well i feel like i got CRUSHED last week and in fantasy, i did, thanks to both of my running back earning negative points and only Payton Manning earning double digits for me... also there were a couple of upsets which helped spoil my picks... in fact, i was only 7-6 this week, my worst outing yet this year... and since i'm tired and still a little bitter, i'm going to be quick about my picks this week too... off we go...

WHO'S GONNA WIN

now playing: Mad Season - Matchbox 20

for the early games, there may be a few good matchups... starting with the Ravens, who remembered how to play last week, meeting up with the Bengals, who remember how to play at the beginning of the year... powerful defenses, powerful offenses, deodorant, and fireworks aplenty... Bengals win, 31-28...

- The Colts should beat the Texans regardless of who they have running the ball... Payton is on fire this year and has managed to have everyone saying Marvin Who?...
- Packers obliterate the Bucs...
- a win for the Bears just isn't in the Cards...
- the Jags stick it to the rebuilding Chiefs, even with their new wideout...
- Patriots will beat the Dolphins who will learn early on that the wildcat won't work, and that they have nothing else to offer...
- and the Redskins will draw a blank against the Falcons...

The late games have the Giants and Chargers matchup as the highlight of the afternoon... and that could go either way as both teams seem to struggle when they're actually challenged... i think this one goes to the Chargers though, by about ten points...
- Saints continue to roll, Panthers return to rolling over...
- Seahawks get a breather and should beat the Lions... (if the Rams can beat them, anyone can)...
- and the 49ers should break out of this lull, bouncing back against the Vince Young Titans...

Sunday Night brings us the NFC EAST MATCHUP of the Cowboys and the Eagles... yeah, well, the NFC East has really become a bunch of kittens this year... the Eagles, though, could turn it out something fierce if they are feeling right... and i think they'll fly pretty high this week... (and beat the Cowpokes... er, Cowboys)...

which brings us to the Monday Night game and the best home field advantage in the league?... the Steelers come into face the Broncos with a blueprint for success (assuming they watched the Ravens tear the Broncos to shreds last week)... despite the Broncos playing at home and the altitude adjustment needed for the Steelers, i give this one to the Steelers... and i hate the Steelers, so i'm certainly not playing favorites here...

AND THAT'S IT...

goodbye.

peace... love... bdg...

so, another week has flown by and i'm just not keeping up these days... hard to believe that it's already week eight of the NFL season... harder to believe that there's already a couple of rematches in the schedule... big ones too, the Favres and the Favre-nots take the field again this week and FOX Sports has promised to catch every eyelid twitch on Favre's face... awesome...

well, last week, despite not feeling well at all, i still managed a hearty 10-3 for my picks, though i got trounced in two of my fantasy leagues... so far this year, i'm 71-31 which puts me right on par with Jaws who gets paid to follow football... anyway, i do have to say that picking the games is pretty easy this year because most of the games are so lopsided... which brings me to my topic...

A PARODY OF PARITY
now playing: Boulevard of Both Extremes - ApologetiX
remember when the NFL used to be comprised of about thirty good teams and the Bucs and Browns?... remember when the phrase "Any Given Sunday" was accurate?... yeah, those days are clearly gone and it seems like it happened over the last offseason... sure, there's always been a team or two that proves themselves elite over the course of the year, say, the 2007 Patriots for example, but then on one given Sunday, even they fell short, losing the Superbowl to the Giants... this year, there are too many games that are gimmes...

looking around the league, it's clear that the NFL has been given over to some sort of class warfare... we've got the "upper class" filled with about eight teams (Saints, Colts, Broncos, Vikings, Steelers, Bengals, Patriots and Giants - though, the last two can teeter either way) that that seem overloaded with talent and the ability to be unstoppable each week... Then, on the other end of the spectrum, you've got about eight teams (Titans, Rams, Bucs, Lions, Chiefs, Browns, Raiders, Panthers and Redskins - with a handful of others trying to join them) who just can't buy a win, or even a touchdown most of the time...

The middle class consists of a bundle of teams that just seem to take up space... sure, some threaten to crack into the top tier (namely the Cards, Falcons, Packers, and Texans) and some threaten to drop into the miserable (Bills, Dolphins, Jags and Seahawks) but for the most part, they seem all too happy to split wins and losses, with no hope of impacting the league either way...

