A sports blog by and for Midwest Sports Fans
After going 4-0 during Wild Card Weekend, I feel back a bit this past weekend. I went 2-2, nailing the San Francisco and New York games while missing rather badly on the Patriots and Ravens victories (I thought Denver would keep it close and Baltimore would dominate…whoops!).
After an up and down regular season in which I needed a furious finish to end up over .500, I couldn’t have started the playoffs out with any more momentum. I nailed all four games last week, and I’m even going to give myself extra credit for making the Giants -3 my lock, since they delivered the most dominant win of the weekend.
Now it’s time to move onto the divisional round.
The final week of the 2011 NFL regular season is here, and there is a surprisingly high number of games that carry meaning, which should lead to an exciting day of football.
One game of the Week 16 schedule is already in the books — the Indianapolis Colts secured win #2 of the season by defeating the Houston Texans at Lucas Oil Stadium. (But did they lose for winning?) What’s in store for the rest of Week 16? Check out the TV schedule below and our Bettor’s Guide, posted earlier this week.
I surely do not need to remind you what the biggest game of Week 15 is.
The Patriots and Broncos take the field together Sunday afternoon in what is being billed as Tom versus Tim but really is a battle of a great (though one-dimensional) offense against a good-to-great defense and a good-for-one-quarter offense against a can’t-stop-the-pass defense.
Sorry for the late posting on this. But better late than never, right?
Here is the TV schedule and announcer assignment breakdown for Week 13.
This week isn’t really a banner week for the NFL in terms of compelling games to look forward to, but there are at least few interesting matchups on the Week 11 slate. [Read more...]
Week 8 was just weird. St. Louis put a totally unexpected beatdown on New Orleans, Dallas didn’t even compete in their divisional battle against Philadelphia, and after eight weeks of play the San Francisco 49ers have a damn-near-clinching four game lead in the NFC West.
Wha-what?
So what could Week 9 possibly have in store for us?
My apologies for the delay in getting this week’s Viewer’s Guide up. The Week 8 Bettor’s Guide went up on time but this one slipped my mind in the World Series excitement we were provided with this week.
All you need to know about this week’s NFL schedule is that there is not one single game in which two teams with winning records will face off. That doesn’t mean there won’t be compelling action, but it does mean that there are probably very few potential playoff previews because top flight teams like we had last week when Detroit and San Francisco faced off. (Feel free to read that sentence again if still astounds you to see Detroit and San Francisco in the same sentence with the phrases “potential playoff preview” and “top flight teams”.)
In the Week 6 Bettor’s Guide, I discussed a couple of the games I am most looking forward to this week: Carolina-Atlanta (because Cam Newton is so individually compelling and the Falcons’ season hangs in the balance) and Detroit-San Francisco (because the two teams are a combined 9-1). When the season began, who would have thought that those two games would carry such intrigue?
Well they are far from the only ones a pretty solid Week 6 schedule.
I don’t know why it irks me so much, but if I have to hear the phrase “at the quarter pole” to describe the first weeks of the season being done, I’m going to scream. Sure, it’s accurate, but something about so many NFL talking heads using the phrase has just begun to grate at my ears.
But I digress.
Week 5 is here, and there are several games to look forward to as you plan your Sunday of football viewing.
As I sat at my family’s usual table at BW3′s while the first slate of Sunday’s games wound down, I realized that every single game being shown was within a touchdown. Now that’s what I call one hell of a Sunday.
The fun even kept up during the primetime games, as the PIT-Indy game was much better than I thought, and the Dallas-Washington game was exciting even if a little bit ugly.
In Week 4, there are a number of interesting matchups that have my interest piqued, plus an exciting surprise for those of you who will be watching the Redskins-Rams game.
In Week 3 I am always interested to see how the 0-2 teams perform.
When a team is 0-2, Week 3 represents their last chance to salvage something from the beginning of their season and avoid a nearly insurmountable hole. I have no stats to back this up, but I would assume that 0-2 teams typically play some of their best, most focused, most desperate football in their quest to get that first win and make something of their season.
This is why I picked a lot of home 0-2 underdogs in my Week 3 picks. Of course, a team being 0-2 could also mean that they suck and are injury-ravaged (*cough* Kansas City *cough*) so even Week 3 desperation might not be enough.
Do you realize that an entire week of NFL football went by without Brett Favre or Peyton Manning taking a snap? Kind of incredible when you stop and think about it. I think I was in junior high the last time that happened, maybe younger.
But we all survived, and now we head into Week 2 with a few teams feeling quite good about themselves (Buffalo, Chicago, San Francisco, for example) and several others already starting to get a slight feeling of desperation (Kansas City, Tampa Bay, and Denver, to name a few).
This Viewer’s Guide for Week 2 of the NFL season breaks down the TV schedule (date, network, kickoff times) and announcer assignments for each game on the NFL Week 2 schedule.
