines and a carousel of offensive coordinators and systems. I think escaping from Washington was a good thing for him. As Doug Farrar of FO put it:

You have to like Oakland’s draft, and the addition of Jason Campbell. That could be an 8-8 team in the AFC West, which may very well be the worst division in the NFL.

True, there are some countervailing concerns, primarily that the Raiders significantly outperformed their Pythagorean projection by winning a lot of close games last year (think that great run of clutch catches by Louis Murphy late in the season). But I think the team is much improved, and that the culture is slowly changing. I'm not saying they're a super bowl contender, but I think they will be decent and have an outside chance of stealing that terrible division.

4. BadNFL is ambivalent about the Green Bay Packers.

No team has confounded me heading into this season than the Packers. On the one hand, the Packers are a trendy pick to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl this year, and Aaron Rodgers is rapidly becoming a darling of the punditry. There certainly is a lot to like; an undeniably talented QB, a deep array of receivers, and an opportunistic defense. Plus, they're coming off a crazy, slim loss in the wild card game last year.

On the other hand, Football Outsiders projects the Packers at only 9.4 wins, hardly a shabby total but also not the dominance that many analysts predict. They focus on two particularly interesting factors: the dramatic spike in the Packers' run defense last year and the age of their secondary. First, they argue:

From 1994 through 2007,
11 different teams improved their rush defense DVOA
by 20 ranking spots or more. In the year after their
drastic improvement, every single one of those teams
saw their rush defense decline (Table 1). What’s even
scarier, though, is how much they declined — those
teams dropped off by an average of 12.5 spots in the
rankings.

Given the meteoric improvement (unforeseen by most) in the Packers' run defense last year, FO projects a return back to earth. Also, Charles Woodson, coming off a defensive MVP award, is aging and likely won't perform as well again. Al Harris is also getting old.

Moreover, they may have been incredibly lucky with their turnover margin last year. Chad Millman reports:

"That makes me think [the Packers] were a fraudulent 11-5," Covers says. "They played a weak schedule and had a turnover margin as high as it gets. To me, this is a team that overachieved last year. Now we have the start of a thought process that helps me evaluate them in this year's betting market."
Green Bay is one of those teams -- like the New York Jets -- that is getting a lot of hype this season. It opened at nine wins and is now listed at 10. The expectations from the public are that it will exceed this number.

The arguments against the Packers are sophisticated, and they contradict my instinct. I'm inclined to think the Packers will prove quite strong this year, mainly because I think their offensive line will be improved -- and BadNFL veterans will remember what I thought of the Packers' offensive line last year. In short, it wasn't pretty, especially early in the year. But they should be better this year (they'll certainly be deeper). And of course BadNFL readers know how much emphasis we place here on the offensive line (coincidentally, so do actual sharps).

But even though the Packers will be good, they just strike me as being way too hyped -- reminiscent of the 2008 Cowboys who famously flamed out. I wrote earlier that I would look for good teams who were slightly overvalued by the public. The Packers may be it. If there is an opportunity early in the season, particularly if backed up by a public money-induced line shift, the Packers might invite a pick.

5. I also think the Jets are perhaps overrated. Their defense should be great again (although less so without Revis, who faithful readers will remember BadNFL had pegged as the best CB in football before that was a popular sentiment), but I think that their offense might be worse this year. Sanchez has done little to impress, and the Jets enter this season with a much less impressive corps of RBs: the unproven Shonn Greene and the rotting carcass of LT. They also got extremely lucky during their playoff run this year, in particular with normally reliable opposing kickers (Shayne Graham and Nate Kaeding) missing everything in sight.

They also have a nasty schedule to open the season. I think it entirely possible they could be under .500 heading into their bye week, at which point they might become an underrated team (since, as we know, most bettors and prognosticators tend to overreact to recent results). Also, according to this handy preview from Marc Lawrence, the Jets are 1-6 ATS in their last 7 against Baltimore and 1-10 in their last 11 at home against New England -- their first two opponents. Of course, the last time the Jets played in New England, they covered. But Welker was out and the Jets were underrated that time around. This time, I think the tables have turned. We'll see. I expect the Jets to underperform early in the year, I expect people to freak out and madly jump off the bandwagon, making the Jets at some point a smart value pick to turn it around. The question will be whether BadNFL can identify the appropriate point in time to ride those Jets. It probably won't be early.

Year One Strategy Review

2010-08-05T21:13:00.017-04:00

At long last, the NFL season approaches, and with it, BadNFL makes its much anticipated return to the blogosphere. Before the season gets underway, I've long been planning to do a 2009 Season Recap that takes an introspective look at BadNFL's inaugural year, breaking down some of the things that went right and some of the things that didn't. In doing so, I hoped to articulate some of the meta-lessons learned from that inaugural season.

An apology though: this summer, studying for the bar exam while working full time inhibited my ability to do the intense sort of data analysis I wanted to do this offseason. Hopefully it can happen next summer! But that said, I don't want to deprive BadNFL Nation of the benefits of a few reflections on the prediction methodology of Year 1.

Coming in the next few days or so, before the season gets underway, will be a counterpart post explaining my takes on a couple of teams that the public and most prognosticators have misvalued heading into the season, in the hopes that those observations can aid in early season game predictions.

Without further ado, here are 6 observations and thoughts:

1. Explosive passing offenses against porous secondaries form a potent combination. This point seems patently obvious when stated like that, but for those of you who followed my analysis closely last year, a recurring theme was that explosive (top-5) passing attacks vs. pathetic (bottom 5) secondaries routinely covered. In fact, there were 3 games where my pick was based in part on the observation of this phenomenon: Week 16 Chargers +3 @ Titans (SDG won 42-17), Week 7 Colts -13.5 @ Rams (IND won 42-6), and Week 5 Colts -3.5 @ Titans (IND won 31-9). Admittedly, the sample size is rather small, but it is remarkable how lopsided these victories all were. The reasoning is fairly simple (first explained here): aggressive, passing-heavy teams are able to jump out to huge leads rather quickly in these games, which renders the opposing offense one-dimensional (leading to turnovers) and fairly unmotivated--both of which help facilitate blowouts. Moreover, teams like the Colts and Bolts last year generally did not know how to lay off the gas pedal; it's not like they had dominant running games to milk the clock late. As such, the score kept growing.

By way of contrast, this might also explain my spectacularly wrong prediction in Week 6, where I took the heavily favored Eagles against the woeful Raiders; in that game, although the Eagles had an explosive offense and the Raiders a pitiful defense, the Raiders actually sported a decent secondary--headlined, obviously, by the superb Nnamdi Asomugha--and sat back and dared Andy Reid to run the ball. He didn't, and because of that (or perhaps because it was a trap game), the Eagles suffered one of the most stunning losses of the year.

Thus, this year, I will keep an eye out for the foregoing phenomenon; if the lines are lower than -14, they might prove appetizing.

2. The Trap Game phenomenon. This phrase is bandied about a lot among the pundits, and no doubt the worry about the vaunted "trap game" will surface during one of my predictions this year. As I explained in my recap of the Eagles shocking loss to the Raiders last year, I remain reticent to make predictions that are heavily founded on psychology, since the ability of NFL fans to estimate teams' mental states seems limited at best.

But then again, there seem to be games where psychology plays an important role; the Bengals' gutsy win over the Ravens following Coach Zimmer's wife's tragic death, the Saints' first game in the Superdome post-Katrina, and Brett Favre's MNF game the night of his father's death all spring to mind. Also, in late season games, where teams out of the playoffs have little to play for, marginal spreads can be beaten easily (witness the 49ers covering against the pathetic Rams in week 17 last year). But for the most part, I want to stay away from psychology this year.

As such, I'm not going to obsess about the "trap game" phenomenon, just because I think it's difficult to predict. However, I'll endeavor to keep in mind my estimation of the constituent elements of a trap game, derived in the wake of the Eagles/Raiders debacle last year:

The lesson is this: you should beware betting on (1) a heavy favorite, (2) playing against a team that has already hit rock bottom, where there has (3) been some catalytic event (here the Pierce criticism) that might serve to inspire them, and (4) where that favorite has not played a good team in several weeks.

3. The relevance of the 1st head-to-head matchup in predicting the outcome of a 2nd game: I don't think I had a good handle on the vagaries of intra-divisional games in Year 1. Specifically, when picking late-season divisional games, I cited as evidence -- without thorough reflection -- my pick's performance against the opponent in their prior game. Conversely, with the Bengals and Ravens, I misjudged the second game, which the Bengals won, because I mistakenly thought the Ravens would refuse to lose to the Bengals twice in one year.

Instead of just unreflexively citing a gut feeling about the previous game, this year I plan to more methodically examine what some sharps call the "revenge factor" when evaluating late season divisional games. That said, I think that term is a little misleading, since it evokes a focus on psychology, something that I've already largely forsworn this year, and as such, many betting guides counsel against its use. Instead, I think it's largely about the team's and the coaching staff's ability to make adjustments in repeat matchups (the same theory explains why playoff basketball is so much different from regular season basketball, where coaches have much more time and film with which to make adjustments). This will be a factor worth watching, but as Miami and Buffalo proved last year, a huge win in an early season game does not mean that the winner will cover the spread in the late season rematch.

4. The "coming off of a big win" phenomenon. There is a tendency to overreact to one week's good performance by thinking that one good game will carry over to the following week. To be sure, a big win can inspire players and confer momentum upon a team. And there is no doubt that teams play better or worse depending on what part of the season it is.