So what happened? why is there such a difference between the league's best and worst?... i blame the Obama administration and their policies that promote class warfare in society as a whole... okay, not really, but there is a serious problem when the most popular sport in America is no longer competitive... and of course, by "serious problem", i mean, lack of entertainment value... perspective, people... anyway, something should be done, but i'm not sure what... i just like to point out the obvious...

PICK-URE PAGES...
now playing: No One Really Wins - Copeland

well, there's no Sunday Night game tonight, so i suppose i can talk a little bit about some other games... maybe a brief blurb about each game?... see how long that lasts..

First up, a big matchup between the undefeated Broncos and the hiccupping Ravens... somehow, the Ravens are favored in this game - probably being the home team - but the Raven's defense has shown signs of age and their offense, despite a good start, has all but sputtered to a stop... and the Broncos have been obnoxious on defense and rather good-fortuned on offense... this may be a close game, but i'm pretty sure that the Broncos remain undefeated with a 30-21 victory...

the Texans roll into Buffalo to face the ailing Bills... both teams have had problems of their own throughout the season and seem to hate the idea of performing well consistently... for the Bills, it began with the opening game, when they decided to ruin a great game by self-destructing in the closing minutes... they've lacked confidence and poise ever since... the Texans also lost in week one and struggled to get out of the gate... they have, for the most part, turned things around and will more than likely defeat the Bills handily, 27-17...

if the Bears don't destroy the Browns, then they should just not play the rest of the season... Bears 42, Browns 12...

the Cowboys host the Seahawks in a battle of two teams that seem to be bi-polar... the real mystery is guessing which version of each team will show up... i suspect that the better of both will take the field and, if that's the case, the Seahawks will fall to the Cowboys...

the Dolphins and the Jets square off in a rematch that dates back about two weeks?... the Jets are riding high from blowing out Oakland High last week and the Dolphins are reeling from watching the Saints pick them apart despite a twenty-nine minute headstart... here's the thing, if the Jets can manage the wildcat madness - and i think they can - then they'll prevail with close to 400 yards rushing of their own... Jets 33, Fins 24...

as much as i'm loving the thought of the 49ers re-establishing themselves as a dominant force in the league, they're not quite ready to do it against the Colts, especially with Peyton having a career year... Colts win 48-10...

at the beginning of the season, this might have seemed like a really compelling game... division rivals squaring off, but really, over the last few weeks, both of these teams have proven pretty fallible... the Giants have lost to two quality teams and have had their defense exposed, while the Eagles lost to the Raiders and were less than dominant against the Redskins... the Eagles are at home, but they're limping more than the Giants right now and the G-Men will beat them 30-22...

Lions host the Rams for the Misera-Bowl... Lions fail to lose, leading at the end of the game 15-14...

LATE GAME (and a few beat-downs)...

the game at four is the rematch between the Packers and the Vikings... last time around, the Vikings were undefeated and hosting a bitter Packer team... This time, the Vikings are bleeding a little and the Packers are at home... the problem is, that the Vikings defense is still significantly better than the Packers offense... and that leaves the Vikings with a sweep over Green Bay, winning 30-24...

the Chargers will actually look like a playoff team this weekend... but that's only because they'll be embarrasing the Raiders... divisional rivalry or not, the Chargers win 45-6...

Similarly, the Jaguars will blow out the Vince Young Titans, 43-16...

Continuing the theme, the Cardinals will own the Panthers, 52-10...

MONDAY NIGHT MADNESS...

the Saints host the Falcons in the Monday night matchup and, although the Falcons have the ability to put up a lot of points, they also have the ability to give up a lot of points... and guess what? the Saints are awaiting the approval for a trademark of putting up a lot of points this year... this game may replicate last week's outing for the Saints, but chances are better that it will just be a shootout with the Falcons running out of ammo long before the Saints... Saints 56, Falcons 38...

AND THAT'S A WRAP...

see you real soon with a variety of goodness... Happy Halloween or something to that effect...

peace... love... bdg...

this week went by incredible fast and i'm not feeling too well today, so this is going to be a quick entry... last week, i went 11-3 with my picks thankyouverymuch... and this week, there are only 13 games which i will buzz through right now by just calling out the winners...

Packers, 49ers, Chargers, Colts, Patriots, Vikings, Bills, Jets, Bengals, Falcons, Saints, Cards, Eagles...

and that's all i've got today... hopefully i'll be feeling better tomorrow...

peace... love... bdg...

time keeps on chugging along... i only wish i could keep up... and still get sleep... i'm really trying to get more posts written up that don't involve football, because i know that my fantastic insights don't really appeal to everyone... and that's okay... i've just been adjusting... today, i've got a few books to talk about and soon, i'll have some things that i want to hash out with the written word... something i saw on a television show that's normally unengaging, something i've learned from the Redskins, and more... i may also talk a little bit about the redesign that i'm working on for the main site... if you sign up for the newsletter, i'll send you an email when it's back up to speed... you'll also get the newsletter, if i ever send them out... anyway, no time for the dilly-dally... let's move on...

