Keefe To The City

Sep 24, 2014

Podcast: Bald Vinny

The Derek Jeter era comes to an end at Yankee Stadium on Thursday night and so does the end of a Bleacher Creature era with the retirement of Bald Vinny.

On Thursday night at Yankee Stadium, I will watch Derek Jeter play baseball for the last time ever. The first time I ever watched him play I was in fourth grade and now it’s time to say goodbye to the player we all came to expect in the lineup in every game of every season since 1996. But the Derek Jeter era isn’t the only one coming to an end on Thursday night in the Bronx. Vinny Milano, known as Bald Vinny of the right field Bleacher Creatures and the leader of Roll Call, is also retiring as a Section 203 regular, bringing to an end another important era for myself and Yankees fans.

Bald Vinny joined me to talk about the end of the Derek Jeter era and the end of a Bleacher Creature era, the differences between old Yankee Stadium and new Yankee Stadium and what the future holds for Bald Vinny’s House of Tees.

Blogs • Email Exchanges • Giants

Sep 24, 2014

Turning Point for Giants and Redskins

The Giants and Redskins meet on Thursday Night Football and one team will head into a 10-day break feeling good at 2-2 and one team’s season will be over at 1-3.

Sunday was a must-win game for the Giants and Thursday is also a must-win game for the Giants. After getting past the Texans and what would have been a disastrous and season-ending 0-3 start to the season, the Giants are faced with the possibility of either getting to 2-2 before a 10-day break, or falling to 1-3 and basically guaranteeing a third straight playoff-less year.

With the Giants and Redskins meeting on Thursday Night Football, I did an email exchange with my friend and the biggest Redskins fan I know, Ray Schneider, to talk about whether the Redskins’ future is with RGIII or Kirk Cousins, if moving on from Mike Shanahan was the right move and how the Jay Gruden era has been going in Washington.

Keefe: The first thing I said when RGIII went down with a dislocated ankle was “Oh fuck.” Not because I’m an RGIII fan or care about his future or the Redskins’ success but because I’m a Giants fan, and one who knows that Kirk Cousins is a better quarterback than RGIII and that means the Redskins just got better in an already cluttered NFC East.

Cousins has only reinforced my opinion on the RGIII-Cousins debate by throwing for 250 yards and two two touchdowns against the Jaguars and then 427 yards and three touchdowns in a devastating loss to the Eagles. (I unfortunately had the Redskins in a parlay.)

Ray, the future for your Cubs is looking up with their abundance of young talent and the future of your Redskins could be looking up if they finally admit that Cousins is the better option over RGIII at quarterback and stick with Cousins even when RGIII returns. I know Cousins has said, “This is RGIII’s team,” but it shouldn’t be even though I want it to be for the Giants’ sake.

Please tell me that you know Cousins should be the permanent starter.

Schneider: When I began reading that, I thought your initial response to RGIII’s injury was out of concern for my well-being. But yeah, there’s no denying that Cousins has played great these past 2 weeks and is light years ahead of RGIII in Gruden’s offense at this point. As a Skins fan, my hope is that Cousins continues to play out of his mind for the next 6-7 weeks and there isn’t a question of who the permanent starter is once RGIII is healthy.

That being said, there was never an expectation that 3esus was going light up the league beginning Week 1. Gruden was brought to DC to evolve RGIII’s game and some of the hiccups along the way were to be expected. Griffin’s ceiling is so much higher than Cousins’ that I am okay with the bumps and bruises along the way, but if Cousins plays at an elite level for the remainder of his stay as interim starter, he’s our guy.

Keefe: I was somewhat concerned for your well-being after the Week 1 debacle against the Texans mixed with the loss of RGIII, but after the rout of the Jaguars and the play of Cousins, I thought you were probably doing fine.

I’m very surprised to have you so easily agree with me on Cousins over RGIII. After RGIII’s draft and following postseason appearance I thought you were going to grow your hair out again, get dreadlocks and get RGIII’s jersey tattooed on your body. I mean, you nearly did that for Jason Campbell seven years ago, and when Campbell’s days in Washington were over and he played for Oakland, Chicago, Cleveland and now Cincinnati, I pictured you singing Pearl Jam’s “Black” if his career ever finally took off.

