NFL Week Five Game Picks and Over/Unders

Before we get into the picks, I wanted to apologize for the lack of the promised game reviews over the last two days.  Had a router issue that shut down internet at the house, and it made writing and posting the game reviews all but impossible.  Will have reviews for all 13 games next week if I have to post them short hand to twitter from my phone.


Week Four Totals
Straight Up Picks - 8-8
Picks vs Spread - 7-9
Over/Unders - 10-6
"Bankroll" - Up 0.5 Units

Season To Date Totals
Straight Up Picks - 39-25
Picks vs Spread - 31-30-3
Over/Unders - 32-31-1
"Bankroll" - Down 4.1 Units

My first week up! Even if it is just half a unit, I've been picking decently so far this year and have just been losing vigs off the "bankroll", so it felt good to end the week up.

I'm going to hold off on including any upset specials for another week, partially because I was up on the week, and partially because I don't have any upset specials in mind on this weeks slate of games.  That means the format stays the same here this week, though feedback is always welcome in the comments...

Best&Worst: Best Divisions in Sports

I like lists. They're neat and organized. So I decided to start doing a Best&Worst segment (nothing set, just as often as I want) which will either count down the 5 Best, 5 Worst, or both of a specific topic. The first one is "Divisions in Sports", in case you couldn't read the title, and this first article is the top 5. Since I find this topic interesting and it's the first of the segment I will be posting a Worst 5 soon. This list takes a look at success/talent/competitiveness in the past decade, with extra emphasis on the most recent season. Enjoy and feel free to tell me how wrong you think I am.

Daily Links For 3/24/11

Matthew Berry's Bold Predictions - Fantasy baseball predictions from THE Fantasy guy... Matthew Berry.  Not going to step on his toes by copying any of his bold predictions here. Gonna leave one of my own though - Mike Aviles will finish in the top ten at second base at the end of the year.

Football Outsiders Determines Effects Of New Kick Off Rule - Warning: Link is ESPN Insider only - Football Outsiders uses their play by play data to try and figure out how many more touchbacks there will be next year.  Simple answer, a shit load. There is a chart that shows ten kickers that all would have more than ten more touchbacks next year.

Neftali Feliz to Remain Ranger's Closer - Yeah... Link really says it all.  Important mainly for fantasy purposes, but wanted to link here.

Blaine Gabbert Is Awesome - Link is to an ESPN story all about Gabbert personally.  This kind of article is why he'll probably go first overall.  Any talent concerns with Gabbert are soothed by his amazing off the field personality.  NFL scouts are realizing more and more how important character guys are, and Gabbert has character in spades.

Buck Showalter Talks Shit About Yanks and Red Sox - Or in other words, Buck Showalter does exactly what you'd want the manager of the Orioles to do.  If you're the manager of the Orioles you are in a tough place behind the Red Sox and Yankees and Rays.  Talking shit about them is the first step to getting your team believing they actually have a shot to win that division.

Ochocinco Below Own Expectations at Soccer Tryout - There's minimal NFL news today.  That's all the excuse I have for this one.

Bill Parcells Leaves Dolphins... Back On ESPN - After a few years of hanging out in Florida doing nothing for the Dolphins... Tuna is heading back to ESPN.  He's going to be a draft analyst at first and will likely find his way back onto Sunday Countdown come fall.

Also going to use this space to kinda announce a future site feature.  Once fantasy baseball season starts I'm going to offer a daily spot start candidate.  It'll be a player available in a yet to be determined large percentage of ESPN leagues.  The plan is to offer one for every day all season long so you'll have a reason to come back here every day.

Packers At Falcons AKA The "NFC Championship Game"

Seahawks at Bears Preview

Lets be straight.  This is really the NFC Title game.  The two best teams to make the playoffs from the NFC ended up meeting each other a round early because of seedings... But they're still the best two teams in the NFC.  The winner of this game is guaranteed to be favored next round (Okay... If the Packers played the Bears it would likely be Bears -2.5 but that means the Packers would be favored on a neutral field.) Hell you could definitely make the case for either team beating anyone from the AFC in the Super Bowl too.  But the question that still needs to be answered is who will win and get to move on?

First Blog Post.

I've spent years of my life talking about sports nonstop and being told that I should write about them.  Whether or not that's just because people were sick of hearing me is debatable but either way I'm writing now.  This is going to be a sports blog that mostly just covers the three major sports... Basketball, Baseball, and of course the Mac Daddy that is Football.  I will not be covering Hockey or Soccer here as they don't really excite me... at all.  There will probably be an MMA post or two on occasion and I'll likely use this space as a place where I can sound off if I feel the need to on anything pop-culture/real world related.  Also the simple layout of the blog will remain that way for now.  I'm going for readability at the moment though if anyone wanted to volunteer to spruce this space up I wouldn't argue.  Also plan on putting together a podcast of some sort once I figure out what to talk about and possibly find someone to talk with.

Also be sure to follow me on twitter @bigderfsports (www.twitter.com/bigderfsports) where you'll get links to all my updates here plus whatever I think of thats 140 characters or less to talk about.

And stay tuned right here for NFL Divisional Playoff previews which I'll start posting later today.