NFL Week 2 Primer (With Picks): Overreaction Weekend!

The Steelers and Bengals are, uh, not fond of each other.

 By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Week 1 is in the books, and now we roll onto Week 2, where everyone over-reacts from Week 1 and teams you thought were Super Bowl Contenders end up kind of sucking and teams you thought were dead in the water end up going 12-4.

Week 1 brought a lot of surprises. The team that went 15-1 last year lost on opening night, Carson Wentz turned out to be kind of okay, Minnesota turned out to be just fine without Teddy Bridgewater, the Jets borderline out-played Cincinnati (and won fairly convincingly Thursday night), and two Florida teams (Jacksonville and Miami) held their own against two of the elite teams in the NFC (Green Bay and Seattle). And, perhaps the coup de grace, New England went into Arizona and beat the Cardinals sans Tom Brady.

Week 2 usually also brings a lot of surprises, but they're usually compared to what (we thought) we learned in Week 1. With that in mind, let's get on to the lines.

Game(s) of The Week

Cincinnati at Pittsburgh (1:00 p.m. Sunday, CBS)

Our first re-match of a playoff game from last season, and perhaps the most memorable. Obviously, the teams look different than they did last January, but the broad strokes are still in place, and it's still a divisional rivalry. This is easily the best game of the early slate.

Your AFC Wild Card Primer

Since Eric Fisher (pictured) moved from right to left tackle, and left guard Jeff Allen returned from injury, the Chiefs have led the league in every relevant rushing category and gone 10-0. How is nobody talking about this, and how are no Chiefs linemen in the Pro Bowl?

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

The Regular Season Is Dead. Long Live The Regular Season.

For the third year in a row, Joe took home the regular season crown, besting Jeremy by a single game (132-116-8 to 131-117-8), but both records mark our best single-season record to date. You can check out our complete three-year totals here, if you're so inclined.

Now begins the 11-game sprint of the postseason, marked not by exploiting ongoing inefficiencies (like Minnesota's ludicrous 13-3 record against the spread or Cincinnati's undefeated ATS record in road games), but by diving head-first down the rabbit hole of the details and the matchups.

Backdoor covers usually don't save you in the playoffs. When underdogs cover, they usually win outright.

With just four games spread across two days, as opposed to the regular 16, with 14 of them occurring on the same day, we are afforded greater space to go into greater detail. We'll start here, with the AFC, as both of their games kick off Saturday.

NFL Week 16 Primer (With Picks): Just the Picks, Yo

Tom Brady and the Patriots can lock up home field advantage this weekend against the rival Jets, but New York will be hungry for a win to keep pace in the AFC Wild Card race.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

We just finished up Christmas and we've got New Year's coming up quickly, so I'm not going to bore you with much other than our picks.

Sure, the AFC is still a jumbled mess, and it's possible than an 11-5 Broncos or Jets team misses the postseason, but things should shake out nicely once the weekend is finished.

Let's not waste any more time, here are our games of the week and picks.

Game(s) of the Week

New England at New York Jets (1:00 p.m. Sunday, CBS)

The Patriots will be looking to lock up home field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs, while the Jets are just hoping to keep pace in the crowded AFC Wild Card race. These games are, seemingly, always close (assuming there are no butt fumbles), and both teams have something to play for. Should be fun.

NFL Week 14 Primer (With Picks): Playoff Shakeup

The Jets are known for their running game, but Brandon Marshall has given them a lethal downfield threat this year, racking up over 1,000 yards and 10 touchdowns through the air all ready. The Jets will need another win Sunday to keep pace in the AFC playoff race.

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Last week, eight road favorites won outright. There was only one home favorite that lost, and it shook up a good portion of the AFC Playoff picture.

Of the six teams that entered Week 13 with a playoff spot, five of them now occupy a different seed (or no seed at all). The only team that saw no movement is the 5th-seeded Kansas City Chiefs (who, given their remaining schedule, seem locked into that seed). The Patriots lost, dropping them from No. 1 to No. 3. Denver and Cincinnati each got a bump, putting them into the Round 1 bye slots. Houston lost, and fell out of the picture, overtaken by Indianapolis and the Jets. Pittsburgh and Buffalo kept pace, and remain still in the hunt.

