Michael Sherwin's Power Rankings

by Michael Sherwin

Week 3

1.  (1)    New England  Won a “trap” game against a feisty Arizona team  

2.  (3)    Philadelphia    Forget TO how about that D

3.  (5)    Seattle            Alexander and offense looked like puke, but matched last road win total

4.  (6)    Indianapolis   Great win against Titans puts them back on track

5.  (9)    Minnesota     Not a big deal losing on MNF, can put the Bears in their place this week

6.. (2)    Denver           Perhaps rated too high last week, skill positions lacking

7.  (10)   Atlanta          Apparently Vick will run and so will Dunn   

8.   (4)   Green Bay     Lovie Smith has figured out the Pack, other teams take notice

9.   (8)   Tennessee     Chris Brown looking good, another tough against Jags

10. (12) NY Jets          The Jets are 2-0 as Pennington-Martin continue to roll

11. (14) Jacksonville  Have faced two great D’s and pulled the win out of their ass

12. (11) Carolina         Happy-Foster had a huge day Sad- So does everyone against Chiefs

13. (7)   Kansas City  OK, season starts………NOW

14. (13) St. Louis         Is the greatest show on turf getting lame? Martz would be fun to fire

15. (23) Detroit           Every time Harrington throws a TD he acts like he won the lottery

16. (17) Cincinnati      A huge win, a loss to the Fins would’ve had fans chanting KITNA!

17  (18) Dallas            8-8 written all over them

18. (20) Baltimore    Offense still all Lewis, but that has been enough to get them 10 wins

19. (15) Cleveland      Lost ugliest game of the week against Dallas. Garcia 0.0 rating

20.. (16)Washington  At least Portis can take solace in Champ Bailey stinking it up too

21. (22) Oakland        Rice’s overrated catch streak over, Curry’s just begun

22. (21) Pittsburgh     Week 1 vs. Week 2. get used to week 2

23. (26) New Orleans Refs finally did them a favor. Found a win to win without Deuce

24. (30) Chicago       Congrats, first makes no sense win of the year

25. (28) NY Giants     I can’t figure this league out, they are supposed to stink

26. (27) Arizona         Arizona will be a pain in the ass all year

27. (24) San Diego     Flutie over Rivers, that sounds like a team trying to win this now. Un NO

28. (19) Buffalo          It is not fair what the offense is doing to the defense         

29. (29) Miami           Give Akili Smith or Ryan Leaf a call. The ceiling is higher  

30. (25) Tampa Bay  Chris Simms?  Time to try something different

31. (31) San Francisco Spirited effort but not enough to get them out of the basement

32. (32) Houston         Lost to last year’s bye weeks- San Diego and Detroit

Red- Hot

Blue- dropping like a fat guy on Jupiter

Magenta-  Makes no sense

GAMES OF THE WEEK!

All against Spread

Big Games- 4-1

Overall 11-5

Year to date 20-12  60%

This week features some horrid spreads. It is week three when Vegas says screw it starts making up lines I swear to god. That’s the problem. You look at the 6 games with lines over 7 points and you can see without a doubt the underdog winning straight up. And the Patriots are on bye. Oh well here goes.

Get one under the belt pick of the week.

Jacksonville Jaguars –6.5  at Tennessee Titans

Line Titans-6.5 

Based on 2 games here are my certainties. Fred Taylor has faced a bitch of a schedule and it gets no better this week, but he will. Tennessee can and will start 1-2. Why?  Things change in this league and everyone expects bad teams to get a little better and good teams to get a little worse. Doesn’t happen that way. The gradual progression went out with the salary cap. After two weeks of offensive struggle the Jags will manage to do something competent on offense and after 4 years of high level play the Titans are due to drop a few games. Another low scoring affair for the Jags and they will pull it out and DEFINITELY COVER!

