2012 NFL Week 10 Picks – Football

Game picks for the 2012 NFL season Week 10.

NFL Week 10

This Week on the Hit Parade

If Ryan Clark’s “hit to the head” on Victor Cruz is a penalty, we can rest assured the pussification of the NFL is right on Roger Goodell’s schedule…http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000092165/article/ryan-clark-victor-cruz-backed-off-after-penalized-hit

The bogus call–which gave the G-Men a first down at the one-yard line–only demonstrates, yet again, how the league’s executive leadership is bent on destroying the game we love.

The constant squawking out of New York about the integrity of the game is laughable.

If the league was remotely interested in integrity, replay challenges wouldn’t be a game within a game with coaches as flag-throwing stooges. The process would be amazingly simple: any play on the field–when video evidence incontrovertibly proves any call to be wrong–must be overturned.

Note the language:…”incontrovertibly”…’any call”…”must”…There is no interpretation, there is no discussion. The most intense Steeler-haters in the world can look at Clark’s hit and would have to admit he didn’t come close to hitting Cruz in the head.

When the temp-refs were exposing the current NFL rules’ interpretation pitfalls before the “real” refs settled their labor dispute with the owners, the naïve NFL fan actually expected officiating to improve.

I dare any true football fan to watch just a little of “The Red Zone Channel” this weekend and make the case current refs have a clearer understanding of the rules than the officials they replaced. Keep in mind I’m not complaining about any one call going against “my” Steelers; they and every other team are victimized by bad calls on a weekly basis.

Imagine how much quicker and fairer the average NFL game would be. Cameras nearly always catch the guy who throws the first punch, push, or kick; instead of offsetting penalties that only stoke more anger, the real offender would be caught and flagged.

Instead of phantom pass interference calls that clearly did not occur, clean defensive plays or sneaky offensive pass interference, plays would be fairly adjudicated.

Ask Seattle fans if they would favor such a system after the bogus call on Jeremy Stevens in the ’05 Super Bowl.

Instead of blatant blows to the head going unpunished, NFL QBs not named Brady or Manning would feel like the refs are trying to protect them too.

This proposed system could serve another equally important purpose.

If there are 20 incomplete passes in the average NFL game, I bet at least 15 end with one of these pussy, prima-donna receivers indignantly stomping toward an official with hands miming throwing of a flag, or grabbing a jersey, or raised in the flabbergasted astonishment of a victim looking for a witness to acknowledge a calamitous cosmic injustice…

In other words, begging for a penalty.

Imagine how quickly that would stop if a receiver who cried for laundry without the slightest justification were penalized the same amount of yardage if the flag he’s looking for were indeed thrown.

Only a league truly concerned about integrity would consider or implement such a sensible and fair system.

Which only means we will never see it in the NFL.

Week 10 Picks

Last Week: 12 – 2 = .857 (Specials 3 – 1)
Overall Tally: 62 – 68 – 2 = .476
Specials: 20 – 15 – 1 = .571

No, no..please…take all the applause time you need…I’ll wait…

If it sounds like I’m bragging, you are hearing correctly. After nine weeks of hovering over each side of the handicapper’s Mendoza line, I finally pulled through with a stellar performance.

I put a little whipped cream on my luscious Sunday by missing on only one of my Specials. It was a hunch pick that ended up being dumb because I acknowledged the tendencies pointed in the opposite direction in my analysis.

Well, nobody is perfect–but 12 – 2 ain’t bad.

Okay, wait, before my skull swells to Elephant Man proportions, let’s put my 2012 handicapping record into perspective: if you put $5.00 on every game I handicapped and $10.00 on every Special as I called them, you would be very close to even at this moment in time.

As I repeated several times this year–and am still endeavoring to prove thatI’m right–there is a lot of football to be played.

Let’s see how I stack up against other so-called experts.

