Bengals won't be facing a Battle of Ohio this week              And Sanchez will bounce back vs the Fish   Photo by Jim McIsaac- Getty Images                                    Photo by  Chris Graythen - Getty  Images

Okay, I’m trying to look at the bright side.  Sure, the Mets have had nothing all season.  It’s raining.  It’s soggy.  No, not saggy, that would be Posada’s face.  Talk about pouting, come on, Jorge, suck it up.  And Holliday makes a 2-out friggin’ drop to just kill the Cardinals.  Made his homer look really inconsequential.

 

In football, I went 6 and 8 against the spread, just awful.  I’m embarrassed.  And Francesa’s broadcasting from Yankee Stadium.  How depressing is that?  Mike really lines up a great Friday show though, and he’s got college and NFL football, Troy Aikman, who isn’t a total fool, and various assorted (and sordid) guests of questionable renown….better than Manny from Brooklyn?

 

I tried an outline for this piece, first line was “Posada is a ____.  I can’t even tell you how bad that is.  I mean, let’s look at Posada’s good points.  There are many.  For example, Jorge can hit.  Um, let’s see, what else, what else….hmm..he’s a leader in the clubhouse, how friggin vague is that?

 

Surely there’s more, um, can he throw people out?  Well, 30% of the time, that’s not horrible, I guess.  Is he good with pitchers?  Hmmm. I hated him with Chamberlain and he doesn’t match Burnett that well….at all.  He’s ok with CC and Pettite, so the theory goes…Molina doesn’t throw out a ton of runners either but he’s probably not obnoxious would be my guess.  Heh-heh. 

 

Did I mention Posada can hit?  Oh yeah, that.  I’d play Molina every day of the week.  But that’s me, hitting isn’t everything, or haven’t I made that clear yet?

 

I was extremely ready for the Cards to hold on in Game 2.  Wainwright was awesome for eight, and Holliday’s solo homer helped build a 2-1 lead.  Then I worried that Franklin wouldn’t hold them, them being the Dodgers.  It didn’t look as if he would hold them but then he got a liner to left.  I said, “whew” when I saw Holliday would get there.  Then there was his muff…..oh man.

 

It was one of those balls that hit you in the middle of things, glove up, glove down… and he was coming in hard and …… well, he missed it.  And then you knew things were seriously downhill already.  So the Dodgers are in real good shape, not an outcome I was personally looking forward to.

 

Then there was Week 4 that fooled me in a lot of spots.  Who would’ve believed the Chargers had such a bunch of pushovers on defense?  Not me.  And I thought the Giants would have a down week for sure.  But the Chiefs made mistakes early.  It wasn’t a game after that.  And I’m afraid I may have under-rated those Browns.  If those three went as expected, my overall picks record would’ve looked ok.  Anyway, here’s my week 5 picks.  (I feel a 10-4 coming on).

 

Week 5 Picks

 

 

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	4 Best	My Pick	Reason
Min	STL	10	*	Min	Favre will pad lead to run up his stats
Dal	KC	8 ½		Dal	After loss to Den, Dallas will run up score
CAR	Was	3 ½		CAR	Campbell is awful
PHI	TamBay	15		PHI	Tampa can’t stop pass, #5 is back
NYG	Oak	15		Oak	Giants don’t run up score, Oak pass defense good
BUF	Cle	6		Cle	Buffalo can’t stop run
BAL	Cin	8 ½	*	Cin	Cinci Defense will surprise
Pit	DET	10 ½		Pit	Lost momentum w/o Stafford
SF	Atl	2 ½		SF	Niners may win it all
NewEng	DEN	3		NewEng	Pats make a point –master beats apprentice
ARZ	Hou	5 ½	*	ARZ	Cards had plenty of prep time after bye week
Jac	SEA	NL		Jac	Seattle’s a mess, Jags aren’t
Ind	TEN	4		Ind	Hard to tell when Titans will stop anybody
Jets	MIA	2	*	Jets	Jets will stop Miami run, Sanchez bounceback

 

My best bets (which I didn’t bother with last week, thank Jupiter) are the Vikings, Bengals, Cards and Jets.  I’m going to pretend my best bets are one of those betting slips and I’ve got to pick all four to win.

 

“So what”? you ask.  Let’s look closer at these contests.

 

Okay, the Vikings.  They just rolled over the Packers.  It was very sad indeed, especially if you happen to hate Favre.  Green Bay did stop the run pretty well and Peterson didn’t do much.  But maybe that wasn’t the way to go with defense as things turned out.  And the Rams just were annihilated vs. the Niners last week.  The Niners didn’t really even have much of an offense.  The Vikings apparently do.  It would take an enormous Viking flop for them not to just win but cover at just ten points.

 

I’ve liked Cincinnati all year.  Cleveland was playing way above their heads last week, I was really impressed.  But the Bengals didn’t fold.  They hung on.  How much better will Flacco and the Colts be than were Derek Anderson and the Browns in the Battle of Ohio?  C’mon man, it was the Battle of friggin’ Ohio.

 

Kurt Warner with a week off along with his Arizona team should wipe up the Texans.  They had a week to work on their running game and get receivers well. They did go to the Super Bowl last year.  The Texans had horrible defensive performances for three weeks before holding the Raiders down last week.  That’s Al Davis’s Raiders, folks.  The Cards will romp.

 

Aah, and then there’s the Jets at Miami and a spread of two.  I think the Jets are better than that.  I think they can stop the run, they won’t be fooled by a wildcat, and they’re coming off a week of stopping New Orleans, one of the best offensive teams in the league.  (I would have said THE best two weeks ago).  Then there’s a relatively new quarterback in Miami.  Another Chad named Henne.  He didn’t do badly last week but it’s a new week, isn’t it.?

 

 

 

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