But there is an equally compelling (at least in theory) opposite effect: a big win can emotionally exhaust and depress motivation, leading to a subpar performance the following game. In fact, this basic theory as at the heart of the venerable and popular "zig zag" theory of basketball betting. Moreover, this basic theory was instrumental to the reasoning behind one of BadNFL's best Year 1 picks, when the Redskins easily covered (and should have won) against the Saints. A similar dynamic may have been at work in Week 2, in which the Jets beat the Pats in what was at the time considered an upset. Some analysts, particularly faithful BadNFL readers will remember, had predicted a Pats victory in part because they had demonstrated guts by eeking out a close win against Buffalo in Week 1. But BadNFL knew better; the Pats close win over the Bills revealed structural deficiencies with the Patriots, deficiencies that the Jets were able to exploit.

So, this year, I will be careful in how I invoke a team's performance from the prior week. When a team's good play in recent weeks can be traced to some structural change -- a coaching change, a QB change, or getting a key player back from injury -- then it probably have a greater chance of carrying over. But when it was merely a flash in the pan type performance coming off a bye (as apparently was the case in my ill fated Ravens-Bengals Week 9 pick), then maybe the Saints-Skins effect will dominate.

5. The psychology of the betting marketplace. As all smart bettors know, the Vegas lines do not actually reflect what the bookmakers think the score will be; rather, they reflect the bookmakers' prediction of what the public thinks the score will be. Thus, as I pointed out on occasion in Year 1, finding teams that the public significantly over or undervalues can be helpful in locating lines that are deliberately set inaccurately.

One way to do that can be to rely on advanced metrics like Football Outsiders' DVOA, which are presumably more sophisticated than basic stats like yards and points scored, which are the stats traditionally relied on by squares. Of course, as Chad Millman noted this week, the dividing line between sharps and squares has gradually dissipated, as mainstream sportsfans become increasingly savvy. Like my point #2 above, I'm reticent to probe the public's psychology too much. But I remain convinced that looking for structurally over or undervalued teams can be an important component of a game analysis, even apart from the more traditional scouting analysis that BadNFL usually employs. Thus, even though my use of FO-type stats backfired last season, I remain committed to the concept this year (plus, that Ravens/Bengals game was unduly impacted by the absence of Heloti Ngata, given that he is arguably their best player).

6. Does the preseason matter? Overall, the data show that while there's a correlation between preseason record and regular season wins, that correlation is small, although perhaps most significant in cases where the team was mediocre the year before (between 7 and 9 wins). Granted, some people who parse the data in a more simplistic way can show that in certain cases, a dominant preseason can translate into season success, but in general, preseason record seems only trivially important. That being said, specific stories and experiences that emerge from the preseason can have a big impact on the season. Which preseason storylines will matter this year?

This typical list isolates what you might expect -- big injuries (Ty Warren etc.), contract disputes (Vincent Jackson, Revis), etc. But that's not what I'm chiefly interested in. I'm wondering what performance-related issues from the preseason will carry over to the season. There are several, like Aaron Rodgers' dominance, that are tantalizing. But the one in which I'm quite interested, and one that might serve as a springboard for further insight into what types of preseason issues carry over, is the Cowboys' offensive malaise. Simply put, their offensive line and running game have looked horrendous in the preseason, and the coaches and players keep insisting they'll turn it on in the regular season.

I don't know. This was a topic that I didn't analyze much early in Year 1, but one I want to be vigilant about early in the year. Because it should certainly be helpful to early season betting in Year 3.

Update: End of BadNFL's Inaugural Season!

2010-01-09T15:46:00.002-05:00

Well, the blog finished up 9-7 this year, which I will say isn't half bad for an initial foray into picking games (although I have no expectation that any readers will believe me, since I didn't publicly document it, my pick week 1 was Cowboys -4.5 @ Bucs, which easily covered, so it could have been 10-7 had I started the blog earlier). I feel I learned some important things and started to develop some real insights into the very difficult task that is picking NFL games.

I'm not going to pick playoff games, both because I'm somewhat out of pocket for the next 3 weeks and thus wouldn't be able to put sufficient effort into it, but also because playoff games are harder to pick due to a fewer number of games to choose from and the difficulty of finding value in the lines. What will be on the agenda over the next month or so, stretching into the offseason, is a season-long "Upon Further Review," where I look back at the successes and failures of Year One, seeing what worked and didn't, and hopefully build for next year. I will also be conducting and publishing a few statistical studies of some betting phenomenons so that next year we'll have more raw data, instead of just intuition, to rely on. Finally, as soon as I get the time, I'll write a brief "Upon Further Review" of that 49ers/Rams game that came through nicely in Week 17.

Thanks to BadNFL Nation for a great season. Go Cowboys!

Week 17 Pick: 49ers -7 @ Rams

2010-01-01T21:21:00.004-05:00

So it's all come down to this: week 17, to determine if BadNFL can boast an above-.500 record in its inaugural season. The pressure's on, and its particularly intense because week 17 is notoriously the hardest week to bet on, because so many teams are resting for the playoffs, playing only for next year, etc. So while I'm not all that confident, my pick is for San Francisco to win big over St. Louis on the road. Here's why:

1. St. Louis is absolutely horrendous. They have the worst point differential in the league--a whopping -239, or an average of -16 per game! They've scored the fewest points in the league and allowed the second-most. Their offensive line is an injury-riddled and starved-for-talent nightmare, something that a talented 49ers front 7 should be able to exploit. Incredibly, only 15 of the 45 players the Rams dressed last week were picked in the first 5 rounds of the draft; the remaining 30 were sixth or seventh round picks, or undrafted. That's just not a lot of talent. Their only good player, RB Steven Jackson, is a gametime decision, and since the Rams sat him last week and are looking to next year, it's unlikely that he'll play. On the other hand, dynamic 49ers RB Frank Gore is healthy and running well. Given that the Rams were absolutely crushed by 35 points the first time they played the 49ers this season, it seems likely that a similar beatdown could take place this week. The 49ers are simply the more talented team.

2. The 49ers should be much more motivated this week. Let's face it, the Rams have nothing to play for, other than securing a high draft pick next year. It certainly seems conceivable that the Rams will give it less than full effort in order to protect their rights to the #1 pick. In fact, coach Spagnuolo is already planning to get his young players into the game to audition for next year. And even if they aren't consciously trying to tank for the number one pick, they have been so thoroughly demoralized and beaten this year that they appear to have nothing psychologically left in the tank. On the other hand, the 49ers have strong motivation to finish the year at 8-8, and coach Mike Singletary and QB Alex Smith in particularly are taking this game very seriously. They will in all likelihood play much harder than the Rams.

THE COUNTER-ARGUMENT: 49ERS HAVE BEEN TERRIBLE ON THE ROAD

It's true, the 49ers are 1-6 on the road this year. But the teams they've lost to--Colts, Eagles, Packers, Vikings, Texans--are all solid playoff-caliber teams. The Rams are anything but. I think they'll play this game more like they played the Lions last week, where, despite some 49ers miscues, they still won by 14. The defense has been playing with passion and aggressiveness, in the image of their head coach, and I think the road woes have been more the result of losing to quality opponents than any phobia of playing on the road. And St. Louis is not an intimidating environment; the biggest local storyline this week is Isaac Bruce's return to St. Louis, and I wouldn't be shocked if more fans cheer for him than for the pathetic local team. In other words, I think the 49ers won't miss a beat.

It's true that -7 isn't nothing, and some predictions have the 49ers winning by only 7. But others have it closer to a 10-point margin of victory, and I think it could be even higher. The Rams have made a habit of being blown out this year (they've already won BadNFL one pick), and they simply have no real incentive to play hard against a better team. Thus I like the 49ers to cover.

Upon Further Review: Chargers Dominate 42-17

2009-12-29T18:53:00.003-05:00

San Diego has been good to BadNFL this month. Odds-makers continue to underestimate the Bolts in December, and for the second time in three weeks, BadNFL jumped on the chance to pick the Chargers as December underdogs. It worked again, as San Diego dominated the Titans, 42-17. I have to admit I'm somewhat surprised, as the Titans had been red hot and were playing at home on a non-traditional short week, something that is usually a big advantage. I figured that San Diego would win, but not by this much. Turns out they simply dominated the game, as Philip Rivers (a clear #2 in the MVP vote, at this point) put up huge vertical passing numbers through the first 3 quarters. As I've pointed out numerous times, the Titans are not a good come from behind team, and this game was essentially over at halftime. Why? The Chargers' passing offense was explosive, and predictably Tennessee could not stop it. But their defense was also surprisingly effective, and has been playing quite well of late. More than well enough to dispatch the Titans.

LESSONS LEARNED?

1. I love the Chargers in December. I will keep picking them automatically when they are December underdogs, as long as Philip Rivers and Norv Turner are running the show. The logic has simply not been proven wrong yet, as Rivers stretched his December streak to 17 wins in a row. And don't look now, but San Diego has covered 7 of their last 10 games. I think they're the best team in the NFL right now, and if the Colts are favored in a potential match-up in the AFC Championship game against the Bolts, I'm definitely going with the Bolts.

2. Top 5 passing offenses vs. bottom 5 passing defenses. I said this was one of my keys to watch for, as I think these type of situations lend themselves well to blowouts. So it was particularly easy to pick when the Chargers were underdogs.

