Milton blog

The Bills get some national exposure this week on Monday Night Football coming off an unexpected victory over the Jets

Carolina at New Orleans (-3)
Here is the only thing the Saints have going for them this weekend – Panther starting QB Jake Delhomme will likely miss his second straight start with a bad elbow. Here’s just a few of the reasons why the Saints will NOT cover the spread – Carolina beat them both times last year (2 of the only 6 loses the Saints suffered last year), Panthers’ back-up QB (David Carr) has plenty of NFL experience and now is starting with a much better supporting cast than his previous team, the Saints are winless this year – with their defence being a non-factor having been beaten by a minimum of 17 points each game, the Saints have not scored over 14 points in a game thus far and they are not getting stellar performances from QB Brees nor from RB Bush. If you require another 5 or 10 reasons just let me know…
Panthers

Jacksonville (-2.5) at Kansas City
After a horrible start to the season with two losses, you’ve got to like the home team in this one, as they’re coming off of two big wins over a decent Vikings team (with a tough top-ranked rush defence) and then on the road over San Diego last week. After 4 weeks, the Chiefs have the 3rd best total defence, allowing 285 yards per game. These two teams played a high-scoring game in week 16 last season, with the Chiefs prevailing 35-30. The Chiefs look poised to win this game at home, but it will not be a cake walk.
Chiefs

Detroit at Washington (-3.5)
The Lions enter week five with the 4th best offense (387 yards per game) and the top ranked passing offense. The Redskins’ two wins this season were against a bad Miami team and a then-slumping Eagles squad – they simply do not stack up against a much improved 2007 Lions team.
Detroit

Atlanta at Tennessee (-8.5)
In their last ten regular season games, the Titans are 8 and 2, with their only losses being against elite teams New England (week 16 last season) and Indianapolis (lost by 2 points in week 2 this season). With the second-best rushing offense so far thus year, and the second-best rush defense as well, look for the Titans to feed it to the lowly Falcons on both sides of the ball.
Titans

Miami at Houston (-5.5)
You’ve got to like how the winless Miami D stacks-up against the Texan offense in this game – with Houston looking relatively ineffective with their running game thus far, while their passing game will go up against the 2nd best pass defense in the league. Houston beat Miami by just 2 points at home last season. Miami may not win (why start now?), but they will beat the spread.
Dolphins

Seattle at Pittsburgh (-6)
After starting the season 3-1 against four teams that each had losing records last season the Steelers will get face their first worthy opponent of the season, which will result in a MUCH closer game than their 3 blow-out wins this year. Seattle has had almost as easy of a schedule thus far as well, so this game will truly be a first look at how each of these teams can compete against good teams this season.
Seahawks

Cleveland at New England (-14.5)
Time for the Browns to get a heaping dose of reality in week 5 – facing an incredible 4-0 Patriots team that has won all four of their games by a minimum of 21 points (scoring a minimum of 34 points per game while allowing no more than 14 points per game to be scored against them). Cleveland is simply no match for the #1 ranked defense and #2 ranked offense of the league so far this year.
Patriots

Arizona (-3.5) at St. Louis
You are an NFL coach – after 4 weeks with 4 straight loses, where your starting QB has thrown a total of only one touchdown pass and is playing with two broken ribs. Don’t you think it’s time for a change? Welcome to what has to be a frustrating situation for not only Rams fans, but for their more-than-qualified back-up QB Gus Ferotte, who’s just gotta be shouting “put me in coach, I’m ready.” However, there is no sign this is in the works. Meanwhile they’ll meet another tough opponent this week – a Cards team that just upset the Steelers 21-14 last week, so winning by 4 points over the lowly Rams should be no problem.
Cardinals

N.Y. Jets at N.Y. Giants (-3)
The one-sided battle of New York! Consider these interesting facts: the Giants lost their first two games of the season against two teams that are now a perfect 8-0 combined (Dallas & Green Bay). Since then, they’ve come back with two straight wins against other worthy opponents (Washington and Philadelphia). Meanwhile the Jets are 1-3, with their only win against the 0-4 Dolphins. The Jets QB’s are fighting for the back-up job for this game, facing the red-hot Giants D that racked up an amazing TWELVE SACKS against the Eagles last week.
G-men