I know someday you’ll have a beautiful life, 
I know you’ll be a sun in somebody else’s sky, 
But why, why, why can’t it be, can’t it be mine?

I know how strongly you support your Redskins, so I think it’s normal for me to be shocked that you so quickly jumped off the RGIII for the Cousins one. Maybe Cousins can be your Matt Saracen or do you think the Redskins are still a few years from that? If so, how many years? Cubs years?

Schneider: Slow down … I haven’t gotten off the RGIII bandwagon quite yet. I still really do believe that RGIII has the talent to be a multiple Super Bowl winning quarterback, but I also realize the injury concern with him is legitimate — which is why I’m going to the tattoo artist on Saturday to see how hard it’ll be to have the “10” on my chest touched-up to read “8” (the guy worked wonders changing the “17” to a “10”, so I’m hopeful).

If Cousins can continue to play the role of franchise savior over this audition run, it is a wonderful problem for the Skins to have. Do we move forward with the guy that established himself as one of the best young quarterbacks playing in 2014 or do we move forward with the guy that had arguably one of the most dynamic seasons ever by a quarterback and won us the division just two years ago? Not really a bad problem.

If Kirk proves to be more Matt Flynn and less Tom Brady over these next two months, the question of RGIII’s durability becomes a lot more frightening.

Keefe: That “10” used to be a “17?” Get out of here. That guy does great work.

When Mike Shanahan was the head coach, it seemed like every week there was a new story about his relationship with RGIII and they all seemed to negative. It didn’t help that standing between the head coach and the franchise quarterback was an offensive coordinator who was Shanahan’s son, but there always seemed to be a disconnect between the coach and quarterback, especially at the end of his tenure.

Shanahan came to to the Redskins 12 years removed from winning the Super Bowl with the Broncos and was supposed to bring with him the offensive genius he was during his time in Denver. The Redskins went 24-40, lost their only playoff game to the Seahawks and finished in last place in the NFC East three of the the four years Shanahan was coach. However, I don’t think he’s that distraught over it since he’s making $7 million this year to sit at home and not coach football, which is a lot more money than you and I are making to not coach football this year.

Before we get to the Jay Gruden era, were you a Shanahan guy and should he have been back for 2014?

Schneider: At first I was, but what’s important to remember is that Shanahan was hired on the heels of Jim Zorn’s departure. At the time it seemed like things were being righted with the Redskins. Snyder’s longtime yes-man/VP of Football Operations, Vinny Cerrato, had just left and control of the team was going to be shared between Bruce Allen and Shanahan. No longer did the fate of the Skins lie in the hands of Snyder and the dude that starred in the acclaimed film Kindergarten Ninja.

Pretty much immediately following Shanahan’s introductory press conference is when things stopped being so rosy. Listed in somewhat chronological order, here are some of the highlights of the Shanahan era:

1. Donovan McNabb: Andy Reid still can’t believe he got a second- and fourth-round pick. Mike also signed Donovan to a five-year extension a week after benching him for Rex Grossman and just hours before Donovan’s former team came to FedEx Field and did terrible things to the Skins. A few weeks later Donovan was once again benched for Rex and so ended his DC-stay.

2. Albert Haynesworth: Granted Shanahan had nothing to do with bringing Fat Al to the Skins and the guy is a genuine piece of shit, but the whole conditioning test was embarrassing for everyone involved.

3. Rex Grossman/John Beck: The Skins have had some pretty storied quarterback battles in their history, Grossman vs. Beck is not one of them, but don’t let Mike tell you otherwise as he said, “I put my reputation on these guys that they can play.”

4. Week 3, 2011 at Dallas, Zero Blitz: With Dallas facing a third-and-21 and trailing by 1 late in the fourth quarter, the Skins call an all-out blitz. Tony Romo hits Dez Bryant for a 30-yard hookup and the Cowboys kick a field goal and win the game. Defensive coordinator Jim Haslett was blasted by the fan base for this call except Mike was the one that made the call.