The Patriots loss also shook up the NFC East - Philadelphia moved into a three-way tie atop the division thanks to losses by both Washington and the Giants. Washington holds the tiebreaker, but Philadelphia is the only team that plays at home this week. A win would move them into first with a Washington loss.

NFL Week 8 Primer (With Picks): A Premature End to Division Races?

Will the return of Ben Roethlisberger make Pittsburgh a legitimate player in the AFC North, or will Cincinnati all but lock up the division with a win Sunday?

 By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

We're only in Week 8, and a bunch of divisional races may already be over. As crazy as it sounds, the Bengals can grab a stranglehold on the AFC North with a win in Pittsburgh this week, stretching their lead to three games over the Steelers with a victory.

But this isn't unique to one division. We pretty much pencil in New England as the AFC East champ every year, and this season the Patriots have etched it in stone before midseason. Their win over the Dolphins gave them a a two-game lead and the tie-breaker over Buffalo, while the Broncos can all but wrap up the AFC West with a win and Raiders loss this week.

Let's not even talk about the AFC South, which is competitive, but features some of the worst teams in football. When 1-5 Tennessee is only two games out of first place, you've got some problems.

In the NFC things are a bit more competitive, with an NFC South race between Carolina and Atlanta that could bring some high drama, and an NFC West led by Arizona, but with Seattle and St. Louis coming on strong. The NFC North is Green Bay's once again, and the NFC East is as unpredictable, and horrible, as it has been in a while.

With all that in mind, let's take a look at the games that already have playoff implications.

2015 NFL Power Poll No. 1

That's the look of a man who knows his team isn't No. 1 in the Power Rankings

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

With just about a third of the season under our belt, we decided the time was ripe to do things the old fashioned way and just rank all 32 teams in the league (we will likely do this again in another five weeks, give or take, so stay tuned). However, being the long-winded and argumentative individuals that we are, we just couldn't decide on the order we wanted to use. So we settled it like men. We each made our own list and published them side-by-side. Jeremy's list is on the left, Joe's is on the right, and you can see that because they are labeled.

Keep in mind that we didn't devise any new metric for measuring success in the NFL. There is obviously some quantitative analysis (at the very least, we both looked at win-loss records, plus some other stuff), but for the most part, it's a purely qualitative set of rankings. We have arranged the league in tiers (some larger than others), and provided reasonings for a team's placement when necessary. Dig in:

Inside the Film Room: Breaking Down Key Plays from NFL Week 5

Dion Lewis has given the Pats an unexpected boost this year, but how did he get free Sunday against Dallas?

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

This will serve as the first edition of what I hope will be a weekly series breaking down some of the biggest plays across pro football, using the coach's tape, or as it is now more popularly known, the "All-22" film.

Each week we'll take a look at not only game-changing plays, but also plays that utilized interesting schemes or simply showcased dominating talent. I won't bore you any more, here are the breakdowns from Week 5.

NFL Week 5 Primer (With Picks): Trends Emerge

Kam Chancellor's return has put the "boom" back in Seattle's secondary, but how will they deal with a red-hot Cincinnati offense?

 By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

We've seen four weeks of football, which means we have five data points - the four games we've seen from (most) teams, plus our preseason expectations. Week Four presented a lot of compelling evidence. The three unbeaten teams we were still on the fence about - Carolina, Atlanta, and Cincinnati - all put a big whoopin' on their opponents. All three teams sport average scoring margins of +9 or better, which, through a quarter of the season, seems like we can say is not a coincidence.

At the very least, we can separate the league into "have"s and "have-not"s, with very few exceptions (for example, I still have no flippin' idea what to make of Minnesota and St. Louis). We know which teams are good and which teams are bad, the only questions that remain are with regards to degrees.

NFL Week 3 Primer (With Picks): A Crummy Slate With Some Big Lines

Pete Carroll and the Seahawks are 0-2, but still give over two touchdowns this week to the injury-depleted (and horrible) Bears.

 By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Look, we all know that Jeremy wasn't going to go 13-2-1 every week. Nobody is going to nail 84.3 percent of their picks for a full season. If anyone ever does that, they're a wizard. Ask them who really killed Kennedy.

But Week 2 was a little bit of a regression. Really, not so much of a regression to the mean, but a regression far past the mean and a collision into suckitude. All the teams that came through for him in Week 1 (St. Louis, Miami, San Francisco, Tennessee) flopped, and the teams he made hay betting against (Minnesota, Oakland, Washington) all of a sudden won games outright as underdogs.