3. The adjustment period: when the Chargers lost stud NT Jamal Williams for the year, I really thought they'd have difficulty adjusting, since the NT is arguably the most important component of the 3-4 defense. Well turns out I was both right and wrong. Right in that it took the Chargers, and particularly their defense, several weeks to get back on track. But wrong in that they now appear to be fully recovered. That's a pattern to watch out for next year: fade a team for the couple of weeks right after they lose an important but unheralded defensive cog, but be ready to jump back on the bandwagon after a few weeks' adjustment period. One interesting note: this strategy would have worked well with the Pats and Jerod Mayo earlier in the year.

4. Bonus Lesson Learned: While the Saints' loss to Tampa Bay this week may have been surprising to most, it shouldn't have been. The previous two times a team, previously undefeated through Thanksgiving, lost for the first time (the 2005 Colts and the 1998 Broncos) after Thanksgiving, they also lost the next week. The Saints now make three. In other words, next time a team is undefeated through Thanksgiving, watch for their first loss. And bet against them the following week. (Caveat: not sure this applies to the Colts and their weird decision to bench Manning et. al.).

Week 16 Pick: Chargers +3 @ Titans

2009-12-24T16:14:00.007-05:00

Merry Christmas eve! I hope everyone out there is with family and friends, sitting by the fire, sipping some egg nog, and gearing up for this week's BadNFL prediction! With no further ado, I like the Chargers +3 at the Titans. Here's why:

1. Explosive passing offense vs. porous pass defense

There's no two ways about it, Philip Rivers is playing at an MVP level. Granted, he probably won't win it because of Peyton Manning's historic year, but Rivers has been absolutely lights out this year; he leads the league in yards/attempt, he's third in passer rating, and he has a knack for exploiting his array of matchup-nightmare weapons at the right time. And now he faces the Titans' pass defense, which ranks as the second-worst in the NFL. And as Scouts Inc's Jeremy Green points out, Rivers' specialty is the deep vertical passing attack, something that both BadNFL readers and those who watched the Pats/Titans beatdown in the snow realize that Tennessee struggles with. Moreover, Tennessee's defense is banged up, as they just lost 2 of their 3 starting LBs, including their best cover LB in Keith Bullock. That should spell serious trouble for their ability to contain dynamic Charger TE Antonio Gates, still perhaps the most difficult match-up in the league. In other words, I love the Chargers' chances of putting up tons of points through the air.

Because of that, and the Chargers' corresponding likelihood of jumping out and getting a lead--they've outscored teams 140-53 in the 1st half this year--they may be able to somewhat contain Chris Johnson. The Colts this year have provided a blueprint on how to accomplish that, and I think the Chargers might actually have some similar success. Strikingly, Johnson runs for fewer than 3 yards-per-carry in the 2nd half of games this year. In other words, if the Chargers manage to obtain a lead at some point during the game, the Titans are going to be in trouble. And as BadNFL's week 7 Lesson Learned this year argued, explosive passing attacks against bottom-ranked pass defenses are particularly good candidates to generate big leads early or midway through the game, and when the team that's down relies mainly on the run, they can get in trouble.

2. The Chargers love December.

As I pointed out a few weeks ago in the Lock Of The Year Chargers +3.5 pick against Dallas in December, Philip Rivers and Norv Turner love December. In fact, Norv as the coach of the Chargers is 12-0 in the month, while Philip Rivers is 16-0. That is pretty incredible. The Chargers are also on a 9-game winning streak and are playing absolutely lights out football. The way things go for them in this month, close games and lucky bounces will end up in their favor. And Tennessee, for all its recent VY-inspired success, is only 1-8 ATS in games against teams with a winning record. In fact, they've only played one team--the Colts--of San Diego's caliber since VY took over, and they lost handily. While I'm not confident enough to predict a similarly sizable Chargers win, as Peter King's 24-22 or Jeremy Green's 24-20 seem closer to the mark, it surprises me that the Chargers are getting 3 points, and thus even a narrow Titans victory is acceptable.

THE COUNTERARGUMENT: EAST COAST TRAVEL ON A SHORT WEEK

The Chargers are forced to travel 3 timezones on short rest, to play a team that has been at home for 3 straight weeks. This is a serious concern, as the last team faced with similar circumstances--the Giants traveling to Denver on Thanksgiving--played a terrible and lifeless game. This is undoubtedly the reason the line has moved so far in the Titans' direction, as wise guys famously love to fade West Coast teams who are traveling to the East Coast. But the Chargers have shown great tenacity on the road this season, going a remarkable 6-1 so far. They also successfully traveled 2 timezones east on short rest earlier this year, resulting in a line-shattering 37-7 mauling of the Chiefs. But most importantly, the Chargers despise the Titans as few teams do, as they still blame the Titans' dirty play for the 2007 season-ending injury to Shawn Merriman. As a result, you can expect the Chargers to be fired up and emotional, perhaps countering the ill effects of playing on the road at Christmas.

And remember, it's the Chargers in December, and they're playing on Christmas, the quintessentially December day. They should at a minimum be able to keep this close, and thus I like them to cover.

Upon Further Review: Cards Win But Don't Cover, 31-24

2009-12-24T15:32:00.002-05:00

This one was a bummer. The Cardinals jumped out to a 17-0 lead with relative ease, and looked poised to run it to 24-0, as they had the ball inside the 35 with 1:30 left in the 1st half. But some terrible clock management and a Warner sack/fumble snuffed out their drive, and from there the Cards went largely downhill. I thought that the Cards' underrated secondary would dominate Daunte Culpepper, and they largely did, as he went 6/12 with an INT. But the Lions were able to put up points in some unlikely ways, including a 101yard INT return and a 64 yard TD run by Maurice freaking Morris. The Cards managed to hold on, largely by relying on Beanie Wells and the ground game, but came up a TD short of covering the 13 point spread that I thought they'd cover.

LESSON LEARNED

Be very wary of huge double digit spreads when the underdog is missing a pair of higher-profile players (in this case starting QB Matthew Stafford and starting RB Kevin Jones). The temptation is just too strong for the favorite to lose focus and motivation, and that appears to be exactly what happened. With the Cardinals, a notoriously inconsistent and unpredictable team, that was probably too high of a risk to take, and BadNFL moves to 1-2 on the season when picking double digit favorites.

Week 15 Pick: Cardinals -13 @ Lions

2009-12-20T12:23:00.002-05:00

I'm going to have to beg your indulgence for another week, as I'm going to post my pick with minimal analysis. The pick is Cardinals -13 @ Lions. The week following losses, the Cardinals are undefeated, and in their two road games following losses, they won by an average of 17 points. The Lions are terrible, and will be starting Maurice Morris and Daunte Culpepper. This one has blowout written all over it.

I'll be back with my typical long researched posts next week!

Upon Further Review: Chargers Win 20-17

2009-12-13T19:06:00.003-05:00

Well that was easy. Not much to say here: the Cowboys found a way to lose, as usual in December. This week it was something old (another missed FG) and something new (inability to score the ball from the 1 yard line given 3 consecutive chances).

Romo managed to put up some nice meaningless yardage at the very end of the game, but couldn't convert when he had to. The defense held the Chargers to 20 points but couldn't get a stop when it mattered in the 4th quarter.

The difference in the game ended up being yet another missed FG by Nick Folk.

In other words: Cowboys in December baby. This was the easiest pick of the year.

Week 14 Pick: Chargers +3.5 @ Cowboys

2009-12-12T20:03:00.003-05:00

I know this pick is delayed, but I had an exceedingly annoying exam on Friday and also feel like I have swine flu. As such, I'm not going to gather all the links and write up the detailed analysis that I normally do this week. Not only am I not feeling up to it, but there's no reason to, as this pick is just too easy.

Philip Rivers is undefeated in December. Tony Romo and the Cowboys are anything but. Every year around this time, the Cowboys find ways to lose games that they should win. I thought maybe this year would be different and they'd snap out of it against the Giants, but after watching Brandon Jacobs lumber down the sideline for 70 yards and the Giants' middling return game generate its first punt return TD of the season to seal the win for the Giants, I realize I was wrong. Now they are playing a Chargers team that is not only better than them but always wins in December. This has led some analysts to write off the Cowboys in the division race, and I'm inclined to agree. Chargers simply should not be giving points in this game.

Upon Further Review: Redskins Cover 30-33!

2009-12-10T20:50:00.003-05:00

Well that felt good; a great prediction (for once) by BadNFL. The Redskins came out determined; their offense looked great while the Saints looked flat, and the defense played well for extended stretches against Brees. But they still ended up losing. You have to feel sorry for the Redskins (I never thought I'd say that!). A fluky Saints' fumble return for a TD right off of a Redskins pick to close out the 1st half, and an inexplicable Suisham missed-FG from the 5 yardline with 2 minutes to go, and then a heartbreaking OT loss. Ouch. This was a game the Redskins should have won. But as they've been apt to do lately, they lost a game they should have won (while still covering).

I'm not sure if there are any lessons from this game, other than karma really seems to be on the Saints' side this year. While the Redskins strike me as a pretty solid team, they find ways to lose, and while they've been good bets to cover, I'm not sure how much longer they'll be able to keep fighting after suffering devastating losses week in and week out. But the larger lesson was that the BadNFL methodology was right on; the Saints really were due for a letdown after their emotional victory, and it showed, particularly early in the game. One thing to think about next time a situation like this (up and coming surprise team for the year, coming off an emotional home win against a traditional powerhouse, particularly on a short week, going out on the road to play a bad team) comes up: focus on the first-half line instead of the whole game. While the Redskins did ultimately cover the game line here, first half bets were able to reduce the amount of time Brees had to pull off the comeback.

