Football Survivor Picks, Week 13

Argh! These Thursday games are killing me! I knew I should have just posted quickly on Wednesday to take Tennessee this week, as my top pick and evidenced again by me using them in our original survivor pool. And then Dallas was a close second pick. By writing today I can’t very well say, “pick those teams” now.

My excuse? I’m in Mexico as I type this. The wife and I are celebrating an overdue anniversary. The flight was on Thursday so Wednesday was mad packing, while Thursday I was in the air on a cheap charter unable to watch most all of the football. Based on the scores, it doesn’t look like I missed much. Landslide win by the Titans, landslide win by the Cowboys, and big win by the Eagles over the Cards. Not that much of a surprise there. The Cards are terrible on the road. The Eagles were embarassed the week before. Big rebound performance for them, especially Donovan McNabb, which is good to see, even though I did literally laugh out loud at this post-game recap of what happened to McNabb last week.

Okay, so with 3 games already off the board lets see what’s left for this week in terms of survivor picks.

1. Baltimore Ravens at Cincinnati Bengals – The Bengals are at home in this one, and then pretty much everything else points in favour of the Ravens. Well, not quite, but its close. The Ravens have won 5 of their last 6, all by double digits. The loss was by double digits too, to the Giants. The Bengals were showing mild improvement with a win over the Jaguars (those untrustworthy Jaguars) and a tie to the Eagles before getting skunked in Pittsburgh last week, 27-10. WR Chad Johnson did not play last week due to a team suspension, although his presence would have made little difference in the outcome.

Looking at the history between these teams, the Bengals have won head-to-head in Cincinnati each of the past 3 years. This season’s version of each team however, shows a better offense for the Ravens, and much better defense for the Ravens, and the Ravens are still locked in a tough playoff hunt. They are a game back of the Steelers for the division, and face a tough schedule to close out their season. They cannot afford to drop this one to the 1-9-1 Bengals. And they won’t. Take the Ravens.

2. Indianapolis Colts at Cleveland Browns – In recent weeks statistically, these teams are actually pretty close to one another on offense and defense. In fact our adjusted average points for and against calculations show the Browns scoring slightly better, and giving up slightly fewer points than the Colts. Ah, but a look inside the numbers shows the Colts have done that against some tough competition – Titans, Pats, Steelers, Texans and Chargers the past 5 games, including a 4 game winning streak since the Titans game. The Browns – Jags, Ravens, Broncos, Bills, Texans, a 2-3 record in these games with all 3 losses at home.

The Browns are switching back to QB Derek Anderson this week due to necessity. Brady Quinn is out for the year with ligament damage in his finger, an injury he tried to play through last week. That can be a little dangerous since we don’t know if the time off has allowed Anderson to get back to his 2007 form, or if last year truly was an aberration. I think the latter. The Colts are a team I don’t usually expect much let down from. While they haven’t won big in recent weeks, they are on an upswing after playing below typical Colt standards early in the year. I would expect the Colts running game to perform well this week, and they will beat the Browns.

Upon further inspection, there are some decent choices this week. Beyond the Ravens and Colts, many will likely grab the New York Jets at home over the Broncos. The Jets are the hottest team in the NFL right now having just knocked off the Titans, and the Broncos are coming off a 21 point loss at home to the Raiders. Hard to argue with picking the Jets, other than to note what the Eagles did last night after a bad loss last weekend. If the Jets have their heads in the game, they should be more than capable of disposing of the Broncos, but could still be on their “high” from the Titans game.

I was also somewhat close to recommending the Bills at home over the 49ers, but one big win over the Chiefs does not give me a ton of confidence in the Bills. They should win (they’d better win this one), but I can’t give it a strong recommendation. About the only certainty here is FOX will assign one of their lowest ranked commentator teams to help broadcast this game. And I decided to program record this one before I left for Mexico. I’m a glutton for punishment. Más cerveza. Adiós!