NFL Week Four

You may have noticed that at the Pick ‘Em site, the rankings are all mumbly-jumbly. (That’s a technical term.) That’s because we are now able to deduct the three worst weeks from everyone’s score. Since only four weeks are showing, we are all ranked by our best week, which means that although I have 30 total points this season (which is pretty high up there, thank you very much) my best week is only 9 correct picks, placing me at a tie for 26th.

Those nine correct picks did NOT occur this week, as I went from having a really good betting day to being embarrassed within a matter of seconds. Here’s a bit of conversation from yesterday:

Me: “Hm…you know, if St. Louis scores another TD, that’s going to put them just ahead of the 5.5 point spread.”

Mike: “That won’t happen.”

Me: “Hm…”

OK, it’s not great dialogue but it turns out I was right. The Rams hosed me in the pool, as did Washington by coming back against Jacksonville (further pain element here – I’d helped convince Mike to sit Santana Moss in his fantasy league this week…whoops!) and Cleveland sealing a push against the Raiders. I can take solace in the fact that some of you will end the week with only three correct picks, and yes, that’s called schadenfreude and I’m okay with that.

I don't know what to say about Terrell Owens except he clearly has problems. And we knew that already, but maybe - maybe - we didn't know how severe they are.

And – this week’s installment of the “I can’t believe I picked…” goes to my choice of the San Francisco 49ers. What, exactly, made me think Alex Smith was so polished that he could play in Arrowhead without getting steamrolled? That was really, really ugly. In fact, ugly people everywhere would like me to think of another word for that performance because it was so much worse than ugly.

Fortunately, no matter how crappy the Niners look, there’s a far worse team across the bay. I don’t care that Cleveland only won by three points, that’s a pretty bad Browns team and I believe I had more passing yards than Andrew Walter did for Oakland. I think he’s just keeping the seat warm for Brady Quinn next year.

Right now, we have a battle going into the MNF game, with Mark Underwood’s Blitzburg going up against Eric Johnson’s Big Johnson. (Yeah, there’s no way to make that not sound awkward.) Mark – aka Thunder – is betting on the Eagles covering an 11-point spread at home, while Eric is putting his money on the power of Brett Favre on Monday night. I bet along with Eric which is not a good sign for him, but there’s no question this should be a good game if you can get past what I can only assume will be an evening of poetic rhyme dedicated to the wonder that is Favre.

I myself will probably miss the whole game, as we’ll be at my soon-to-be in-laws breaking the fast. (That’s for Yom Kippur for all of you infidels, though if you know me at all, the fact I’m pretending to know what the hell I’m talking about with Judaism should have you snickering yourself right now.)