But all in all, a very solid and well-reasoned prediction, if I do say so myself.

Update: BadNFL and the sharps think alike

2009-12-08T12:06:00.002-05:00

According to Millman yesterday:

Same was true with the NFL's other undefeated team, the Saints. This was a classic sharp versus public matchup. All season, squares have been putting money on the Saints, ignoring the fact they've had a hard time covering against weak link teams. Meanwhile, the Redskins' D has made them a wise guy favorite this year (I've written that sentence about seven times since Thanksgiving) and they've covered the past several weeks. So, come Sunday, the books made bank from the loads of public money on the Saints, which far outweighed the sharp money won on the Redskins.

Too bad more of those squares don't read BadNFL; they would have known to steer clear of the Saints last weekend. Now if I can just break back over the .500 barrier and get a bonifide winning streak going! Upon Further Review coming later today, so stay tuned.

Week 13 Pick: Redskins +9.5 vs. Saints

2009-12-05T15:58:00.005-05:00

Well I'm still in a foul mood from the Fins' unlikely melt down last week, and with law school exams approaching, there's nothing that could make me feel better than a nice stretch run here at BadNFL. So for the first time since my inaugural week 2, I'm taking an underdog. I know, my throngs of readers might think I'm crazy to pick against the undefeated Saints and their #1 ranked offense, so here are my reasons:

1. The Saints are due for a let down.

Everything about this game screams trap. As everyone in BadNFL Nation knows, New Orleans is coming off a emotional, statement win last week against the Pats on Monday Night Football. As a result, the media is now proclaiming them to have arrived, placing them unanimously at the top of power rankings, and proclaiming that Brees just played the best game in the history of the league. In other words, now seems like a perfect time for them to get complacent. History confirms this, as the Saints have a startling negative record ATS when they go out on the road after a big home win. Given the unique Katrina-infused emotion the Saints derive from their home crowd in the Superdome, and given the nearly perfect game they played last week, it's hard to see the Saints mustering up the emotion to play a team that most pundits wrote off a long time ago.

Two comparisons come to mind. One was this year, week 7: the Saints had just come off a statement win against the 5-0 (at the time) Giants, and they went out on the road to Miami. They proceeded to fall behind Miami 24-3 before mounting a furious comeback and ultimately winning by 12. True, this might not bode well for my pick, as a similar 12-point victory here would cover the spread. But for a number of reasons, I think this game is different. For one, the week 6 victory over the Giants simply cannot compare to the primetime domination over Belichick and Brady last week. Second, as those of you unfortunately enough to watch Miami/Buffalo last week can attest to, Miami is a truly horrendous 4th quarter team, and I frankly expect the Skins to play better. However, what won't change is the Saints' lackluster initial effort in this game.

The other example is a more salient one: in week 14 of 2006, the Brees/Peyton-led Saints played the Cowboys with first place in the NFC at stake, and the Saints totally demolished them on national TV. The next week, the NFC Championship Game-bound Saints lost to the 5-11 Redskins. While this Saints team is certainly better than that one, the exact same dynamics were at work: a letdown against a bad but tough Redskins team, after an emotional victory. While I'm not saying the Redskins will win this game, I do think the Saints' inevitable let down will keep it close enough for the Redskins to cover.

2. The Redskins match-up pretty well in this game.

Sharps love the Redskins, because they play solid defense. Their pass defense is particularly effective, good for tops in the league. Brees historically struggles against the Redskins, as his QB rating of 53.5 in his 3 career games against them is his lowest against any opponent. In addition, the Saints have lost 10 of their last 13 against the Redskins. This match-up just doesn't appear to be good for Brees and the Saints.

Finally, the weather in this game is an important factor. In his career, Brees is 0-5 with a passer rating below 80 in games that kickoff in temperatures of below 45 degrees. And you guessed it, the weather is projected to be below 45 this weekend, with the accumulation of over an inch of snow tonight. Given those conditions, I think the Redskins' solid pass defense will shut down Brees and the Saints' aerial attack.

Finally, the Redskins get Albert Haynesworth back this week. I think he'll do wonders to boost their pass rush and help stop up the middle. Given that the Redskins' offense has been improving lately, and that the Saints have a real possibility of letting down, this game should be close.

THE COUNTER-ARGUMENT: GREGG WILLIAMS WILL FIRE UP THE SAINTS?

Apparently, Saints DC Gregg Williams has a huge grudge against the Redskins stemming back from his time as DC there, and as such, will motivate the Saints to blow out the Redskins. Whatever. This is the type of speculation that it's very difficult to evaluate. Ultimately, every sign points to this being a trap game, and I don't think one assistant coach's pissing match with Redskins ownership will change that.

The real counter-argument is obviously that the Saints have the most explosive offense in the league and are much much better than the Redskins. That's true, and there's obviously a risk that the Saints, even if they play this close most of the way, open up a big enough lead at the very end to cover the spread. But talent alone does not win football games. The Saints are undoubtedly much better, but I don't love their match-up and they're due for a letdown. The Skins are getting a lot of points, and while I have been waiting for it to push up to +10 all week (and would obviously like it better there), +9.5 is still enough for me. Washington covers.

Upon Further Review: Fins Lose 14-31

2009-12-02T16:38:00.006-05:00

I can't believe I'm writing this, when the team I picked lost by 17 points, but the Dolphins really should have won this game. The Dolphins were ahead in the 4th quarter, and they should have closed out an inferior opponent. They did not, as Henne collapsed and threw 3 consecutive INTs in the final 3 minutes of the game, turning a prospective Dolphins' victory into a Bills' blowout. Most of my predictions about this game came true: the Dolphins' ground game was solid, and the Fins' accrued 5 sacks and numerous QB hits and hurries, including 2.5 sacks from Joey Porter. So why did the Fins blow it?

1. Their inability to close out games. The Dolphins have been terrible in the 4th quarter this year, and that trend obviously continued on Sunday. Of course, so had the Bills, which was the main reason I wasn't worried about the Fins before this game. But the Bills managed to put together an impressive drive (replete with the requisite observation by the announcer, seemingly made in every game about the team that BadNFL picked against, that "this is the best the Bills have looked all season") that tied the game, and then new coach Percy Fewell made the gutsy (I thought ill-advised) decision to have Ryan Lindell attempt a 56-yard field goal to give the Bills the lead. If he had missed, and he missed earlier from 44 yards, the Dolphins would have been set up with great field position to take the lead. But like every other gamble Fewell made on Sunday, that one paid off. And Henne was clearly not up to the challenge of playing from behind on the road late in that situation--even though he led a similar drive on national TV against the Jets litttle over a month ago.

2. They got too cute on the goalline. With the score tied 0-0, early in the 1st quarter, the Dolphins had the chance to pound the ball in on the ground from inside the 5. And why wouldn't they, given that the Bills' run defense is horrendous? Instead, the Dolphins decided to attempt a Ricky Williams pass out of the wildcat, and he threw a devastating and ugly INT in the end zone. That swung the momentum for the whole game, and gave the Bills, who I didn't think had a lot to play for entering the game, new life.

LESSON LEARNED?

Be careful betting against new, young, energetic coaches who have replaced an tired and dour older coach. Pretty much every recap of this game mentions how energized the Bills are by new coach Percy Fewell. I thought that the swirling Shanahan rumors would undermine his credibility, but most reports have the players absolutely loving the coach and playing much harder for him. Particularly as contrasted to Dick Jauron, maybe he really is an effective coach for them. It's difficult to say, and I'm still surprised that this game didn't result in a decisive Dolphins' win, but in this case, it really appears that my "counterargument" that I discarded in my prediction came through and tanked the pick.

Week 12 Pick: Fins -3 @ Bills

2009-11-26T14:22:00.012-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope everyone out there in BadNFL Nation has a good day having some turkey, watching some football, and settling in for this week's BadNFL pick. A reader was recently questioning why I gravitate towards favorites so often (8 of my 10 picks this year have been favorites), and I don't have a great answer; maybe it's a cognitive bias that leads the majority of the betting public to always pick heavy favorites. Regardless, this week I have good feeling about several underdogs (Texans +3.5 in particular) and a similar feeling about only one favorite. But even so, I'm picking that favorite, because I just like the Fins at the Bills too much to pass up. Here's why:

1. The Bills' miserable offensive line.

The Bills have the worst offensive line in the league. As I pointed out in my week 3 pick against the Bills, the Bills entered the year with the least collective experience--and arguably the least talent--of any offensive line this decade. The week that I made that observation, their terrible offensive line held true to form, turning in an abysmal performance while the Bills failed to cover. Incredibly, since then, the situation has deteriorated, as injuries have ravaged their bad starters and forced in their even worse backups. Given this mix of inexperience and instability along the line, I expect the Bills to have a miserable day on offense. The Fins have one of the best defensive fronts in football, and Joey Porter, Jason Taylor and company are likely to have a field day in the Bills' offensive backfield. And when they're not, look for the Bills' offensive line to commit a couple of drive-killing penalties, a stat in which they're worst in the league by far.