5. Wild-Card Game vs. Seattle: Some could argue that Shanahan took the easy way out by relying too-heavily on RGIII’s legs and didn’t take the time to develop his skills as a passer — I’m not going to, that season and RGIII were electrifying. BUT what Shanahan and son did in the playoff game was absolutely reckless. With Robert already playing on a clearly hobbled knee, the Shanahans continued to call zone-read after zone-read until The Savior’s knee was shredded.

6. 2013 Draft: The Redskins had seven picks in the 2013 Draft — only two remain on the active roster and only one will be playing against the Giants this week.

So no, I did not want Mike Shanahan around this team any longer.

Keefe: I knew things were bad during the Mike Shanahan era, I didn’t realize how in-depth bad they were, so thank you for laying those out for me. I only wish you had told me those in person, so you could be present for me laughing. Donovan McNabb! Albert Haynesworth! Rex Grossman! Oh my!

I missed most of that wild-card game against Seattle because I was up in Boston that weekend to see Louis CK and I believe I was on my way back to New York City when Shanahan was busy blowing out RGIII’s knee as if he were Kurt Russell in Miracle calling for Team USA to bag skate over and over just waiting for someone to collapse on the ice. You siad it was “reckless” and I would agree. I would also say it was “irresponsible” and not only because it was detrimental to RGIII’s career, but because a different game plan could have won that game for the Redskins.

That brings us to Jay Gruden. Since you’re happy the Mike Shanahan era came to an end, are you happy that the next era started with Jay Gruden as the head coach?

Schneider: I am and that’s largely because of what Gruden did with Andy Dalton. With Gruden being a former quarterback himself, everything that is said about him is that he approaches the game with the mindset of a quarterback. Obviously after Shanahan shredded both RGIII’s knee and his psyche, it was exciting to hear there would be someone in charge that would build him back up.

Even with the Gruden directed Griffin redemption story being put on hold for the next few weeks or maybe forever, I still think Skins fans have a reason to be excited. The offense can not only move up and down the field but they can also score points, which Shanahan teams had trouble doing.

Gruden isn’t the control freak that Shanahan was either. He’s happy to let the defensive coaches call their game without his interference & they’ve looked much better … aside from the 37 points they let up on Sunday.

With better special teams play and little more discipline, the Skins should be 3-0 right now. Everyone can play the shoulda, coulda, woulda game, but these are things a young coach will clean up, so I think the future is bright with Gruden.

Keefe: You sound optimistic about the Kirk Cousins era, the Jay Gruden era and the Redskins as a whole, which is exactly how I would expect you to sound since you are usually feeling good about your team at this point in the season. Hopefully the New York Football Giants can change that on Thursday night.

One team is going to leave FedEx Field at 2-2 and one is going to leave at 1-3. If the Giants win, they will have won back-to-back games after an embarrassing and disappointing 0-2 start in which their offense looked worse than Roger Goodell lying his way through his press conference last week. If they lose, they will be 1-3 with and have a divisional loss lingering for the next 10 days before starting the following schedule: Atlanta, at Philadelphia, at Dallas, BYE, Indianapolis, at Seattle, San Francisco, Dallas. I don’t want to say the Giants’ season is over if they lose to the Redskins because you never know with the Giants, but their season is likely over if they lose.

If the Redskins win, they can feel good about themselves after dropping back-to-back games and Kirk Cousins will have confidence before playing the Seahawks and Cardinals. If they lose, their only win so far will have been against the Jaguars and their season could fall apart with Seattle and Arizona the next two weeks.

This game is the turning point for both teams. One of us is going to be happy for the next 10 days and one of us is going to be wondering how their season ended before the end of September.

What do you expect on Thursday night?

Schneider: It’s never good to be declaring a game a must-win by Week 4, but you’re right, this is a must-win for both teams.

As much as last week’s loss to the Eagles was devastating, it could serve as a real confidence builder for the team. Stomping the Jaguars was fun, but there was still the realization that it was the Jaguars. Going into Philly and giving the defending NFC East champs all they could take for 60 minutes is a completely different story. I foresee the Skins riding this wave of confidence to a 31-17 victory that looks more lopsided than it sounds.