Over at CBS.com, three of the Elite Eight sportswriters are sucking worse than The Gairzo; a few more are five or six games better; only two CBS writers are above 70 wins on the year.

The site I subscribe to for trend analyses and team breakdowns has several handicappers who are getting paid and stink worse than yours truly.

It’s not as easy as it looks and not as hard as some handicappers think. The good ones look for consistency on their Specials, hope to minimize the poor showings and trust their instincts. Too many serious handicappers don’t believe when the trends speak clearly, and just as many lean too hard on trending when a simpler approach is called for.

Week 10

GAME OF THE WEEK (3 – 6)

Houston Texans @ Chicago Bears (–1.5)

This is, perhaps, the first legit Super Bowl preview, if you don’t think the Giants/Steelers game last week fills that bill.

Truth is, Da Bears are the most overrated team in the NFL. Their 6th-ranked defense and gaudy turnover numbers are very impressive–if you forget that their only quality opponent was the Packers, who beat them handily.

In Week 1, they whipped a very green Andrew Luck and a Colts team that was supposed to be next to awful. Except for Indy, who has since emerged as a decent team, who have the Bears beaten?…Carolina, Tennessee, Dallas, St. Louis, and Detroit. Undisciplined, inconsistent, talent-starved–or, in Dallas’s case, consistently overrated for two decades–teams

If I can look at the game tape and see what Tillman does to force fumbles, it won’t be long until competent coaches teach coachable players to secure the ball. Fans constantly whine about their team forcing turnovers without understanding you can’t rely on that style of defense over 19 weeks of football. Eventually, that well runs dry.

The Bears are a mirage.

I assure you their opponent Sunday Night is not. The Texans scream balance on both sides of the ball and as a complete team. They have a quality offensive and defensive front and a secondary better than the Jay Cutler Bears have seen all year.

I don’t think this one is close.

TEXANS 33, BEARS 17

LOCK OF THE WEEK (6 – 3)

New York Giants @ Cincinnati Bengals (+3.5)

The G-Men showed no outward signs of weariness during last week’s defeat at the hands of the horrifically uniformed Steelers who wore their 1937 throw-up–er, I mean throwback uniforms.

The passing game suffered from injuries and an intimidated Victor Cruz who took that nasty shot to the ribs, an improving Steelers rush defense and a Pittsburgh running game that pounded Big Blue into submission.

Tom Coughlin teams seldom lose in such a fashion two weeks in a row. Especially against a Cincinnati club that is starting to display the all too familiar Marvin Lewis swoon after what began as a good 2012 start (4 – 0).

And what happened to the Bengal defense? Top five a year ago. This year–17th.

Andy Dalton is surprising absolutely no one this year, defenses are double-dog daring him to match last year’s success, and he keeps falling short.

Eli schools Dalton and the G-Men win big.

GIANTS 30, BENGALS 20

UPSET SPECIAL (6 – 3)

Atlanta Falcons @ New Orleans Saints (+2.5)

Take the over on a double play and watch the Saints answer the question…”If the Bears are a mirage, what are the Falcons?”

Answer: a bad LSD trip.

The combined winning percentage of Falcon’s opponents? .369.

No, we can’t fault the Birds of Prey for beating who the NFL puts on the schedule, but we can do our best to point out that they haven’t played a good team yet and will only play one–Tampa Bay–in the next five weeks.

I picked the Falcons to go to the bowl based on their anemic schedule along with them coming together as a unit. But even with a historically awful defense, the Saints have lost only one of their games by more than 8 points.

We think the Saints are finding themselves amongst the world of shit Roger Goodell created for them. They desperately want to make the postseason-–not for a ravaged community, not for a maligned defense, but to shove some of that shit into Ol’ Rogers face.

How can you not root for that?

HOLY MEN 41, FALCONS 37

OVER/UNDER OF THE WEEK (5 – 3 – 1)

Dallas Cowboys @ Philadephia Eagles -2 (44.5)

I heard Michael Irvin, or maybe it was the blithering Deon Sanders, lament how badly the Cowboys suck even though “they have a top ten offense and a top five defense.”