The failure of the offensive line should negate any positive momentum established by the Bills' offense, particularly given the pedestrian talent level at most offensive positions. In fact, most analysts have identified Joey Porter vs. the offensive line as the key match-up of this game, and for good reason: as the Giants demonstrated against Tom Brady in the Super Bowl two years ago, offensive line failures can negate even a potent offensive attack. And of course, potency the Bills' offense does not possess. Ryan Fitzpatrick entered last week with a career passer rating under 50, and his skill set is more suited for a backup than a starting role. True, the Bills' passing game, and T.O. in particular, was solid against the Jags last week. But I don't think that portends trouble for the Fins for two reasons. First, a good game by T.O., particularly on a dysfunctional team like the Bills, can spell doom for a young QB. Owens had a similar breakout game last year the week before Thanksgiving against the Giants, and it ultimately contributed to both the Cowboys' failure to make the playoffs and Owens' departure from Dallas: after that, Romo really locked on to T.O. and targeted him excessively. The Cowboys' offense wasn't the same for the rest of the year. And you can already see the signs of this in Buffalo, as T.O. has really upped his public griping lately. Thus, look for Fitzpatrick to force the ball into T.O. a few times, and for Sparano's Dolphins (Sparano coached T.O. in Dallas) to be ready for it.

Second, the Bills' performance last week against the Jags, which some are heralding as a fine performance and a sign of things to come, is not in and of itself very impressive. The Bills still lost to a Jaguars team that is not as good as its record suggests, and T.O.'s huge 98 yard pass play came against inexplicable 1 on 1 coverage by a rookie CB who said afterward that he spent the whole game in awe of Owens. Don't expect the well-coached Fins to make the same mistake. Moreover, the Jags feature an anemic pass rush that ranks dead last in the league in sacks. They are not the type of defense that can exploit the Bills' weakness up front. The Dolphins are.

2. The Dolphins should have success running the ball, enough to control the clock and generate a sizable margin of victory.

First, the stats: the Bills have the second worst rush defense in the NFL. The Dolphins have the 4th best rushing offense in the NFL. In fact, it was their first game against the Bills that really jumpstarted the Fins' strong rushing attack for the year, as Miami's 250 yards on the ground led them to a dominating 38-10 win. True, as you all know, Ronnie Brown is out for the year now. But Ricky Williams was superb last week in the Fins' gritty win last Thursday against the improving Panthers, and he has a history of success running against Buffalo. Moreover, the Fins should be rested after getting last weekend off, which is a good sign for their strong running game. Although the Bills may be getting DT Marcus Stroud back this week, he missed last week with a knee injury and if he plays it will likely be at a reduced level of effectiveness. In other words, I just don't expect them to stop the Dolphins' running game, and if they sell out to do so, the rapidly improving and surprisingly effective Chad Henne should be able to make them pay over the top. It's simply hard to see why this spread is so low given that the last time these teams played, Miami won by 28 points.

One possible explanation for the line is Miami's injuries. It's true that Miami suffered several injuries last week, including the potentially crippling loss of NT Jason Ferguson. But after the aforementioned long rest, the Fins will be returning a lot of their players this week. Moreover, I just have faith in the Sparano/Parcells regime's ability to replace players and not miss a beat. In fact, the Dolphins had to break in a lot of young players in their first game against the Bills this year, and they still dominated. This game is more about how terrible the Bills are than it is about the Dolphins being a juggernaut. And Joey Porter missed the first Fins-Bills match-up with an injury, but he won't miss this one. His pass rushing capabilities spells trouble for the Bills' pathetic protection schemes in the rematch. And that should set up Miami's ability to run the ball effectively and milk the clock. True, they'll miss Brown and Ferguson, but I think they'll still play well.

THE COUNTER-ARGUMENT: THE NEW COACHING REGIME HAS INSPIRED THE BILLS?

It's true that the Bills looked better last week in the first game of the post-Jauron era than they had previously in the season. But while I might normally be wary of this bet because of the new young energetic coach, the media circus surrounding the Bills' ongoing search for a new coach--particularly regarding Mike Shanahan--negates any such positive momentum. Almost all fo the stories this week relating to the Bills pertain to their next head coach, and as such, I can't imagine that interim coach Perry Fewell has much credibility in the locker room. The Bills' fans, and those who cover the team, are clearly thinking about next year. Conversely, the Dolphins are coming off a nice victory and in the thick of the playoff race, giving them plenty of motivation. Thus, the coaching change doesn't worry me too much.

In that light, this line seems way too low; 3 points is simply not enough to account for the differences in talent between these teams, particularly given the match-up. The Bills are 1-8 ATS in their last 9 home games, and I expect that trend to continue. Fins cover.

Upon Further Review: Colts Cover 17-15

2009-11-25T21:31:00.010-05:00

Whew. Colts got BadNFL back to .500, but only barely, as they beat the Ravens 17-15, exceeding the 1.5 point spread by a mere half point. Here's how they did it:

The Ravens were pathetic in the red zone.

Sometimes, a game boils down to one simple stat: the Ravens only got 2 FGs out of their 4 trips inside the red zone. Responsible were a confluence of factors, chiefly that the Colts' defense stiffened in the red zone, making plays all game including a game sealing interception by Gary Brackett. But even more than the Colts' defense, which was solid--and has statistically climbed to become one of the elite defenses in the league--I thought the problem came down to poor decisionmaking by Joe Flacco. As I wrote in my prediction for this game, I've never been on the Flacco bandwagon, and he was quite pedestrian on Sunday. Part of it is certainly his woefully inadequate collection of pass catchers, but a major part of it was the sheer predictability of his reads. Breaking down the film on Flacco, it's obvious that he locks onto Ray Rice short over the middle when under pressure in the red zone, and on the crucial Brackett interception, the Ravens put three defenders on Rice and Flacco tried to force it into him anyway! That ended the game, and it was symptomatic of the Ravens' struggles of late; Flacco has now gone 3 straight games without a TD pass.

LESSONS LEARNED?

1. The Colts are barely winning right now. Many analysts thought that the Colts were generally outplayed in this game. Manning certainly wasn't happy with the way the offense played. His stats weren't pretty, the Colts had an uncharacteristic fumble inside the 10 yardline, and they never seemed to get in a rhythm the whole game. But somehow, as they've done all year, they squeaked out the win. In other words, I am really not confident in the Colts right now, and I could see their run coming to an end sooner rather than later.

2. The Ravens' special teams are a reason to hate them in close games. The one aspect of my prediction that I did get right was this: "Finally, in a close game, you have to trust the Colts to eek out the win, since the Ravens' kicking game has been an unmitigated disaster this year." That was borne out, as Billy Cundiff missed a huge FG that would have been the difference in the game. Moreover, the Ravens' lack of confidence in the kicking game, combined with their fear of giving the ball back to Manning with 2 minutes left, led them to call an aggressive pass play at the end of the game when they were already in field goal range. It's true that the Ravens still have a point differential that suggests they are one of the top teams in the NFL. But as I noted earlier after one of my picks premised on that exact logic fell through, the Ravens have been finding ways to lose close games, and their late game futility was on display Sunday. That's why, although this bet barely came through, I'll gladly take it.

Update: Recency Bias Influencing This pick?

2009-11-21T00:02:00.006-05:00

ESPN's Chad Millman reports:

There is some recency bias at play, by bettors. Jay says: "This is actually a lot of public money right now, and I think the main reason for that is people bet what they last saw. The Colts had a dramatic finish and the Ravens had a dud offensive game. That's the driving force. If this number goes to 1.5, I can see sharps taking the Ravens because sharp money always favors defense.

It is true that the Ravens played a dud game last week against the Browns. Yet as I documented, their general ranking ticked upward after that game, while the Colts are still somewhat underrated as everyone obsesses about Belichick's bad decision instead of the Colts' miraculous comeback. Far from being infected by a recency bias, my assessment is colored by the Ravens' performance over the past 5 weeks, a span in which they've played only one good game, and that one coming off a bye against the freefalling Broncos. Finally, as I said earlier, the Ravens defense is simply not dominant, as they've allowed 21 points a game against teams with a .500 or better record.

It just seems to me that people who are picking the Ravens are trying to be too smart this week; a 9-0 team against a 5-4 team that's missing one of its best defensive players simply should not be this even.

Week 11 Pick: Colts -1.5 @ Ravens

2009-11-20T17:14:00.000-05:00

Well on the one hand, this has been a terrible week here at BadNFL HQ, as every time I open up my homepage I have to see the indignity of the 4-5 below .500 record. But on the other hand, it's been a strangely exciting week, since I could barely believe my eyes when the lines came out earlier this week. Specifically, I couldn't believe that the undefeated Colts opened as a pick'em against the quite ordinary Baltimore Ravens. I immediately knew that this line was going to be the one that would catapult BadNFL back to .500. Since then, the line has shifted to -1.5, and I still like it. Here's why:

1. The Ravens are overrated.

I've watched the Ravens now 2 weeks in a row, and I've looked at film from a bunch of their early games, and I don't think they're a great football team. True, every report or analysis on the Ravens prefaces its assessment by gushing about how tough the Ravens' defense is, but as Matt Williamson astutely pointed out in his Monday podcast this week, the Ravens no longer have the fearsome defense that they've had in the Ray Lewis era. True, they still allow the 5th fewest points in the league this year, but their schedule pretty much explains why: 2 games against the Browns, 1 against the Chiefs, 1 against the Broncos, and 2 against the Bengals, all of which are well below-average offensive teams. On film, they're really just not that impressive. They're not forcing turnovers at the rate they have in the past, they let Cedric Benson dominate them twice this year (can you see the Ravens of old coming out flat twice against a divisional team in the same year?), and while they showed one flash against the Broncos 3 weeks ago, they've pretty much done nothing else impressive.

