Category: NFL General

A man in Green Bay finally had his 37 year wait pay off.  He got his Packer season tickets!  The man had waited on a list that grew to over 60,000 fans for the chance to purchase the tickets at over 500 bucks a pop.  Maybe if they continue to play as poorly at home as they have this season, that waiting list will go pretty fast.

But the fact remains that season ticket waiting lists like the Packers have – and the Redskins and the Eagles among others — NFL football is freakin’ popular!  Every Sunday afternoon during the fall and winter has become Event Television.  The Sunday NFL Ticket on DirecTV outsells all other pay sports packages by a 3 to 1 margin.  And if you don’t want to plunk down the coin for the dish – or the extra coin for the NFL package — sports bars all around town thrive by doing it for you.

Such popularity has continually begged the question: could the overwhelming interest in the NFL sustain another league?  The USFL asked that question back in the 80’s, and the XFL experiment — or experience, whatever the hell it was — lasted all of one season.  So does the failure of these leagues imply that the clear answer is “no?”  Hold on, He Hate the XFL.  I got the fix.

The NFL is a strange place. Just when you think you have it figured out, someone like Indy does something stupid and loses to Jacksonville. At home. But then you have someone like the 5-1 Falcons who you knew weren’t as good as their record and they go out and prove everyone right. We’re almost at the halfway point in the season and it’s looking more and more like a five horse race. Well, here are your horses.

Who knew losing two great defensive backs and two elusive running backs could actually make a team better? And who would’ve guessed acquiring two greatly needed defensive players, while keeping the core of your offense intact, would actually make a team worse? Basic summary of the Philadelphia Eagles and Seattle Seahawks season’s thus far. I guess nobody in the NFL cares about balance anymore.

These weeks don’t get any easier to pick in the NFL. We’re all hovering around the 60% mark each week, with the exception of Mr. X. I hate to call him out but what crack pipe has he been smoking? Well, at least he’s smarter than Merrill Hoge who still insists the Redskins are the team to beat in the NFC East and that the Eagles won’t make the playoffs.

Everyone talks about parity in the NFL. Well, where exactly is it? The league right is made out of the haves and the have-nots. The top 6 look very strong followed by a bunch of teams whose records indicate they’re better than they really are. Sure, as the adage goes, you’re only as good or as bad as your record says you are. But really, are the Giants or Jax a legitimate threat come playoff time? I don’t think so.

Then we have the bottom of the barrel of 2 and 1 win teams. Just terrible football teams that can only climb up the rankings by beating each other. It’s a small field, folks.

Either this is an easy week to pick or we’re all walking into a trap. We all agree on 7 of the 14 game this weekend and have a consensus for most others. The only game we’re split on is the Falcons-Chargers, or what could be billed as Battle of the Potential Frauds. Both teams come in with good records but unimpressive games. We’ll see how it shakes out.

If you want to see how Sportscolumn stacks up against the other experts, check out this excel file.

There was a lot of gagging in Week 5 as Minnesota, Seattle, and Arizona let big leads slip away late in the game. Only Minnesota managed to get it together and not choke. The beginning of the second quarter of the season really helped to separate the good teams from the frauds. A lot of questions still need to be answered about the pre-season contenders (Kansas City, Carolina, Tennessee) and whether they need to be written off and week 6 promises to provide those answers. But without further delay, here are your Power Rankings.

When I looked at the games on the schedule this week for my survivor pool, there weren’t that many that stood out as clear winners, which means that this weekend should be a great one in the NFL. While there aren’t any marquee matchups, except Giants-Cowboys, there are a bunch of games that look to be really tight. Should be a great day on the couch with Sunday Ticket but a terrible week for Picks. Still, your friendly staff here at Sportscolumn is taking our best shot at calling the winners. If you want to see how Sportscolumn stacks up against the other experts, check out this excel file.

What a boring week in the NFL. The only game that even came close to living up to expectations was the Colts-Jaguars. After almost falling asleep during the late games, I rallied hard and was faced with St. Louis vs San Francisco? Even in the interest of journalism, I was barely able to watch that game. The shootout between Omar and Barksdale’s crew on The Wire was much better than anything the Rams and Niners could put together. Poor ESPN. The good news is that Mike Patrick is back next week.

In week 3, we didn’t do as well as the ESPN idio..er..experts (70% vs 66%) but we’re still beating them overall for the season. If you want to see how the “experts” all stack up against each other, you should check out Tokar’s Excel file that tracks all the major sites and their expert picks. It’s good to know that we’re beating the HBO NFL guys too. Unfortunately, we’re losing to Lil Bow Wow – go figure. Still, we persevere, so here are your Week 4 picks.