The NFL punditocracy is bloated with former Dallas Cowboys and their accompanying apologists who can’t read basic stat sheets available on any number of websites.

Since their last Super Bowl victory, the Dallas Cowboys have been the most entitled, spoiled, whiny, undisciplined, inconsistent, and over-hyped organization in the history of American sports.

There are talented players on the Dallas roster, but the team has been bereft of talent for the last 17 years. I’m not talking about players who can catch and throw, run and tackle, and score touchdowns. I’m talking about men who know what it takes to win, who understand the intense focus it takes to survive 16 Sunday afternoons in the NFL.

Let’s try context, again…

Any player who Dallas drafts know he will be on prime time television or play the late afternoon network prime game at least 11-13 times a year. Other teams in the league must be successful the prior year to even be considered for 5–7 prime games. That same player knows he will enjoy training camp not in the unforgiving heat and humidity of Texas, but in–well, here’s a snippet linked from the Cowboy training camp website:

Great location, friendly accommodations, white sandy beaches, outdoor adventure, downtown attractions, award-winning festivals and the Channel Islands National Park — just 11 miles offshore!

What more could you want in a vacation spot?

That same pampered player knows when he leaves Camp Cowboy from Oxnard, California, and does get back to Texas, he will workout in the state of the art facility in the NFL and will play in a palace built for princes by a self-appointed king.

That attitude–the biggest and best of everything because we are “America’s Team”–cannot help but breed narcissism, entitlement, and arrogance, especially when the Dallas Cowboys and there piss-ant owner have yet to earn a sliver of what they believe their team is entitled to.

Dallas Cowboy alumni are too blind or stupid to understand what NFL football is about. The Dallas Cowboys are next to last in the 32-team NFL in turnover differential and their special teams are anything but special. They lack the discipline to take care of the ball and the focus to play quality football in all three facets of the game for 60 minutes–every stinking weekend from September to February.

That’s why your Cowboys suck. Take the over.

EAGLES 27, COWBOYS 24

As usual, my picks are in italic below.

NFL Lines For Week 10 11/11 – 11/12, 2012

Date & Time	Favorite	Line	Underdog	Total
11/11 1:00 ET	At New England	-13	Buffalo	53
11/11 1:00 ET	NY Giants LW	-4	At Cincinnati	49
11/11 1:00 ET	At Tampa Bay	-3	San Diego	47
11/11 1:00 ET	Denver	-4	At Carolina	47
11/11 1:00 ET	At Miami	-6	Tennessee	44.5
11/11 1:00 ET	At Baltimore	-7.5	Oakland	47.5
11/11 1:00 ET	Atlanta US	-2.5	At New Orleans	53.5
11/11 1:00 ET	Detroit	-2.5	At Minnesota	46
11/11 4:05 ET	At Seattle	-6	NY Jets	38.5
11/11 4:25 ET	Dallas O/U	-2	At Philadelphia	44.5
11/11 4:25 ET	At San Francisco	-12.5	St. Louis	38.5
11/11 8:30 ET	At Chicago GW	-1.5	Houston	39.5

Monday Night Football Line

11/12 8:40 ET

At Pittsburgh

-12.5

Kansas City

42

Bye Weeks: Arizona, Cleveland, Green Bay, Washington

• October 14, 2012 -- 2012 NFL Week 6 Picks Football (0)
• October 11, 2012 -- 2012 NFL Week 6 Thursday Night Pick – Football (1)
• February 4, 2011 -- Pittsburgh Steelers Dirty or Not? Part 3 – NFL Football (8)
• February 2, 2011 -- Pittsburgh Steelers Dirty or Not? Part 2 – NFL Football (1)
• December 23, 2010 -- NFL Week 16 Thursday Night Game Pick – NFL Football (1)