I also love that the Ravens are coming off a 16-0 victory over the Browns last week. The Ravens shot up in the power rankings after their win over the Browns, feeding the calls that the Ravens still have a dominating defense. They should have gone down instead; the Ravens played an uneven and unconvincing game, winning more due to the Browns' ineptitude than to Ravens' dominance. Beating the Browns is simply not something at all to be proud about. The Browns sport a historically inept offense, on pace to set the all-time record for fewest points scored in a 16-game season, and Brady Quinn does not look like an NFL-caliber QB. The Browns came out with a pathetic game plan, and played like they have all year: they didn't show up. As such, I think the power rankings, and the oddsmakers, overreacted to that Ravens' win. Remember, this was a tie game at halftime. The same level of performance by the Ravens this week will likely get them blown out. And if it's close, I don't trust the Ravens to pull through; although they've been decent against the spread this year, they have found a way to choke away close games.

2. The Colts match-up well to exploit the Ravens' shortcomings, while the reverse is not true.

I love this Colts team right now. True, they've benefited from some lucky breaks the last couple of weeks, and they barely eeked out a win against the Pats. But this much is obvious: their passing game is dominant. Case in point was last week: although Manning and his non-Wayne WRs looked somewhat out-of-sync for much of the game, they still put up 35 points against a good Patriots team. That, to me, is the sign of a dominant offense, even more so than eyepoppingly good yardage statistics. Even if not everything goes right for the Colts, I have confidence that Manning will find a way to win the game in the 4th quarter. After all, despite struggles with injuries and an anemic running game, the Colts know how to win ugly. They boast the best WR in the NFL, and I think indisputably the best QB, who has come through for BadNFL twice already this year. Their passing attack is (obviously) the key to this game.

The Ravens are ill-suited to stop that attack. Let's face it, this Ravens team is not the team of Chris McAllister and Rod Woodson. Far from it, the Ravens have one of the worst secondaries in the league. In particular, their cornerbacks struggle against above-average WRs. In fact, their glaring problems at cornerback constitute the biggest weakness of their team. That is an absolutely terrible problem to have when playing against Manning and the Colts. Even worse, Terrell Suggs, an irreplaceable part of the Ravens' defense and their only consistent pass rusher, is out for this game. Because of the extra time Manning will have in the pocket, I like the Colts to move the ball pretty easily in this game, leading me to think that Brian Burke's Advanced NFL metrics have it about right when they put the Colts at a 67% win probability; with the Suggs injury, I like the Colts even more than that. In essence, the Ravens struggle with explosive passing offenses, and consequently this miniscule line seems way off.

All of the above is particularly true given the Colts' historical domination of the Ravens. The Ray Lewis-led Ravens have played the Manning-led Colts each of the last 4 years. The results? All Colts wins: 24-7, 15-6, 44-20, and last year 31-3. That's right, last year the Colts beat Joe Flacco's Ravens 31-3, and by all numerical accounts this year's Ravens team is worse while the Colts are better. True, that game was in Indy, but I actually prefer the Colts on the road, as they get a more favorable line, and data shows that this year road teams accordingly cover spreads better than do the home teams. If history shows anything, it's that Manning is quite comfortable against the Ravens' defense.

COUNTER-ARGUMENT: THE COLTS WILL SUFFER A LET-DOWN AFTER THEIR MIRACULOUS COMEBACK AGAINST THE PATS

Not so fast. This Colts team appears to be unique in that they never get too high or too low, and it's more likely that they'll use the Pats win as motivation. While it's true that the atmosphere is likely to be quite intense and hostile in Baltimore, I expect the Colts to come out focused and prepared, looking to shut everyone up about the Belichick 4th down call. Plus, history is comforting on this front: the Colts have beaten the Belichick-led Pats around this time of year (weeks 8-10) 3 separate times since 2005, and they've followed it up with a win the next week all 3 times. And in 2 of those years, the Colts were similarly undefeated in two of those years. In these types of years, the Colts simply don't lose to anyone except the Pats and the Chargers.

Moreover, I think the Ravens are more likely to be unprepared. We all saw how atrociously they played the week after their last dominating defensive performance, and they're coming off a short week, a situation in which they've failed to cover the spread the last 5 times. Finally, in a close game, you have to trust the Colts to eek out the win, since the Ravens' kicking game has been an unmitigated disaster this year.

Matt Williamson of Scouts Inc. wrote up this game for ESPN this week, and he predicted a 31-20 win. That sounds about right to me, and I'm taking the Colts to handily cover.

Upon Further Review: Cowboys Lose 7-17

2009-11-18T17:36:00.002-05:00

It's bad times for BadNFL. Three losses in a row, and the luster is all off. This loss was particularly brutal to watch because it involved both my favorite team losing and a pick backfiring. I felt particularly good about this pick heading into Sunday (unlike some of the previous weeks), but not only did the Cowboys fail to cover the 3 points, they lost in an ugly game.

The story of the game was the Cowboys' inability to protect Romo. I wrote before this game that the Packers' pass rush had struggled, and it had. But not on Sunday; the Packers looked like they had totally confused the Cowboys' offensive line, and they generated incessant pressure on Romo. Sure, the injury on the 2nd drive to RT Marc Colombo didn't help--as that injury may spell trouble for the Cowboys heading forward--but the real key was Jason Garrett's inexplicably decision to abandon the run. The Cowboys became one-dimensional, which allowed the Packers to unleash every blitz in their playbook. Coming on the heels of two games that I thought Garrett called extremely well, I thought he put together a miserable gameplan against the Packers, and it showed.

I was right that the Packers didn't protect Rodgers very well; the Cowboys got 4 sacks, 19 pressures, and several hits on plays that were negated by penalties. But Green Bay played their best defensive game of the year, and that was enough to lead them to victory.

LESSONS LEARNED?

I stand by the logic of this bet. I'm really not sure what to take away from this game, other than the Cowboys had an inexplicable letdown and a poorly called game. Maybe I should have been wary of betting the Cowboys given that they were riding high and were due for a poor performance. But as I wrote in the pick, the Cowboys have put together huge winning streaks in November before, and Romo had won 13 games in a row in this month. Yet he played quite poorly in Lambeau.

Green Bay was coming off a terrible loss to Tampa Bay. The chance of the Green Bay bounceback was what worried me more than anything before the game, and maybe that argument was borne out. But I still think the bet was sound, and I think that this game more evidenced the unpredictability of the NFL than any major problem with the reasoning.

Week 10 Pick: Cowboys -3 (even) @ Packers

2009-11-13T14:07:00.009-05:00

It's finally happened. BadNFL has slid back to .500 after a poor pick last week, and to bail me out, I'm going with the Cowboys for the first time this year. Before you call me a homer, I should let you know that this pick is more about betting against the Packers than it is anything else. Here's why:

1. The Cowboys pass rush should destroy the Packers' offensive line.

It's no secret that the Packers are surrendering sacks at a historically high rate this year. The most troubling aspect of their sacks allowed is that teams aren't even blitzing them that much; the pass protection has been vulnerable to 4 man rushes. There's really no reason to think that the protection will get any better this week, as the line is still plagued by injuries. While much has been made of how long Rodgers holds the ball, one report that studied every Rodgers dropback concluded that he doesn't actually hold it that long, and that the sacks are mostly the fault of the Packers' putrid offensive line. In other words, this is not something that can be fixed by a simple mechanical tweak. Analysts have been all over the Packers for weeks about their terrible pass protection, and it appears to be getting worse, not better; this week the Packers will make yet another personnel change up front. McCarthy doesn't appear to have any bright ideas about how to change protection schemes, and frankly, I'm not sure what he can do.

The Cowboys are well-suited to exploit these protection problems. The Cowboys pass rush has been one of the primary drivers of their turn around, and it was on full display last week as they "overwhelmed" the Eagles' protection schemes in their impressive win at Philly. The Cowboys' ability to subject McNabb to constant duress last week jumps out on film, especially their ability to generate that pressure with 4-man rushes. In particular, Cowboys' NT Jay Ratliff is in my opinion the best interior lineman in football--at the very least a severely underrated one. He should be able to seriously exploit the Packers' interior protection, particularly the overwhelmed and undersized center Scott Wells. Last year when the Cowboys played the Packers at Lambeau Field, they sacked Rodgers 5 times in an 11 point win. I think they get similar pressure this game. And if you've watched the Packers this year, they've struggled against every single team they've played with an elite blind side pass rusher. Antwan Odom destroyed them week 2, and Jared Allen similarly dominated the game in both Vikings games. Luckily, the Cowboys boast a formidable pass rusher, one who many have rated as the best linebacker in the NFL, in Demarcus Ware. And as was the case in the games against the Vikings and Bengals, the sacks and the pressure will be decisive in this one: plain and simple, QBs who are sacked a lot do not win.

