Performify's Pigskin Picks - Week Three

[jedinite]

This whole week is tough, tough, tough. Most of the games that I liked on first look (Philly, Indy, Pitt, Rams, KC) are ridiculously one-sided in public opinion, and knowing that the books don't just give money away for free i'm having a really hard time fading public picks this week. All lines current from Bodog, but please lineshop agressively.

All picks archived (and often discussed in more detail) on my blog

Yearly results: 6-6, 2-0 on Game of the Week
Last week: 4-3, 1-0 on GotW

Tampa Bay -4 at Green Bay
The Bucs are the #1 defense in the NFL right now. Green Bay is struggling bad, and Tampa is going to overcome the home field advantage to win this easy. Tampa's defense stuffs the Pack very early and the cover two defense is great at limiting big passes (that Favre depends on) and on creating turnovers with the lurking safeties. Gruden's D will look to do the exact same thing to the Pack that they did to the Vikings, a very similar team (from an offensive perspective) in week one: look for Tampa to blitz the “A” gap (between the center and the two guards) on the Packers line and consistently penetrate the backfield. Favre will have very little time to throw and will force several passes under pressure. This is a defense that finished first against the pass last year and is leading against the run right now. made an All-Pro quarterback look terrible two weeks ago. The Packers dropped two in a row at home last year, and this year they repeat the feat... While the experts are almost unanimous in picking Green Bay, ESPN and Yahoo users are not quite as one-sided, which gives me a little more confidence that there's some soft money on the Packers to make this a sharp play. 28-13 Tampa Bay. Game of the Week.

Vikings -4 vs New Orleans (tied with next pick at 3rd)
Yeah, Minnesota has looked terrible to this point. And there's a groundswing of public support around New Orleans. As bad as they've looked, the Vikes are at home against a mediocre Saints defense - a Saints defense that the Vikings have scored 70 points against over their last two meetings. Vikings rebound here and do it big. 31-14 Vikes

Dallas -6.5 at San Fran (tied with above pick at 3rd)
Cowboys coming off a disappointing loss last week look to rebound big on the west coast against the 31st ranked defense. Cowboys haven't allowed an opposing RB over 100 yards since week seven last year and this week is no exception - Barlow gets stuffed early, the Cowboys get out to an early lead, and are able to blitz Rattay in to making a mistake or two late. This looks really one sided, but I beleive Dallas is better than they looked last week, while San Fran is every bit as bad as they looked last week (and no where near as good as they looked against the Rams week one). 27-14 Dallas.

Cleveland +14 at Indy
Yeah, its Cleveland. They don't have much for defense, they can't do what most teams are doing against Peyton this year and drop eight people in coverage - so they are going to give up several touchdowns. But this is an Indy team that didn't score 14 points total against an average Jacksonville defense last week. This is almost purely fading public opinion - too many people are eating up this line at -14, which makes me think the sharp money has to be to fade the public here. I hate this game though - Cleveland's just not very good, and Indy is going to want to open things up at home and make a point that they're better than they've looked the last two weeks. But hopefully Cleveland can get the run game going (the Colts gave up almost 130 yards/game on the ground last year) and Dilfer proved that he can put up some numbers playing from behind against the Bengals in week one. Its just enough to earn a spot on the list of picks this week: 24-14 Indy for the cover.

If you made me chose a winner Monday, i'd take the Chiefs and the moneyline. I don't see this game being decided by three points - either the Chiefs are going to run away with it, or the Chiefs are going to short-circut and Denver wins by a bundle. Right now, no formal pick on this game either way but I might make a small moneyline play depending on the weekend's results - i'll update the pick if I do decide to make that play.

Note that #2 and #3 are tied in pick strength. I've flipped them each twice and can't decide one way or another. Dallas was my first instinct for #2 - but I'll likely just play a single unit on 2-4 and four units on #1. Maybe 5-2-2-1

[jedinite]

After more research and evaluation today, i'm really disatisfied with most of the games out there.

I'm spreading action around and loading up on the Bucs. five units on Tampa, one unit on Dallas / Vikings / Cleveland. Half-unit on KC moneyline. Half-unit each on the Eagles and Bills on behalf of CCx.

Good luck everyone, i have a feeling we're all going to need it this week... [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

[ThaHero]

I really like Tampa Bay as well, for many of the reasons you stated. The mystique of Lambeau is totally gone. Even Cleveland came to town and got a win, lol. Amazing. After TB put up 19 points against a stingy Buffalo D, I'm sure they will torch the GB defense with the running game, which will set up the pass.

[McGahee]

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Good luck everyone, i have a feeling we're all going to need it this week... [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

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I get that feeling too. Any time I start taking this bar stool stuff seriously in search for picks...that can't be good.