College Football Snoozefest, an Important Weekend for all the 0-1 NFL Teams, plus Game Picks

Another weekend of football is upon us. I’ll offer all my NFL, as well as some college picks somewhere throughout my writing, but I have some additional thoughts beyond game predictions going into this weekend.

 

College Football

 

The Lack of Compelling Games this Weekend is Astonishing

 

This weekend only features 1 game between ranked opponents, 6^th ranked Georgia at 24^th ranked South Carolina. There is always one week of the season, normally about this time in the year, right before a lot of teams have started conference play, where you get a lot of games like Wyoming at #2 Oregon, Southern Miss at #3 Alabama, Rice at #7 Texas A&M, and #10 LSU playing Arkansas College of the Deaf, Blind, and Leprosy. I love football, but I’d rather watch Honey Boo Boo for 7 straight hours than sit through game after game after game where the higher ranked team beats down the overmatched little guy time and time again. I understand why the big boys do it, and why the little guys allow themselves to get beat down, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Only 4 games this weekend have really gotten my attention; the aforementioned Georgia-South Carolina game, #9 USC traveling across the country to play at Boston College, #12 UCLA at Texas, and, of course, Tennessee at #4 Oklahoma. I wrote at length about Tennessee on Wednesday; you can find that right here. As for the other three games:

 

Georgia over South Carolina

USC over Boston College

UCLA over Texas

 

I think Georgia is one of the best teams in the country, and Todd Gurley might be the best running back in college football. I hated how poorly South Carolina played two weeks on the opening Thursday of the season, and while I expect a better effort from them on Saturday, I still think they’ve got too many problems to hang with the Dawgs, mainly their defense, which might actually be completely and totally abysmal. Also, let’s not forget that South Carolina didn’t exactly turn heads with their 33-23 win over East Carolina last weekend, when they trailed in the second quarter by 6, and only had a 4 point lead at halftime. Granted, Georgia has struggled more with games at South Carolina than Floyd Mayweather would struggle to read one page of a Harry Potter book, as they’ve been outscored 52-13 in their last two meetings in Columbia. I think Georgia’s struggles there are really the only thing the Gamecocks can hang their hats on going into this game, but ultimately, these teams are completely different with different players. The home field advantage won’t factor in. I like Georgia, and big, by at least two touchdowns.

 

I’m interested in USC at Boston College for the simple fact that the Trojans are flying all the way across the country to play this game. I normally don’t trust college teams that have flown across 3 time zones to play a game, just because it’s 18-22 year olds, who are unpredictable, and the track record of teams doing so is not that great. I like USC to win, and pull away late, just because they have so much more talent, but when was the last time that an equally matched road team flew across 3 time zones and won a regular season game? Maybe UCLA over Tennessee in 2009? If that’s the case, it just goes to show you how improbable that is. So the rule, as always; if the two teams are about equally matched, but one of them is flying all the way across the country to play the game, pick the home team.

 

Lastly, UCLA at Texas. Honestly, I’m not sure which one started off worse, the Charlie Strong era at Texas or William Henry Harrison’s presidency. Keep in mind, Harrison died after just 32 days in office, but when you get thrashed 41-7 at home by BYU, it starts to make people wonder. Fortunately, the Longhorns get to host UCLA, who many pundits thought were a national title contender before the season started. They might be the least impressive 2-0 team in the country, as they barely escaped with an eight point win at Virginia, thanks to three defensive touchdowns. Last weekend, they allowed Memphis to hang around the entire game, and the Tigers actually had the ball late, trailing by only 7 when the UCLA defense held up and stopped them. Despite the Bruins’ struggles, I still don’t see a scenario where Texas wins. They are awful at both quarterback and on defense, and I just have a feeling that the UCLA is due for a big, overpowering victory at some point, assuming they actually are as good as the experts thought they would be. Brett Hundley has struggled to start the year, but I think he’ll figure it out at some point, because he’s just so talented. And their defense has played decently well to start the year, and that may be all they need against Texas this week. This will be the game that the Bruins put it all together, and I think it gets ugly quickly for the Longhorns.

 

The NFL

 

Cordarrelle Patterson is a BEAST
 

I remember Patterson’s first game at Tennessee, a victory over NC State. I didn’t really know much about the guy, other than he was a junior college standout and that he was a pretty good athlete. It didn’t take much for him to impress me, as in the first quarter, he blew by Wolfpack corner David Amerson for a 41 yard touchdown, and then followed it up by exploding for a 67 yard touchdown run. Then and there, I thought he was going to be a monster in the NFL. And he’s quickly becoming that. It seems like he’s always good for at least one huge play a game, like last week, when he ran by and juked what seemed like the entire Rams’ defense for a 67 yard touchdown. I’m not even sure he’s even close to reaching his potential as a player yet either. Last year, he only had 48 catches for 469 yards and 4 touchdowns, with 2 kickoff return TDs (including one that was 109 yards), as well as 3 rushing touchdowns. I think 80 catches, 1200 yards receiving, and 16 total TDs are in play for them this season, particularly with how athletic he is, coupled with the fact that his role in the offense will continue to increase.