2. It's still November, and Romo is on a roll.

I also like Romo in this game. While there's always a chance he implodes like he did week 2 against the Giants this year, he has been playing very controlled and smart football, making smart reads and minimizing the types of negative plays that the Packers depend on. He's been demonstrating uncharacteristic maturity both on and off the field, and for the first time in several years, I feel really good about him. He's also won 13 starts in a row in November, and his numbers in this month over his career are eye-poppingly good. Not only is the Cowboys' offense playing efficient football, but the Packers boast an anemic pass rush that will struggle to pressure Romo into poor decisions. This is partly because the Packers are stupidly trying to run a 3-4 defense without a good NT, a flaw that will be even more exposed this week, since they will likely be missing their best pass rusher in Aaron Kampman. And I don't feel that returning to Lambeau will intimidate Romo; he's from Wisconsin, and he idolizes Favre. He led the Cowboys into Lambeau last year, also coming off a 4-point win against Philly (just like last week), and came away with an 11 point win. We know that Favre, despite his gunslinging ways, tore apart the Packers twice this year already. I think Romo does the same, and although his numbers might not be as incredible as Favre's were against the Packers, I think he plays clean and efficient football.

THE COUNTER-ARGUMENT: THE PACKERS ARE DESPERATE...

The Packers are undeniably coming off the worst loss of their season, where they gave a pitiful Tampa Bay squad its first win of the season. As such, the Packers are calling this a must win game. There is a chance that the Packers will bounce back with a vengeance, while the Cowboys will get a little full of themselves trying to coast off the momentum that they've generated with recent wins. The Packers' desperation, particularly when contrasted to Cowboys' complacency, motivated Scouts' Inc. Matt Williamson to call a Green Bay upset this week in the Football Today podcast. I can certainly see where he's coming from, but I disagree.

First, if this Packers' team was one that could rise to the occasion and draw motivation from adversity, they should have performed much better against Favre in Lambeau. Rodgers has been under fire the whole season because of the Favre circus, but yet inexplicably the whole team came out flat against the Vikings. Similarly, I think that the "crisis" being faced by the Packers right now will fail to inspire them to play better football. Instead, the team appears to be falling apart; reminiscent of the disaster that is the Washington Redskins, former players are prominently calling for McCarthy to be stripped of his play-calling duties. The Favre drama has surrounded them all year long, leading to constant media attention and headaches somewhat analogous to the endlessly frustrating 2008 Cowboys. In other words, I think the Packers are a seriously overrated bunch who fail to play inspired football and have way more talent than they do moxie. As Simmons pointed out this week, since November of last year, the Packers have precisely six wins, all over the absolute dregs of the NFL. Their inability to put together good wins does not inspire confidence in them this week to bounce back.

On the other hand, I don't think the Cowboys will overlook the Packers. For once, the Cowboys aren't engaging in pointless trash talking and media self-promotion; their statements this week reflect a team that's not taking the Packers for granted. They've shown steady improvement since their 2-2 start, and they are playing as a cohesive unit, a quality that has been lacking in years past. Moreover, I take comfort from the fact that predictions are split over this game, with most analysts concluding that it will be a close game that the Cowboys might even lose. I love the fact that the Cowboys are flying under the radar right now. They're not the subject of a lot of stories, they're not in anyone's top-5 power rankings, and people universally think this game will be close. You hear a ton about the explosive Colts and Saints' offenses, but it's the Cowboys that are leading the league in yards per play. In other words, this is the type of week where the Cowboys should be able to avoid distraction and focus on letting their front 7 overwhelm the Packers' protection.

Finally, every Cowboys' win has been by more than 3 points, and every Packers' loss has been by more than 3 points. The Packers have also lost 2 straight by double digits, including one to the woeful Bucs. There is a chance that this game is quite close, and I wish the line was at -2, which is where it started this week. But the Cowboys should be able to cover this line, which appears too low, particularly since the Cowboys at -3 are paying out at even money. They've covered 8 of the last 10 ATS against the Packers, and they've won a whopping 11 out of the last 13 against them. That trend continues this week. Cowboys cover, and BadNFL gets back in the win column.

Upon Further Review: Ravens Lose 7-17.

2009-11-12T11:59:00.003-05:00

Well, I'm getting pretty tired of analyzing what went wrong with my picks, so this installment of Upon Further Review will be briefer than usual. In essence, the Bengals thoroughly beat the Ravens for the second time this year. Although I predicted that the Ravens defense would be full of swagger and would dominate by relying on a similar game plan to that which they used to stifle the Broncos, they did no such thing. They played undisciplined, soft defense most of the game, and demonstrated that their secondary is a legitimate weakness. The Bengals also dominated in the trenches, both blowing the Baltimore front off the line of scrimmage--a place where Ngata was sorely missed--and subjecting Flacco to constant pressure on the other side of the ball. The Ravens also couldn't get out of their own way, missing a key late field goal and allowing 3 consecutive sacks to snuff out their last comeback attempt. And the Bengals thoroughly owned the time of possession stat, possessing the ball for 40 minutes. Not only did Benson generate another 100+ yard day on the ground, but when the Ravens stacked the box, Carson was a perfect 8/8 for 100 yards. In other words, Cincinnati looked largely really good, while Baltimore was pretty unimpressive. This prediction was just sorely off base.

LESSONS LEARNED

1. Cincinnati has a really good secondary. As Bucky Brooks pointed out, and as my own view of the game confirmed, the Bengals' DBs were simply spectacular, completely shutting down Baltimore's passing game. Moreover, the Ravens were only able to convert on a pitiful 10% of their 3rd downs (1/10). I've never been that high on Joe Flacco, despite his impressive stats to open the year, but the Bengals totally shut him down. And much of the credit goes to Bengals' defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer, who as they pointed out on Playbook this week, came out with a fantastic game plan that appeared to take the Ravens out of their comfort zone. In other words, despite the Bengals' historical struggles coming out of the bye, they appeared to put it to good use this week and come up with a great defensive performance. As Simmons pointed out on his podcast this week, the Bengals are still not getting a lot of respect in the betting marketplace, and it makes me like them against pass-heavy teams, given the fantastic pass defense they displayed. The Bengals are no joke this year.

2. Do not overreact to one game. Looking back at the prediction, too much of it was premised on the Ravens' dismantling of the Broncos last week. It seems like most analysts were a little too quick to jump back on the Ravens' bandwagon after one good game; their defensive swagger and dominance sure didn't look like it was actually back this week. It is pretty difficult to explain the awful letdown against the Bengals after such a dominant performance against the undefeated Broncos, but the lesson here is not to overreact to one good game at this point in the season.

Update: Ngata Out

2009-11-08T11:55:00.002-05:00

Well, this has been a possibility all week (and I should have written about it in my prediction post), but ESPN's Rachel Nichols just reported that Ravens stud DT Haloti Ngata is definitely out for this game. That certainly is not positive news for the Ravens' ability to stop the Bengals' ground attack, and while I still like this pick, it's not the total lock that I think it would be were Ngata playing.

Week 9 Pick: Ravens -3 @ Bengals

2009-11-05T12:50:00.017-05:00

A huge week for BadNFL looms, a week that will determine if the record remains safely above .500 or not. Luckily, there are lots of games that I like this week, none more so than the Ravens -3 (+105) at Cincinnati. Here's why:

1. Both of these teams' records are deceiving.

One of my burgeoning beliefs, one that might help check against unwise bets that leave too much to chance, is to look for a structural explanation for why the public's (and thus the casinos', as they are attempting to mirror the public) expectations for a game are seriously off-base. I suspect that the public has misdiagnosed both of the teams involved in this match-up, thus making it a particularly attractive bet. In short: the Ravens are underrated while the Bengals are overrated.

The Ravens are better than a typical 4-3 team. Some Vegas insiders refer to the concept of "coin flip games," which are games that are decided by the bounce of a ball in the last few minutes. The Ravens have essentially lost 3 of these games, and accordingly, many sharps have them high in their power rankings. In other words, had a few plays turned out differently, the Ravens could very easily be 6-1 or even 7-0. Even more reassuringly, the Ravens have largely dominated in their wins, generating a point differential of nearly double that of the Bengals despite the Bengals' superior record. As such, according to Football Outsiders' DVOA rankings--which accurately predicted the Ravens' blowout of the undefeated Broncos last week--the Ravens are the 3rd strongest team in the league, despite their middling 4-3 record. Advanced NFL Stats' prediction system also has the Ravens ranked higher than the Bengals. But because of the Bengals' solid 5-2 record, and their consequently high placing in most media power rankings, this line is a very manageable three points.

The Bengals are in some sense the inverse of the Ravens; they won a series of big AFC North games on last second drives. At some point, that luck is going to run out, and the Bengals won't be able to pull out the win as time expires. While they were certainly have proved better than expectations, I think the Bengals are now overvalued because of their series of extreme late game wins. In fact, they've played probably the most emotionally exhausting first half of football in the entire league, and I'm not sure they have enough left for the second half. Their one convincing win of late was their 45-10 shellacking of the Bears in week 7. That win is another reason I like the Ravens in this game; I think it said far more about the overrated Bears than it did the Bengals. Just watch the second half of this clip to see the NFL Playbook crew break down the Bears' lack of gap discipline and shoddy all-around play to see why. Also watch this to see a convincing film demonstration of the atrocious state of the Bears' offensive line. The perennially overrated Jay Cutler's best explanation for his inconsistent play is that he can't believe teams are blitzing him! In short, the Bengals win over a fundamentally unsound Bears' team with few good wins of their own does not make me a believer, and I think the Ravens are a superior team.