 JAGUARS 17 Titans 14

Surprisingly best game of the week

Philadelphia Eagles at Detroit Lions

Detroit +3.5

 If you’d told me this would be a battle between 2-0 teams I would’ve asked you to shoot me in the face. But the Lions looked impressive in beating the Texans and Bears. Texans and Bears. This week they face an actual team. Roy Williams is becoming a star and  maybe Joey Harrington wasn’t so bad after all. The Eagles look like the NFC front-runner right now. Logic dictates they don’t cover the spread. Logic also dictated  they would be facing an 0-2 Lions  team. Well, two 2-0 teams, this may impact home field for he playoffs?!?!?! Eagles show up.

 EAGLES 27 Lions 17

Back to reality pick

Chicago Bears at Minnesota Vikings

Minnesota –9.5

After being beaten, though not embarrassed on MNF the Vikings will be out for blood. Chicago got one of their 3 non-sensible win games out of the way. I don’t have any stats to back this up but they typically lay an egg after such a win. That’s way they have been horrible for 10 years. Mike Browns injury really stings as he has made game winning plays for the Bears in his career at least four times in games they had no business winning.

 VIKINGS 38 Bears 10

I’ll ride them until they don't cover pick

San Francisco 49ers vs. Seattle Seahawks

Line: Seattle –10.5

 I picked Seattle to cover last week and they barely did. It looked like they picked up the Bills playbook on accident. Well they haven’t played at home yet and should be fired up that they are 2-0 and conquered their road woes from last year. The Seahawks went undefeated at home last year. San Francisco has to be spent after playing as good as they can expect and starting 0-2. It’s good that they started out winless cause it’ll means they’ll win 3 out of their next 13 games instead of 1 or 2. All I’m saying is when you are destined for 3-13 it’s better to win them at the end. It creates hope. This is the game Seattle’s O breaks out.

 SEAHAWKS 34 49ers 7

MONDAY NIGHT HORROR

 Dallas Cowboys at Washington Redskins

Line: Redskins –2.5

How about a series of questions instead of a preview?

Questions

1.Why is Washington on MNF?

2.Why is Redskins-Cowboys on MNF every year?

3. Why does every other team need to make the playoffs or come close to get one game of MNF and the Redskins and Cowboys don’t?

4. What did football not learn from Major League Baseball?

5. Guess what topic ESPN and ABC are going to beat to death?

Answers

1. Because they are playing the Cowboys and every viewer supposedly can’t get enough of this bad rivalry

2. 20 years ago these teams had a rivalry.

3. See answer 2

4. In football rivalries change and there isn’t a team that is good every year. So while you can throw Yankees and Red Sox on and most people will watch cause they are bored because their favorite team was eliminated in May, this NFL game still blows.

5. Parcells vs. Gibbs. For two reasons. There isn’t one decent player to talk about among the 106 suiting up and because TV thinks people give a shit about what retread is coaching their team. Watch a Holmgren game against on of his “protégés” to see this in full force.

COWBOYS 18 Redskins 10 

The rest

Ravens over Bengals+3.5
Giants-3.5 over Browns
Falcons-10.5 over Cardinals
Rams-7.5 over Saints
Chiefs-8.5 over Texans
Steelers over Dolphins-1.5
Broncos-10.5 over Chargers
Colts-5.5 over Packers
Buccaneers+3.5 over Raiders 

Fantasy player of the week predictions

QB Daunte Cullpeper

RB  Warrick Dunn

WR Torry Holt

TE  Alge Crumpler

D    Mike Peterson

Who Knew  Larry Fitzgerald

Chud Chris Brown

Last weeks fantasy stars

QB  Aaron Brooks- Every week Aaron, C’MON

RB  DeShaun Foster- Fill in RB vs. Chiefs.

WR Tory Holt- Great week plus bad week for wideouts

TE   Daniel Graham- Two TD’s enough for me

D     Zach Thomas- Top fantasy player again after two year lull.

Who knew- Reggie Wayne- Will benefit when teams actually guard Harrison

CHUD Fred Taylor- Quentin Griffin- A whole lot of nothing for both