Blogs • Giants

Sep 19, 2014

Giants-Texans Is Must-Win at MetLife

The Giants have to beat the Texans to save their season and prevent a second straight 0-3 start and make sure they aren’t eliminated from the postseason before October.

Five teams have made the playoffs after starting 0-3. Five. Ever. That means if the Giants lose on Sunday to the Texans, the only way their season continues into January is if they make history. And with shaky receivers, a bad offensive line, a rookie offensive coordinator, a non-existent pass rush and Eli Manning trying to do it all by himself, there is a better chance of Odell Beckham catching a touchdown pass this weekend against the Texans than there is of the Giants making history.

With the Giants and Texans meeting for the first time since 2010, I did an email exchange with Matt Campbell of Battle Red Blog to talk about the Texans’ decision to pass on Johnny Manziel, the end of the Matt Schaub era in Houston and the differences between Bill O’Brien and Gary Kubiak.

Keefe: Prior to the NFL Draft, a handful of players saw themselves listed at some point as the potential No. 1 overall pick of the Texans. Johnny Manziel was one of those names and being from Texas and going to Texas A&M and with the Texans have the first pick it seemed like perfect match for a franchise that needed a franchise quarterback. But as had been predicted from the start of the 2013 college football season, Jadeveon Clowney was drafted first overall.

I’m a huge Johnny Football fan and have been hoping the Browns’ season would get off to a rough start and the “JOHN-NY FOOT-BALL” chants would break out in Cleveland. Unfortunately, Brian Hoyer has the Browns at 1-1 and almost at 2-0 with a near comeback on the road in Pittsburgh.

Clowney was always the correct and safe No. 1 pick, but do you ever think about what the Texans might look with Manizel as the future of the franchise?

Campbell: Do I think of what the Texans might look like with Manziel? No. Why? Because Manziel couldn’t beat out Brian effin’ Hoyer in Cleveland, where they have been starved for a dynamic quarterback since that two-week period where people pretended like Kelly Holcomb was an actual human being. There’s zero chance Manziel would have beaten out Ryan Fitzpatrick, who, while cursed with a horrid Seven-Brides-for-Seven-Brothers neckbeard, has been been far better than I anticipated.

On top of which, Bill O’Brien’s offensive line already has question marks. The thought of them trying to block for someone who is (a) not tall enough to stand in the pocket consistently and (b) has no desire to stay in the pocket anyway is terrifying.

Also, Johnny Manziel is a douche. That’s important to remember. Always.

Keefe: Matt Schaub went from “Quarterback Who Could Possibly Lead Houston to a “Super Bowl to Backup Quarterback on Possible the Worst Team in the NFL” in one year. After destroying the Texans’ 2012 season, he was traded to Oakland for a sixth-round pick.

Schaub had some good years during his nine years in Houston, but he could never get over the hump of leading his team to at least the AFC Championship Game and it seemed like he might not be the quarterback who could ever do that. But somewhere between the first two weeks of the 2013 season and the weeks following, he lost his ability.

What happened to Matt Schaub? And are you happy he is no longer on the Texans?

Campbell: Matt Schaub was with the Texans for seven years. In those seven years, he had three full seasons and four in which he played 10 or 11 games. I hate the label “injury prone,” but if the glass slipper fits …

Here’s the thing, though: what Kubiak wanted Schaub to be able to do, if the offense was running well, was the bootleg or naked bootleg. Once Fat Albert broke Schaub’s foot, Matt was never able to convince anyone that he was actually a threat to run more than a few feet, so the bootleg became worthless. Without the bootleg, Schaub’s Trent-Green-esque arm strength was a huge liability.

So, no … I’m not sad that he’s gone, and I’m very happy he’s gone. Ryan Fitzpatrick is no great shakes, but the one thing he’s not is a post-Lis-Franc Matt Schaub. (For the record, the other thing Fitzpatrick is not is Eli Manning, circa 2014. So that’s good, too.)