Tampa Bay at Indianapolis (-10)
Sure the Colts are 4 and 0 – but the Bucs are 3-1 AND the Bucs bring the 5th best defense with them (291 yards allowed per game this season). This game not only matches the third-best offense against the great Bucs’ D, it also matches the Bucs against their former coach, Tony Dungy – so this will be a hard-fought battle down to the end, with both coaches wanting to put their mark on this game. The Bucs will be challenged with 3 of their starting offensive players out for the season: FB Alstott was lost in the pre-season, while RB Cadillac Williams and LB Petitgout were both knocked-out last week, but their D will keep them in this one.
Buccaneers

San Diego at Denver (-1)
The Broncos last two games – both losses – is more indicative of their overall abilities, while the world is still waiting for the real Charger team to show-up. With Denver having the best pass defense so far this season the Chargers’ fate will lie with RB Ladanian Tomlinson, who is more than due to carry San Diego on his back for a few wins starting this weekend, especially when you consider San Diego beat Denver both times last year – 35 to 27 and 48 to 20. Charger Coach Norv Turner needs this win if he wants to keep his job much longer. Denver RB Travis Henry is out for this game, but replacement Mike Bell is no slouch.
Chargers

Baltimore (-3.5) at San Francisco
Things are not favourable for the 49ers in this match – their QB Alex Smith is out 3 to 4 weeks with a bad shoulder (not that he’s been playing that well anyway), leaving Trent Dilfer at the helm (0TD/2INT/6 sacks last week) to lead the team and star RB Gore will face his biggest challenge of the season against the 4th-ranked Raven run D.
Ravens

Chicago at Green Bay (-3)
These two teams had lopsided wins against each other last season (Bears won 26-0 in week 1 at Green Bay, while Packers won 26-7 in Chicago in their final game of the season). The difference this year is the Packers look fantastic at 4-0 while the Bears are floundering at 1-3, with their back-up QB Griese slated to make his second straight start after throwing 3 INT’s and being sacked 6 times last week in a loss to Detroit. You’ve gotta take Favre at home against a messed-up Chicago.
Packers

Dallas (-10) at Buffalo
The wings ain’t the only thing giving Buffalo residents heartburn! Coming off their high of a win over the Jets last week, the Bills will be b*tch-slapped back into reality with the nation watching in the Monday-nighter by Dallas. This game will be over before the half – with the 4-0 Cowboys’ top-ranked offense (440 yards per game) having lead their team to win all of their games by 10 points or more this season.
Cowboys

Survivor
(Pick one team to win outright each week, trying to put together the longest streak of consecutive winning picks while not able to pick any given team more than once during the season.)

Tip #1 on winning a Survivor pool – you can’t pick the top/elite teams every week if you want to make it all the way, you’ve got to leave some aces up your sleeve for later in the season (so I’m holding on to Indianapolis, New England and Green Bay until later, waiting to cash in on other teams like San Diego once they get out of their funk). For this week I’ll take the up-and-coming Tennessee Titans over Atlanta – they’re at home, they’re 8-2 over their last 10 regular season games, and oh ya, I forgot to mention: Atlanta sucks!

Here’s a summary of my correct picks in the first four weeks:

Week 1 - Denver over Buffalo
Week 2 – Pittsburgh over Buffalo
Week 3 – Carolina over Atlanta
Week 4 – Dallas over St.Louis

Now Milton, what do you think?

The Milton Pigskin Prognosticator is a weekly contributor to MiltonSearch.com. His NFL picks can be read on Fridays every week from now until Super Bowl Sunday. Submit your predictions vs. the spread and see how well you stack up!

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 4th, 2007 at 9:05 pm and is filed under Guy Stuff, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.