I'm thoroughly tired of football; both my fantasy teams are skidding with Tony Romo out (I'm a combined 2-4 in my two leagues since Romo went out, after starting the season a combined 11-1), and rooting for the Browns is like being repeatedly kicked in the nuts by a karate master.
Even so, I feel an odd obligation to continue churning out 4-way parlay picks. So here goes, a last-minute entry for week 10:
ATLANTA -1 over New Orleans
New Orleans is one of the teams that moves sports commentators to engage in what Matt Yglesias once called (in the context of individual NBA players) as "The Consistency Fallacy." They look really good one week, then quite bad the next week. We often see this described as "the Saints need to find consistency from week to week." But really, all teams exhibit this sort of variance around their mean output. Absent some clear evidence that the Saints are exhibiting an UNUSUAL level of variance in their level of play from week to week, we're safe in concluding that a team like this is... an average team.
Meanwhile the Falcons are pretty good; their running game is awesome and their defense is good enough. Falcons grind out a clear but close win here.
EAGLES -3 over Giants
This is a weird-looking pick, because the Giants look consistently great while the Eagles are sort of hit-or-miss. But at home, badly needing a win, I think the Eagles will have a fairly easy time creating running lanes against a speedy but not especially powerful Giants front 7.
PITTSBURGH -3.5 over Colts
No idea why this line is so low. The Colts have looked TERRIBLE against good teams, with the exception of last week against New England where they just looked half-bad in a win. Hate to pick Pitt but this looks like easy money.
Green Bay -2.5 over MINNY
Old-school conventional wisdom says that a game like this is a clear-cut Minnesota win. A team that runs the ball very well and stops the run very well against a team that wants to pass and can't stop the run. But I have a feeling this is one of those games that goes the other way, on turf, midseason, lots of points and the game turns on a big mistake by a Minnesota QB in the fourth quarter.
Plus I can't bring myself to parlay FOUR home faves against each other. Seems like death.
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2 comments:
Falcons -1 vs Saints. If I remember correctly what I heard on the radio earlier this week, the Saints give up an avg of 31 points on the road in '08, while the Falcons score 31 at home in '08. Also Atlanta is 3-0 at home and the saints are 0-3 on the road
Chiefs +14.5 @ Chargers. Seems like the chargers have been underachieving Norv Turner style all year, while the chiefs have been overachieving of late. Chiefs cover.
Titans -3 @ Bears. *cough* rex grossman *cough*
Miami -7.5 vs Seahawks. Miami's playing well, and they're at home against seattle who sucks monkey balls
Little snafu in my picks - Green Bay was actually getting points, so I'm alive going into the 4:00 games.
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