Keefe: From 2010 to 2012, Arian Foster rushed for 1,616, 1,224 and 1,424 yards and last year he had 542 yards in eight games. He has been on the game’s elite running backs for the last four years and already has 241 rushing yards this season.

The Giants have so many problems that we couldn’t cover them all in this email exchange in time for Sunday’s game, but their biggest problem over the last few years has been their lack of a running game. Hopefully signing Rashad Jennings and drafting Andre Williams will change that, but through two games, their contributions haven’t been anything special.

What’s it like to have arguably the best running back in the game in your backfield knowing that even on days when your passing game isn’t on that you can count on a premier running back to carry the offense? Or maybe you shouldn’t tell me because it will only make me upset thinking about Giants’ running backs having only nine 100-yard games over the last 34 games.

Campbell: Arian Foster is a pterodactyl-speaking god. He doesn’t have breakaway speed — not even close — but he has vision and balance that more than compensate for his lack of elite speed. He’s also one of the smartest players in the game, so he’s not prone to those mental slumps that some players fall into.

Last year, the amount of use he’d seen in the previous seasons finally caught up with him and left him a shell of what he’d been. Thankfully, the team was willing to shut him down and not force the issue, so Foster was able to get a lot of time to heal. While I don’t think he’ll ever be the 2011 Arian Foster again, some of the cuts we’ve seen in the first two games (against, admittedly, sub-par NFL defenses) remind me of those moments. He has more 100-yard games than every other Texans running back combined.

What were we talking about? Oh, right — what it’s like to have Arian Foster. It’s awesome. The dude talks trash to Anheuser-Busch on Twitter for crying out loud.

Keefe: After eight seasons, an under-.500 record and just four playoff games, Gary Kubiak was finally fired as head coach of the Texans with three games left in the 2013 season. Wade Phillips took over for Kubiak, probably thinking that he might have a chance to be the next Texans head coach, which would have been good news for the rest of the AFC South.

Anyone who spends time on Bill Belichick’s coaching staff eventually gets a better opportunity somewhere else and that was the case with Bill O’Brien, who left his job as Patriots offensive coordinator to be the head coach of Penn State. After the job he did with the Patriots under Belichick and his work at Penn State, O’Brien became the most sought after name for NFL teams with head coach openings. O’Brien had his pick of jobs and chose to go to Houston.

Was O’Brien the coach you wanted? What is your early evaluation of him?

Campbell: O’Brien was on the short list of people I wanted, primarily because he went into a tire fire of a situation in Happy Valley and actually looked alright. He made Matt McGloin look like … something other than Matt McGloin, which is impressive. Also, my biggest complaint about Gary Kubiak was always the lack of creativity in play calling and assignments. BO’B put J.J. Watt in at tight end last week. I’ve wanted that for a couple years.

Plus, I don’t know if you’ve seen BO’B in locker room video, but the dude curses like a sailor. Gary Kubiak was more of the “gosh, guys, that’s just not real keen” type. o, even as a Michigan fan, I’m more than comfortable saying that I’m strongly pro-BO’B.

Keefe: The last time the Giants and Texans played was on Oct. 10, 2010 in Week 5. The Giants won that game 34-10, held the Texans to a franchise-low 24 rushing yards and held someone named Arian Foster to 25 rushing yards. A lot has changed since that game over the last four years since then.

The Giants don’t really know where they’re going or what they are as a team and whether they’re in rebuilding mode or in go-for-it mode. The problem is they’re likely somewhere between the two, which is the worst place to be in not just football, but professional sports.

The Texans, on the other hand, have a new coach and a new quarterback following a disastrous 2013 season and back-to-back early playoff exits in 2011 and 2012 and at 2-0 look to be headed in the right direction.

What do you expect on Sunday at MetLife Stadium?

Campbell: Romeo has the Texans’ secondary playing FAR better than I expected coming into the season, and D.J. Swearinger is supposed to play on Sunday. The Giants offensive line, from what I’ve seen, likes to let Eli try to figure out what to do when defensive ends are making his life flash before his eyes. There are no better defensive ends in the game right now than JJ Watt, and I’d wager that J.J. is kind of irritated that he didn’t get a sack last week, despite constant harassment of Baby Carr.