LIGHT IT UP

now playing: Illuminate Pt. 1 - Lightheaded

Illuminated - Matt Bronleewe
a while ago, i read and raved about House of Wolves and now, finally, i managed to buy and read a copy of the first book of the August Adams series... and guess what?... i'll rave about this one too... Matt Bronleewe certainly puts together a mean story... fast-paced, thrilling, intricate and well-detailed... Illuminated kept me flipping through the pages as though i were cooling myself off... (maybe not THAT fast)...

Anyway, it is, again, or perhaps first, a great piece of writing and at 300 pages, it's a manageable length for those of us who can't keep our schedule in order... certainly there are themes that are similar to storylines such as the National Treasure franchise and books like, duh, the Da Vinci Code, but it's a special tale that stands on it's own despite any other books about secret societies and mysterious symbols... Cheers to Matt... looking forward to book three..

SECOND ROUND

now playing: The Hard-Knock Life - Original Cast of Annie

Knockout Entrepreneur - George Foreman (with Ken Abaraham)
i gotta admit... i love watching George Foreman... i think there's a part of each of us that feels that way... and now i know that it was by design... George opens up with a very enjoyable book telling his story of success in the business world... one piece of advice that stood out? When you answer the phone, keep a smile on your face - it comes through... clearly, Foreman wrote this book with a big smile on his face, because that's exactly how it reads...

Granted there are times when the book feels a little repetitive (revisiting the same events) and almost like a sales pitch - for instance, the grill is mentioned by its full name (with adjectives) several times - but that's the nature of the game... Foreman is very up front about the fact that he's using every opportunity to sell his products and continue to be successful... that's fine, because, overall the book has plenty of good advice tucked away in each chapter...

It's also worth noting that this is a Nelsonfree product - and yes, by the way, this is based on a free promotional copy - which means that with the book in hand, you can click over to the special webpage, answer a question or two and get a free PDF and audiobook version of the book as well... (George Foreman does NOT narrate the audiobook, but it's still a rather lively reading)...

Anyway, the bottom line, as with many career/business/self-improvement books is that you won't find too much here that you can't find in many similarly-themed... the difference is that this is someone else's story and the more times you hear success stories from different voices, the more you'll start to believe that soon enough, it can be your voice telling the tales... plus there's the whole smile thing... and George has a lot of mouths to feed in his family...

CAN YOU DIG IT?

now playing: The Pleasure Principle - Janet Jackson

The Treasure Principle - Randy Alcorn
the section title is from the cornerstone illustration for this book, by the way... the parable of the man who finds a treasure in a field, sells all he has, buys the field and, presumably, lives happily ever after... it's a passage from the Bible that i feel is somewhat betrayed by the application here and the book tends to further unravel from there... but let me back up for a second...

i feel like i came upon this book under false pretenses... pretenses that keep me from being at all unbiased (as if i'm ever unbiased) and that said, my attitude when reading this book was more of a cynic than of a reviewer... and, honestly, i don't want to spend too much time talking about it right now because i'm pretty sure it will be part of the focus of another piece of writing that i have brewing but i will say this... (that was a long sentence, sorry)... i will say this... bottom line, i feel like this is the prosperity gospel repackaged and framed from a "more spiritual" perspective... that's not to say that there weren't some parts that i agreed with, but largely i'm pretty sure that htis book misses the mark...

NO MAS

time's up... well, over up... beyond? long since past?... whatever... good night...

peace... love... bdg...

another week, another somewhat lackluster performance... really, i didn't do badly last week, i mean how could you, with so many games that were OBVIOUS?... i was 9-5, which is good, but i'd prefer to get in the double digits... overall, that puts me at a cool 50-25...

moving on... is it just me or are there a lot of teams that are really, really bad this year... sure, there are a lot of teams that seem really good, but i think a lot of that is because they're in contrast with really, really bad teams... take last week's scores... the average margin of victory was almost 16 points... 3 teams won by over 30 points (5 over 20)... that's some bad matchups...

what particularly irritates me, though, is that a couple of those went the wrong way (according to my picks)... the 49ers and the Jaguars simply didn't show up last week... anyway, i digress... this week, i'm taking a break from the "How Bad are THEY" feature (partly because i think it falls to my beloved Bills this week) and instead talking about something else that's been bugging me about football this season... more after the jump... let's move foward...