Joe wasn't as good Week 1, but still above board (9-6-1), but fell even harder in Week 2. His strategy of intentionally finding games to disagree with Jeremy on backfired, and he went 1-2 in disagreements, expanding Jeremy's lead even further. 

Through two weeks, we haven't really learned much other than the NFC East and AFC South are both hot garbage, the NFC West might not be as good as we think it is, and the AFC East might be the best division in football (so far).

The Patriots look like the clear favorite in the AFC, while the Packers and Cardinals appear to be the class of the NFC for now. Our best guess is that the Patriots will pace the AFC just about all season and a repeat appearance in the Super Bowl will depend on postseason health and matchups, while the NFC will be topsy-turvy for the next month or two before a favorite emerges around Thanksgiving. Who that is, we have no idea. Let's just get to the picks.

Joe & Daphne's Preview: The AFC North

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe) and Daphne Parello (@DaphnePup) - See more at: http://www.suitesports.com/2015/08/joe-daphnes-preview-nfc-north.html#sthash.gq5dkPEy.dpuf

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe) and Daphne Parello (@DaphnePup)

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe) and Daphne Parello (@DaphnePup) - See more at: http://www.suitesports.com/2015/08/joe-daphnes-preview-nfc-north.html#sthash.gq5dkPEy.dpuf

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe) and Daphne Parello (@DaphnePup) - See more at: http://www.suitesports.com/2015/08/joe-daphnes-preview-nfc-north.html#sthash.gq5dkPEy.dpuf

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe) and Daphne Parello (@DaphnePup) - See more at: http://www.suitesports.com/2015/08/joe-daphnes-preview-nfc-north.html#sthash.gq5dkPEy.dpuf

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe) and Daphne Parello (@DaphnePup) - See more at: http://www.suitesports.com/2015/08/joe-daphnes-preview-nfc-north.html#sthash.gq5dkPEy.dpuf

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe) and Daphne Parello (@DaphnePup) - See more at: http://www.suitesports.com/2015/08/joe-daphnes-preview-nfc-north.html#sthash.gq5dkPEy.dpuf

My puppy and I have covered every other division in the NFL, and today we preview the most wide-open division in pro football; the AFC North.

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe) and Daphne Parello (@DaphnePup) - See more at: http://www.suitesports.com/2015/08/joe-daphnes-preview-nfc-north.html#sthash.gq5dkPEy.dpuf

The North has three teams with legitimate playoff hopes (Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Cincinnati all made the playoffs in 2014), and another that has just enough talent to be intriguing (Cleveland returns a Top-10 defense and strong offensive line).

Which of these potentially explosive squads will be kings of the North?

Daphne and I investigate.

AFC Wild Card Weekend Preview

The Ravens and Steelers rekindle one of the league's most physical rivalries Saturday night in Pittsburgh.

 By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Jeremy already provided you with an intro and all that good stuff in our NFC Wild Card preview, so let's skip the pleasantries and get right to previewing an AFC Wild Card weekend that includes a Steelers-Ravens rubber match and a shot at redemption for both Cincinnati and Indianapolis. 

Baltimore at Pittsburgh (8:15 p.m. Saturday, NBC)

The Line: Steelers by 3.5

By The Numbers:

Baltimore:
Record: 10-6 (7-8-1 vs. The Spread)
Average Score: 25.6 (8th) - 18.9 (6th)
Average Scoring Margin: +6.7 (6th) - 10.8 "Expected" Wins
DVOA: +9.7% Offense (9th); -4.6% Defense (8th); +8.0% Special Teams (2nd); +22.2% Total (5th)

Pittsburgh:
Record: 11-5 (9-7 vs. The Spread)
Average Score: 27.2 (7th) - 23.0 (18th)
Average Scoring Margin: +4.2 (10th) - 9.6 "Expected" Wins
DVOA: +22.5% Offense (2nd); +11.3% Defense (30th), +0.9% Special Teams (12th); +12.1% Total (8th)

NFL Week 14 Primer (With Picks): Hitting the Home Stretch

A.J. Green is just like you. Except he's hoping to lead the Bengals to a fourth straight playoff appearance.

 By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

We're late with our picks this week.