My prediction? Pain. 27-10, Texans. Elisha with 3 picks. Joy in Mudville. Etc.

NFL • Podcasts

Sep 19, 2014

Podcast: Tim Duff

The Jets had an 18-point lead in Green Bay last week, but blew it in typical Jets fashion, which was hard to watch for even the most optimistic Jets fan.

The Jets held a 21-3 lead over the Aaron Rodgers and the Packers at Lambeau Field in the Packers’ home opener a week after they were run out of Seattle. But like the Jets do and have done for decades, they found a way to blow that lead and lose the game. And they even lost a chance to tie the game in the fourth quarter thanks to a controversial timeout called from their sideline.

Before the start of the Jets’ season, I had my friend and lifelong optimistic Jets fan Tim Duff on the podcast to talk about his expectations for the Jets in 2014. He mentioned that he we would be at Lambeau Field for the Jets’ Week 2 game against the Packers, so after everything that unfolded in Green Bay, I knew I had to talk to him again about the Jets’ meltdown.

Blogs • Giants

Sep 18, 2014

NFL Week 3 Picks

The Week 2 Picks went about as well as the Giants-Cardinals game and 2014 is beginning to look a lot like 2013 for my picks and the Giants.

Last year my picks season mirrored the Giants’ season. My start was as bad as their 0-6 start, I picked it up in the middle of the season, but fell short of making up for the early-season mistakes to save the season. This year, unfortunately, I have a feeling I’m going to go down the same road.

Last week, Eli Manning threw two interceptions (even if one came with nine seconds left and the game already over), Rashad Jennings lost a fumble for just the second time in 55 career games despite after tripping over his own feet and going untouched, the special teams let Ted Ginn Jr. ran back a 71-yard punt return, Quintin Demps fumbled the kickoff following the Ginn Jr. return to seal the loss and on two plays the Giants’ 14-13 lead became an insurmountable deficit. As for me, well I went 4-12 in Week 2 and likely put myself in an insurmountable hole with still 15 weeks to pick games and then the playoffs.

(Home team in caps)

ATLANTA -6.5 over Tampa Bay
The Thursday game used to be my bread and butter. No matter who I picked, I would win. This year, however, I’m off to an 0-2 start thanks to thinking the Packers could hang around in Seattle with a healthy Aaron Rodgers and for thinking that the circus surrounding the Ravens would be too much for them to beat up on the Steelers. (But to my credit, 10 of the previous 12 Steelers-Ravens games were decided by three points and one of the other two was decided by four points.)

The Tampa Bay bandwagon has been pulled out of service like the New York subway cars with bed bugs and after losing at home to a Rams team quarterbacked by Austin Davis, I think it’s been derailed for the season. Normally I wouldn’t give 6.5 points in a divisional game (unless that game involves the Jaguars or Raiders), but I think I have to make an exception for the Buccaneers after their first two games.

BUFFALO -2.5 over San Diego
In 2008, the Bills started 4-0 and were 5-1 before finishing the season 2-8. In 2011, the Bills were 3-0 then 4-1 then 5-2 before finishing the season 1-8. Since making the playoffs in 1999, the Bills have finished over .500 once (9-7 in 2004) and were 88-136 in the 14 seasons since then.

I want the Bills to be good. Bills fans deserve to have a team that’s good. And this 2-0 start with wins over the Bears on the road and the Dolphins at home are either a sign that Bills fans are getting what they deserve or just the latest example of how insane parity in the NFL truly is. It’s hard to buy into a good Bills start when you consider the way two other good starts finished in recent years, but the Chargers are coming off the high of beating the Super Bowl champions and then have to fly across the country to face an overly-confident Bills team, so this un-Bills-like start might not be over yet.

Dallas -1 over ST. LOUIS RAMS
I wish I could use this:

Somewhere someone who isn’t a Cowboys fan or a Rams fan is going to bet on this game and watch it in its entirety. Think about that.