HANGING CHADS...

now playing: Hanging By a Moment - Lifehouse

i think it's time to move away from the "wildcat" offense... as a league... it's getting pretty annoying and that may be largely because every team that's doing it is only doing it so that they're not the only team left not doing it...

what i mean is, when the Dolphins debuted the wildcat last year, it was a creative solution for a struggling offense... it fits the team's style and addresses their needs - specifically the need for a quarterback... it still works for the Dolphins largely because they're still approaching it creatively and they still haven't got a quarterback worth anything... sorry Chads...

Every other team in the league is simply trying not to get left behind... they're all playing copycat with their wildcat, but it's just plain silly for them to be spreading a QB out to the right as a WR... offensive coordinators need to tap into the imagination that they've ignored while trying to do keep up... just stop... you're not fooling anybody... trick plays are cool and all, but if you can't consistantly get first downs, tricks aren't going to save your season... focus on the basics, not the frills...

WHO'S GONNA WIN

now playing: Mad Season - Matchbox 20

This week, there are a lot of good match-ups... looks like the bad teams are playing bad teams and good teams are playing good teams... for the most part... which makes things a little bit difficult when it comes to weeding out which games to spotlight... as such, i'm going to cop out a little and feature a double whammy in the early games...

First up, the Baltimore Ravens head over to face the Minnesota Vikings... two weeks ago, this looked like a much better game... the Ravens were cruising through the season, promising to be a Superbowl contender and the Vikings, of course, are still on that path...

so what happened? How on earth did the Ravens get derailed?... Ray Lewis would argue that the refs have interfered unjustly... first with the dirge of "Tom Brady Rule" penalties in New England and then, this week, Lewis was fined $25k for a bell-ringing hit that has been described as "helmet-to-helmet", but looks to me to be shoulder-to-shoulder and clean... either way it was late in the game, called a personal foul, and gave the Bengals fifteen yards and a fresh set of downs on a game-winning drive that had almost stalled...

that said, the Ravens are angry... and they're still good... really good... but so are the Vikings... and i'm gonna have to say that the Purple People Eaters are going to demote the Ravens to a 500 team... Vikings 38, Ravens 24...

Next up, without hesitation... the Saints and the Giants... I've not seen too much from either team to be honest... but both teams are justifiably undefeated and this is going to be a really tough game... it could easily go either way and this may even be a preview of the NFC Championship this year...

The saints have proven that their celebrated offense is still something to talk about each week and, more recently, people have started waking up to realize that the Gregg Williams defense is respectable... the Giants seem destined to work from the opposite direction... their defense is highly-touted and their offense is coming around...

so who's going to win... that's a tough question, but i'm going to go with the Saints at home in a close one, 24-21

and the rest of the early games...
- Jags redeem themselves, and crush Rams
- Panthers will beat Bucs
- Pack shuts Lions down
- Bengals win over Texans
- Steelers over Browns
- and, *sigh*, Chiefs outscore Redskins

For the late games, the key matchup is the Cards at the Seahawks... with Hasselbeck back at the helm, the Hawks looked pretty good last week, just like they looked the first week... just like they'll probably look this week... but on the other side of the ball, the Cards also have the tools to launch a high-powered offensive attack... this could be the shootout game that everyone enjoys until the end... i'm calling Cardinals 52, Seahawks 45...

and finishing out Sunday afternoon...
- Eagles rock Raiders
- Patriots pound Titans
- Jets depress Bills fans everywhere...

Sunday Night is perhaps not the most exciting game, with the Bears heading to Atlants, but it should be interesting enough... the Falcons exploded last week, manhandling the 49ers, and often threaten to put up lots of points... the Bears always threaten to have a good defense... i see this as decent game with the Falcons pulling it out, 21-18...

and last but not least, the Broncos face the Chargers on Monday Night Football... this should be a pretty hard-fought game between the bitter rivals... the Broncos are playing a solid season and the Chargers seem to be limping along... honestly, i think until the Bolts turn the team over Sproles instead of LT, they'll continue to stumble through the games... that said, i'm picking the Broncos to maintain their unbeaten streak, winning by ten, 31-21...

AND THAT'S IT...

goodbye.

peace... love... bdg...