Week 7 NFL picks

Since I'm on the road tomorrow I'm making my NFL picks tonight, and I've decided to do them here in public so y'all can laugh at my ass when I'm wrong, which so far this season is 24 percent of the time. My record is a collective 54-17, but I took a beating last week, finishing 9-4, my worst week of the season.

Here's hoping I do better with this set...

Carolina at Cincinnati: Cincinnati. This is my toughest pick of the week. The Panthers are on a four-game winning streak, they're starting to get their act together on offense, they get their center back and they've adjusted to the loss of MLB Dan Morgan. But here's the thing: The Bengals are just too talented to lose two weeks in a row, particularly in front of their home crowd. Bengals break the Panthers' streak in a heartbreaker.

Detroit at New York Jets: Jets. First team to 21 wins this game. My gut feeling says the Jets make fewer mistakes than the Lions and then take the air out of the ball with a dink-and-dunk offense that uses short passes in lieu of runs. I like Leon Washington, the RB for NY, in this game. In my Week 7 Power Rankings I said the Jets were the kind of team that beats mediocre and bad teams in close, uninspiring ways. Let's see if that holds up.

Green Bay at Miami: Miami. I had Green Bay in this one most of the week, but I changed my mind today. As bad as Nick Saban's 2006 Dolphins are -- and yes, they are bad -- they should have enough mojo at home this week to beat a Green Bay team that looks to be one-dimensional on offense. Harrington isn't much of a quarterback, but at least he's staying vertical -- something Daunte Culpepper couldn't manage to do for this team. All that said, if Green Bay can get one of its running backs untracked this week, they've got good shot at a win. Should be close, whichever way it goes.

Jacksonville at Houston: Jacksonville. Sometimes Houston gets up for its AFC South rivals, and Jacksonville has had two major let-down games this year, the kind that make you wonder about its focus. And, and... OK, enough bullshit: I'll be really surprised if Houston makes a game of this one, much less wins it.

New England at Buffalo: New England. In Week 1, Buffalo came into Foxboro and gave the Patriots all they could handle, but this is a different Patriots team on offense, particularly coming off a bye week. I expect to see an improvement in passing efficiency by Brady, who should reach out and touch his WRs more often. Meanwhile, this is actually a big game for the Bills, who need to stop this slide they've been on.

Philadelphia at Tampa Bay: Philadelphia. The Bucs had their huge win over a playoff team last week. This week I suspect they'll get a big heaping helping of reality. Double-digit spread here.

Pittsburgh at Atlanta: Pittsburgh. My fondness for road teams this week continues. I don't like the vibe coming out of The A-T-L right now, not with that weird loss last week and Michael Vick publicly degrading his wide receivers. These teams are close on paper, and Atlanta has a better record, but I think Pittsburgh might be getting on one of those rolls where they just come out and hurt people.

San Diego at Kansas City: San Diego. Most years you'd look at this match up and say, "Well, KC at home against an AFC West foe, that's going to be a tough one. " But I'm not saying that this week. Herm Edwards has got to add some weapons other than Larry Johnson to the mix, but I just don't know that he can do that against this defense with journeyman Damon Huard at QB. Every defensive coordinator in the NFL understands the KC attack: Take LJ out of the mix and you win. Plus this is a good Chargers defense, and the Chargers attack matches up well against the KC defenders. BTW, I'll be in Kansas City tomorrow afternoon, so do me a favor and don't read this out there, OK?

Denver at Cleveland: Denver. For Cleveland to win this game, Jake Plummer will have to throw five interceptions. I can see four, but five is a stretch even for Jake this year. Denver wins with defense anyway, so what happens on offense is just gravy.

Arizona at Oakland: Arizona. Psychology is a funny thing. Teams can respond to trauma in all sorts of ways, and the Cardinals were clearly tramuatized by their Monday night meltdown.  It says here that the Cards will respond by abusing the befuddled Raiders on their home field. They might even get on something of a roll and finish out the year as a decent team under Matt Leinart.

Minnesota at Seattle: Seattle. The Vikings are a good underdog candidate here thanks to a week off and Seattle still playing without some of its key performers.  I think the deciding factor in this one is the Seahawk defense, which is unheralded but dangerous and should disrupt the Vikings' cautious attack. I also like the way Matt Hasselbeck is spreading the ball around while Shaun Alexander is out.  To win, the Vikings are going to have to come out of their shell offensively, and that means getting some big-play production out of second-year WR Troy Williamson. I just don't see it happening yet.

Washington at Indianapolis: Indianapolis. On Tuesday I said Washington was a waste of talent and money, and I'm standing by that. The Colts should be instantly elevated by the addition of DT Booger McFarland, who should stabilize a run-defense that got slash-pwned by the Titans, of all people. Peyton Manning will spot the confusion in the Redskins secondary and make them pay for it. Hey, at 2-5, how long will it be before Joe Gibbs has to start worrying about his job?

New York Giants at Dallas: Dallas. The Giants are hot right now, opening 2-0 after their bye week and coming to Dallas with a chance to get right in the thick of the NFC East race with Philadelphia. I'm picking Dallas, though, because I think they've got a better defense and will be able to counter the Giants' pass rush. No. 1 reason? I think Parcells is the better coach, and better coaches win evenly matched, nationally televised games at their home stadiums.

MONDAY A.M. UPDATE: Well, it should have been predictable: I make my first public picks of 2007 and I get my  first losing week. Of the 12 Sunday games, I missed on seven. But here's something I find interesting. This morning I went and found the Vegas line on each of these games (I haven't looked at point-spreads in making my picks) to see if I was the only one who stepped on a rake. Two things struck me:  every single one of my picks (including Dallas tonight) wound up being a favorite in Vegas. Even Pittsburgh and Miami. Which means that the Vegas line had a .417 winning percentage.

I'm not a gambler, just a guy who's fascinated by predictions. But that's a pretty poor performance by the gambling industry. There's no surprise that one idiot with a computer would get less than 42 percent of a set of games right, but an entire industry underperforming that way? What a week.

Anyway, I'm going to keep doing this, but I may try changing the predictions to make them more meaningful. Because, in a sense, I'm not just predicting outcomes, but predicting outcomes based on how I think a game will go. And I thought that five of the seven upsets were going to be EASY wins for the team that actually lost. So one of the things I should be doing is noting my degree of confidence in picks, whether I changed my  mind on the outcome at some point, etc. None of which, by the way, would have improved my performance this week.

There's one big "hit" for me on this list: I predicted the nature of the Jets win over Detroit pretty accurately, then foresaw a big game by backup RB Leon Washington, who rushed for 129 yards and the first two TDs of his career.

Anyway, if you're more interested in prediction than in football, you should read Cass Sunstein's book "Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge." I'm reading it for review and it's fascinating. Had me thinking up business ideas the entire flight out to Kansas. Also, if you're unfamiliar with predictive markets, meet me over at NewsFutures.com...

Comments

[Vera]

I agree with your picks although I'm sad about the Panthers one.

[Daniel]

wow, vera: your schedule is even weirder than mine. as for the panthers, lets hope that I'm wrong about that one. in fact, i'll celebrate being wrong about that one, particularly this week with the bears on a bye. I don't know that you can really have a "second" team, but i really like the panthers.

hey. i feel a post coming on...

[Daniel]

Wow. I was absolutely awful in the early games: 3-5, and it's not just the record that's bad. My sense of how things would go was way off. I totally didn't see the Houston explosion, and I would have considered the Tampa Bay game a miss even if Philly had held on... I just didn't see that Tampa could push those guys so hard.