But because it’s the Cowboys, most of the country is going to watch and bet on this game. (I do realize a lot of the time I should be using that “Somewhere someone who isn’t a …” on Giants games.)

Washington +6.5 over PHILADELPHIA
After a long wedding weekend, I fell asleep before the Colts blew their 27-20 fourth-quarter lead and gave the Eagles a win I desperately didn’t want them to get for the Giants’ (very slim) playoff chances this year.

If RGIII were starting this game, I would have picked Philadelphia to cover, but Kirk Cousins is now the Redskins’ starting quarterback and that’s bad news for the Giants since the NFC East already has enough average teams who could possbily someway somehow sneak into the playoffs.

NEW YORK GIANTS +2 over Houston
This is it for the New York Football Giants and me. This is a must-win game and if they lose this game their season is over at 0-3, two weeks after it started. Last year at 0-6, the Giants were able to fight back to 4-6 and put themselves in position to control their own destiny, but this year that won’t work. After giving up a very winnable home game against a back-up quarterback, who hadn’t played in a game since 2010, the Giants now have to go 10-4 to make the playoffs. The problem is that after the Texans this Sunday and the Redskins on Thursday night, they have Atlanta, Philadelphia, Dallas, Indianapolis, Seattle and San Francisco. Even if the first three of those six games aren’t exactly a gauntlet, the last three certainly are. So this is it for the 2014 Giants and for me picking the 2014 Giants.

NEW ORLEANS -10.5 over Minnesota
The first Saints home game of the season. Let me go back to what I said before their last home game in 2013.

The Saints’ last home loss with Sean Payton as head coach came in Week 17 in 2010 when they had nothing to play for. Including the playoffs, with Payton as head coach, the Saints have won all of their home games since that loss and here are their margins of victory in those games: 25, 18, 3, 32, 18, 21, 24, 6, 17, 28, 29, 14, 25, 11, 55, 7 and 17.

The Saints don’t lose in the Superdome and that’s before you factor in that they are 0-2 and looking at watching their season end before it even starts like it did in 2012. On top of that, the Vikings have a PR nightmare on their hands with their best player being inactive and then active and then placed on the exempt list in a single day. The AP Vikings could have been in the mix for the NFC North title, but the AP-less Vikings will have Teddy Bridgewater learning to play in the NFL starting around Week 5.

CINCINNATI -7 over Tennessee
The Bengals are becoming the AFC Saints and Paul Brown Stadium is becoming the Superdome. The Bengals have won their last 10 regular-season home games since Week 14 in 2012 and have become the best team in the AFC North since the start of last year.

CLEVELAND +1.5 over Baltimore
I have been rooting against the Browns for the first two weeks of the season because Browns wins mean no Johnny Football. After putting a scare into the Steelers in Pittsburgh, the Browns beat the Outside the Superdome Saints and instead of “JOHN-NY FOOT-BALL” chants in Cleveland, Browns fans think they have a chance to compete and an outside chance at the postseason with Brian Hoyer. As badly as I want the Browns’ season to hit a losing streak, so that Johnny Football starts to play, I want the Ravens to lose that much more.

Green Bay +2.5 over DETROIT
This is my third week picking the Packers and so far they have done nothing but give me two losses. After being run out of Seattle and having a real scare put into them and their season by the Jets at Lambeau, the Packers have three divisional games in a row and if they play like they did for the first six quarters of their season, they could be in the same spot as the Giants when October rolls around.

Indianapolis -7 over JACKSONVILLE
I would like to see the Jaguars be competitive this season since the team has won 11 games over the last three-plus years. But I do like free wins when it comes to picks, even though I stupidly picked them to cover 5.5 points in Washington last week (they lost 41-10). When the Jaguars led 17-0 over the Eagles in Week 1, I thought we were finally seeing the team turn a corner and maybe this year their losses wouldn’t be by an average of 18.5 points like they were last year. But then the Jaguars were outscored 34-0 in the second half of the game and have been outscored 85-27 in the first two weeks of the season. And now the Jaguars are getting an 0-2 Colts team that gave away a game to the Eagles on Monday and came up short in their comeback attempt against the Broncos in Week 2. That -58 point differential isn’t going to start getting better this week.