2. The Ravens came out of their bye playing the type of football that will give the Bengals problems.

Veteran BadNFL readers should hear alarm bells going off right now; after all, wasn't one of the "lessons learned" after the debacle of my week 4 Titans prediction that at some point you are what you are? That point is certainly important to keep in mind, as perhaps all point #1 above proves is that the Ravens are a good team that can't finish games. Particularly since the Bengals beat the Ravens at Baltimore this season! But here's what I'm thinking: while the argument above sets the framework for why I think this bet is undervalued by the market, there are independent reasons to think that the Ravens will match-up quite well against the Bengals this Sunday specifically.

First, Baltimore is a different team than the one that lost to the Bengals a few weeks ago. From all accounts, the 3 consecutive losses the Ravens suffered ate at them during their recent bye week, which they used to resolve a few structural issues with their defense, including, first and foremost, their pass rush. The team that came out against the undefeated Broncos last week was a thoroughly dominant one, with the Ravens playing superbly in all three phases of the game. Most importantly, the Ravens defense looked viciously aggressive again, like it did in 2008.

True, it was only one game, and if the Eagles have showed us anything, it's that teams can demonstrate maddening inconsistency from week to week. But most accounts attribute the Ravens' resurgence to both their anger at having fallen behind in the division and to some bye week mechanical tweaks, two things that should sustain themselves throughout this part of the season. The Ravens--particularly on defense--are the type of team for which an event like the dominating Broncos win can ignite the season. There is certainly precedent: last year the Ravens were similarly 3-3 after 6 weeks and then turned it around to go 11-5. When bouncing back from a similar 3 game losing streak that year, those Ravens reeled off 4 consecutive double-digit wins.

As such, I think the Bengals' win at Baltimore, far from portending a repeat this Sunday, will help the Ravens. This Ravens team knows that it needs to play 60 minutes of consistent football to stay afloat in the tough AFC North, and because of the Cincy win earlier this year, there is zero chance of a trap game this week.

Second, there are significant differences between these teams from the last time they played, differences that that bode well for the Ravens. Perhaps most importantly, the Ravens played soft zones against the Bengals last time around, a mistake that allowed Cedric Benson to run wild, and a mistake that the coaches will certainly not repeat. Indeed, if the defense that showed up at Denver last week shows up this week, the entire character of the game will be different. Moreover, Antwan Odom, the Bengals outstanding RDE, is out for the season, and he was probably the hardest player on that entire defense to replace. Even though he flew under the radar somewhat, he was having a truly dominant season, and the strength of the Odom-led defensive line was a crucial propellant of the Bengals' early divisional success, particularly against the Ravens. Not only that, but the Ravens get their solid starting left tackle, who missed the first Bengals' game, back this week. As most football savants know, particularly those who have read Michael Lewis's The Blind Side, the left tackle is the second most important position in football. Although Michael Oher (coincidentally the subject of Lewis's The Blind Side) performed admirably filling in, now the Ravens are in the enviable position of having excellent depth across the offensive line. One advanced metric puts their offensive line as the best in the league. As such, I think the Ravens will control the trenches this week, something they failed to do last time.

In addition, the Ravens have stiffened against the short-to-intermediate passing attack. Breaking down the film from the Broncos game, it jumped out how thoroughly the Ravens suffocated the short passing game. This is not surprising, as their personnel are well-suited to stifle exactly such types of routes, albeit at the expense of leaving them vulnerable to the explosive play. But Carson Palmer is one of the worst QBs in the league this year on downfield vertical passing attempts. The Bengals have not specialized in explosive plays, preferring the type of clock-eating incremental drives that the Ravens are well-suited to stop. I think those tendencies show up this week.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the extreme and unique emotional circumstances surrounding the Bengals' previous win over the Ravens. Defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer's wife had just died, and the Bengals' players understandably rallied around their defensive coordinator, playing with obvious inspiration and emotion. I remember watching an interview of Marvin Lewis before the game, when he was obviously struggling with the moment, and I thought that the emotional dynamics were similar to the Saints' first return to the Superdome after Katrina and Brett Favre's legendary performance the night of his father's death. Tom Jackson on ESPN Countdown said the same thing, noting that he was switching his pick to the Bengals on the spot (15 minutes before game time) simply after seeing the obvious gutwrenching emotion of the players and the entire team. The emotion of that day simply cannot be replicated this week, and this time, superior talent wins out.

THE COUNTER-ARGUMENT: THE BENGALS ARE COMING OFF THE BYE

The Bengals are coming off their bye week, and the claim that you should be wary of betting against teams coming off the bye is ubiquitous in football circles. My first instinct when looking at this game was to worry about the Ravens coming off a win against a good team in comparison to the Bengals coming off their bye. But as explained above, I think the Ravens will be more than ready for this game. And as for the bye? Surprisingly, since the bye was first introduced, teams have only a 52.7% winning percentage in the week after their bye, suggesting an advantage that is quite modest. And the Bengals have actually been one of the very worst teams at exploiting their bye week, putting up a 4-15-1 record in such games. More importantly, Marvin Lewis is only 1-4-1. Experience suggests that the current Bengals team simply does not benefit much from the bye week. And although they're at home, their only 2 losses this year are at home.

As such, I think this game will be closer to the 34-3 pounding the Ravens delivered last year in Cincinnati than it will be to the 3-point spread that the casinos have unwisely established. And because many books, including sportsbook.com, have set the payout at +105 on the Ravens -3 right now, it's an even more attractive pick.

Here's hoping that all of the above means that BadNFL is getting back on track this week!

Upon Further Review: Giants Crushed 17-40

2009-11-04T18:13:00.006-05:00

Well this is becoming somewhat like a broken record; a week after a nice prediction, my pick last week missed by a country mile, as the Eagles humiliated the Giants 40-17. For the first time, though, I think that the pick was fundamentally unsound, and in this weekly edition of upon further review, we'll try and figure out what went wrong.

1. McNabb was accurate, after all.

The Eagles offense had been struggling of late, after a stinker in Oakland and an uneven performance against the Redskins. McNabb had been struggling with his mechanics and his accuracy had been suffering. Well, this week all appeared to be right with McNabb. He smirked after the game that he was pretty accurate after all, and the stats bore him out: 17/23 for 240 yards and 3 TDs to 0 interceptions. Even more incredible was the Eagles' stunning 8 yards gained per offensive play run. DeSean Jackson provided his typical 50+ yard TD score, exploiting what is becoming a glaring Giants' inability to guard against the deep ball.

Couple the explosive passing option with fullback Leonard Weaver's shocking emergence for 75 yards on 8 carries--including a long TD run on the first drive of the game--and the Giants fell behind early and had no chance. This game was never close.

2. Eli Manning continued his below average play.

As a Cowboys fan, it's difficult for me to believe that the Eli I saw on the field on Sunday against the Eagles was the same QB who played an essentially perfect game against the Cowboys in week 2. Not only was he inaccurate, but he looked tentative and repeatedly made poor decisions in the pocket. The rest of the offense played fairly decently, as the young WR corps has largely exceeded expectations and the running game is solid. But Eli was absolutely horrendous; while the Eagles burned him for 2 brutal interceptions, they could have easily had twice that number. The Eagles--in one of the least surprising tactics of the weekend--dialed up the blitz all game and forced Eli into quick decisions. And those decisions were poor. To be sure, I think plantar fasciitis is certainly affecting the accuracy of his throws, and is significantly contributing to his accuracy woes. But the lack of confidence, bad body language, and erratic decisionmaking is more troubling than his technique problems, and as of right now, it's very difficult to trust the Giants passing game to bail them out when they fall behind.

LESSONS LEARNED?

1. Giants have been exposed.

It's a problem that crops up in game prediction all the time; does a tough loss (like that first suffered by the Giants against the Saints a few weeks ago) serve to expose a team's weaknesses, leading to further losses, or does it serve to psychologically motivate them to bounce back? It's difficult to predict in advance how a loss will affect a team, but in this case, the Saints appeared to expose the Giants, providing a blueprint for how teams should attack the Giants: run spread formations with a lot of intermediate and deep routes. Beleaguered Giants' safety C.C. Brown is consistently out of position and unable to diagnose the route combinations, and as such, teams the last 3 weeks have torched the Giants deep.

With the Giants' injuries in the secondary, it's not like their deep coverage problems were hard to foresee. But I (and many analysts) thought that the Giants' pass rush would deprive McNabb of the time to deliver the ball downfield. But that pass rush has all but disappeared; the Giants have lost their swagger, they are lately characterized by busted assignments and a lack of execution. What's the difference? Perhaps it's the loss of Spagnola in the offseason; new coordinator Bill Sheridan has so far been unable to recreate the havoc posed by the Giant's front 4 in recent years. I'm not exactly sure what the problem is, but McNabb had entirely too much time to throw on Sunday. Right now, the Giants defense does not seem like it's good, and until they get some of their injured players back, I don't trust them to hold up against good offensive teams.

2. The Eagles are maddeningly unpredictable. I've been pounding my head into a wall trying to figure out how it's possible that a team that I picked to crush the Raiders could lose to that pathetic team, but then when I pick against them, deliver such beating to the Giants. My feeling is that the Andy Reid-era Eagles have done this more than any other team in the league, where they can look incredibly crappy one week and dominant the next. I'm staying away from them for the rest of the year.