 

Honestly, I kind of like this Minnesota team a little bit. Say what you will about Matt Cassel, but he’s a semi-competent starter at least, particularly due to the fact that every team in the league puts 8 guys in the box to stop Adrian Peterson. There defense was 31^st overall last year, but they looked pretty good last week, holding St. Louis to just 6 points. I think hiring Mike Zimmer as their head coach, a guy with a defensive background, will really help them out on that side of the ball, as well as their free agent acquisitions of CB Captain Munnerlyn and defensive tackle Linval Joseph, coupled with their drafting of LB Anthony Barr. I think they’ve definitely got the potential to grind out a few wins with some solid defense, the continued punishing running of Adrian Peterson, and a big play here and there from Patterson, which could somehow, miraculously, enable them to go 10-6. Then again, it could go the other way. All of this is banking on the fact that Matt Cassel doesn’t turn back into the Matt Cassel we all know and love, which means he plays the quarterback position about as well as Lil Wayne makes music. If that happens, they’ll push Teddy Bridgewater out there and probably finish 5-11 or 4-12. It could go either way.

 

Their game this weekend against New England is really interesting, because I’m not exactly sure that the Patriots are all that good. I don’t want to overreact to anything that happens in week 1, but the Pats certainly didn’t look like the Patriots of the last decade against Miami. There defense was horrible, Darrelle Revis looked like his best years were behind him, and their offense wasn’t exactly lighting it up either. I mean, they got outscored 23-0 in the second half! Brady and Gronkowski are great, but they still don’t have any game breakers on the outside. They never have any big plays offensively. Everything is either a short pass or run. That’s literally how it goes for them every single time. It’s nice to have a 60 or 80 yard touchdown every once in while, because it gets all your teammates excited, and it takes away the pressure on your offense to consistently put together 10 and 12 play drives on each possession. Denver’s got 3 or 4 guys who can catch a pass and turn it into a long touchdown, or burn a corner for a long score. New England doesn’t have anyone like that. They have no deep threats. Still, I like them to win at Minnesota on Sunday, just because I can’t see a team coached by Bill Belichick and quarterbacked by Brady starting out 0-2. But they aren’t a Super Bowl contender.

 

Bolts are the Most Likely Playoff Contender to Start out 0-2

 

I wrote at length about how much I love the Seahawks this year on Monday, so I won’t touch on them here too much. I loved the Chargers going into the season, and actually (gulp) picked them to play in the Super Bowl. I just liked their team, and I felt like the AFC was wide open this year. The Pats have no weapons, the Bengals are quarterbacked by Andy Dalton, Miami isn’t ready yet, Indy isn’t great at doing anything, and there was just something about Denver giving me pause, though they have the best roster in the AFC. So I threw my hands up and settled on San Diego. I’m a huge Phil Rivers fan, they’ve got some nice skill position guys, and their defense got a little bit better this offseason. I was shocked how poorly they played on Monday night against Arizona though. They just couldn’t get anything going offensively the whole night (except two TDs in the third quarter), and they got outscored 12-0 in the 4^th quarter to lose 18-17. They also suffered a crippling blow by losing starting center Nick Hardwick for the entire season.

 

 

Since the playoffs expanded to 12 in 1990, teams that start the season 0-2 make the playoffs just 12 percent of the time. Unfortunately, I think that’s going to happen to San Diego. Seattle played on Thursday night, so they get 10 days off to prepare for the game, while the Chargers are coming off that Monday night loss, giving them much less time to prepare. Seattle isn’t quite as good away from home (no crazy 12^th man), and Russell Wilson is just 9-7 and the road in his career, but I still feel like they go in there and win, simply because they're the best team in the league. I can't see myself picking against them all year. But don’t count out San Diego just quite yet. They always seem like that team that starts out slow, leading to everybody counting them out for the whole season, except they start to playing really good football all of the sudden, which leads to them making the playoffs. Then again, I’ll probably still be defending them even if they start the season out 0-4. I’ve been known to belligerently stick to my preseason predictions. I was probably the only guy in the entire country who, at the end of the NBA season, was saying, “No guys, the Pacers are fine! I know they haven’t played well since January, but they’re fine! They’ll still beat Miami! They’re such a tough matchup for them!” And we all know how that turned out.

 

The Bears Defense is Terrible, and the 49ers Offense is Not

 

Chicago made a lot of acquisitions on the defensive side of the ball to try and shore up what was one of the worst defenses in the league last year. At least in week 1, it didn’t work. They gave up 198 rushing yards to the Bills, and lost in overtime. Now, they have to travel to San Francisco, and play against a 49ers team that is opening up it’s brand new stadium. The Bears are an elite offensive team, and I love their head coach Mark Trestman, but none of that is going to matter if they couldn’t stop a high school powder puff team from scoring. I feel like San Francisco is just going to pound the football down their throat on the ground, and bully them at the line of scrimmage the entire game. The Niners are missing two of their best defenders (Aldon Smith and Navarro Bowman), so I expect Chicago to be able to score, but San Fran will control the time of possession. Plus, I actually really like San Francisco on the offensive side of the ball. I heard a lot of talk going into the season about how they were “limited” offensively, but they’ve got 3 really good to great receivers (Michael Crabtree, Anquan Boldin, Stevie Johnson), one of the leagues’ most athletic tight ends in Vernon Davis, a solid and physical runner in Frank Gore, and Colin Kaepernick, one of the most electric players in the league. I realize the Cowboys’ defense gives about as much resistance as a paper bag would give to a sledgehammer, but the 49ers went up and down the field on them. I think they’ll be fine offensively. I like the Niners this week.

 

Week 2 NFL Picks

 

Steelers over Ravens (yes, I realize I already whiffed on this one)

Dolphins over Bills

Redskins over Jags

Titans over Cowboys

Cardinals over Giants

Pats over Vikings

Saints over Browns

Bengals over Falcons

Lions over Panthers

Bucs over Rams

Texans over Raiders

Seahawks over Chargers

Packers over Jets

Broncos over Chiefs

49ers over Bears

Colts over Eagles

 

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