NEW ENGLAND -14.5 over Oakland
The Raiders are the worst team in football. Well, maybe they aren’t. I’m sure the Jaguars and even the Giants would give them a good game, but the Raiders’ schedule has 2-14 as the best-case scenario written all over it and a meeting with history and the 2008 Lions as the worst-case scenario.

The Raiders haven’t won an East Coast game since 2009 and now they are flying to New England just two weeks after flying here to play the Jets, and sandwiched in between the two games was a 30-14 loss at home to the Texans.

San Francisco -3 over ARIZONA
The way the 49ers gave away Sunday night to the Bears in their stadium-opening game looked the exact same way the Giants would give away a game and it brought a smile to my face knowing that the G-Men aren’t the only ones capable of self destructing in seconds and blowing what would appear to be a sure win. The difference between the 49ers and Giants is that these types of losses are extremely rare for the 49ers and a near-weekly occurrence for the Giants. The 2011-14 49ers aren’t used to what happened against the Bears and it’s unlikely to happen again. As for the Giants, well I don’t think it would surprise anyone if we get a re-run of the Cardinals game against the Texans.

SEATTLE -4.5 over Denver
Super Bowl XLIX was played in New Jersey at MetLife Stadium, about 3,000 miles away from CenturyLink Field. Imagine if it had been played in Seattle. I think we are going to get the chance to see that.

MIAMI -4.5 over Kansas City
I thought I had finally learned last year that you can’t trust the Dolphins after I kept picking them and picking them and picking them while they destroyed their playoff chances with back-t0-back losses to the Bills (19-0) and Jets (20-7) to finish the season. So after I picked against the Dolphins in Week 1 against the Patriots, only to have them win, I picked the Dolphins to win in Buffalo in Week 2, only to have them lose by 19. So here I am, once again picking for the Dolphins at home to cover a difficult and tricky 4.5-point spread against the 0-2 Chiefs. I fully expect a double-digit Chiefs win.

CAROLINA -3.5 over Pittsburgh
The Panthers went 12-4 and went 11-1 after a 1-3 start and their only loss in those 12 games was in New Orleans where every team has lost with Sean Payton as head coach since the end of the 2010 season. So this year when everyone picked the Panthers to regress and be a disappointment I jumped on the anti-2014 Panthers bus because that seemed like the cool thing to do at the time and everyone was doing it as if if I were a 12-year-old being offered to take a drag of a cigarette in the woods behind the junior high school. But then the Panthers won on the road with Derek Anderson as their quarterback in Week 1 and beat up on the Lions and shut down Calvin Johnson as well as anyone can shut down Calvin Johnson in Week 2 and now they’re 2-0.

After back-to-back postseason-less seasons for the Steelers, everyone was seemingly picking them to get back to being one of the league’s elite. The only theme I had been hearing consistently over the last two years about the Steelers was how old they have gotten (like a baseball team I root for), so I was a little unsure as to why they were suddenly being hyped up as if it were 2010 again. But like the Panthers, I bought in and picked the Steelers to cover in Week 1 against the Browns and then again in Week 2 against the Ravens. They barely escaped the Browns game with a win and then couldn’t get up for the Ravens despite the Ravens being in the middle of one of the worst weeks in the history of the NFL.

I’m back to being pro-Panthers and anti-Steelers, which is how I should have been all along.

Chicago +2.5 over NEW YORK JETS
If the Jets hadn’t blown a 21-3 lead at Lambeau Field and were now 2-0 on the season and 1-0 to start their impossible six-week gauntlet, I’m sure my friend Tim Duff would be calling me to do his post-Green Bay trip podcast. Instead, Duff has been “unavailable” this week to talk about the Jets’ timeout debacle and loss to the Packers (though we are supposed to record the podcast by Friday). And I think he represents all Jets fans who would have been proclaiming the Jets as the Kings of the City (this worked out well in 2011) and would have been looking ahead to January and the playoffs.

Last week: 4-12-0
Season: 12-20-0