Joe (I) was tired, Jeremy was sick, and we're entering the final quarter of the NFL season. That means every team has exactly four games left to play. For teams in the AFC North, that means somebody is probably going to implode and somebody is probably going to get hot, while the Saints and Falcons suddenly look like decent playoff teams in the potentially not-historically-awful NFC South.

The Patriots' tough loss at Green Bay means they need to keep winning, while the NFC's top spot and NFC West title are up for grabs with Arizona coming apart at the seams.

As much as we've learned throughout the season's first three quarters, we still have so much to look forward to. Which playoff team is a fraud? Which 7-5 squad will catch fire and contend for the Super Bowl? Who will emerge in a crowded MVP race? When will Tony Romo totally screw this all up (not this week, apparently)?

Catching Up With Bob Lobel: Will the Real Patriots Please Stand Up?

Join legendary sportscaster Bob Lobel and host Joe Parello as they discuss the hot and cold New England Patriots. Are the Pats Super Bowl contenders again after Monday's win over the Bengals, or are they still the vulnerable team that was exploited in Kansas City?


Plus, what should we expect from tomorrow's surprising battle for first place against Buffalo, and is the talk of Tom Brady's frustration with Bill Belichick legitimate?

Bob and Joe break it down in this week's episode.

Last Minute Fantasy Start'ems and Sit'ems: Week 5

I had you start Ben Roethlisberger last week, but the Steelers are playing the Jags today, so let's go two in a row for Big Ben.

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

We're a few weeks into the 2014 season, and we're starting to get a bit more of a feel for which teams present the toughest (and easiest) matchups for your borderline fantasy starter.

Matchups played a huge part in this week's picks, as I opted to avoid Buffalo skill players (who must work with new starting quarterback Kyle Orton) against the stingy Detroit defense, but made all of my "start'em" picks based on favorable matchups.

So, without further ado, here are this week's last minute start'ems and sit'ems.

NFL Week 5 Primer (With Picks): An Extra Dose of Parity?

Jay Cutler's Bears and Aaron Rodgers' Packers are two of the three teams in the NFC North sitting at 2-2. Furthermore, 12 Teams have .500 records league-wide. Basically, we have no idea who's good yet.

 By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Well, that didn't exactly go well.

Last week, we noted how the lines appeared to be shrinking, and posited that lower lines would help favorites cover easier. This did not turn out to be entirely true. The lines were lower, yes, and favorites did win the week 7-5-1, but two of those wins and the push came from lines that were at least five points. The small lines favored the underdogs, as all five dogs that won against the spread ended up winning outright (New York Giants, Tampa Bay, Minnesota, Dallas, and Kansas City). Both of us picked all five of those teams to lose against the spread.

This week is back to big lines. Nine of the fifteen games this weekend have spreads of a touchdown or higher, including one road favorite giving 7.5 points (Seattle on Monday night against Washington).

The lesson we've learned so far this year is parity. The only undefeated teams through four weeks don't even have four wins - it's the 3-0 Bengals and the 3-0 Cardinals - thanks to a bye week. 12 of the 32 teams are exactly 2-2 (four more are either 2-1 or 1-2 following byes this past week), and only Jacksonville and Oakland have yet to win a game. If anybody can beat anybody, that seems to reinforce the idea of "when in doubt, take the points" which we both stupidly went away from last week and paid the price (see the bottom of the post for last week's records).

Underdog Update:
Last Week: 5-7-1
Season: 33-27-1
Home Dogs Last Week: 3-1
Home Dogs; Season: 8-7

Game(s) of The Week:

Houston @ Dallas (1 p.m. Sunday, CBS)

The matchup of surprise 3-1 teams in Texas! Chances are one of these teams secretly sucks and it's our hope that we'll figure out who that is this week so we can start betting against them with more confidence. 

Football Roundup: Good, Bad, and Ugly

Are Andy Dalton and the Bengals the best team in football?

 By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Every week, editors Jeremy Conlin and Joe Parello bring you the good, the bad, and the ugly from the pro and college football weekend that was.

The Good

Cincinnati Bengals

The Bengals look like the best team in football, outscoring opponents by 47 points over their first three games (best in the league) and surrendering just 33 points (also a league-best). Their rushing attack certainly leaves something to be desired (they're averaging just 3.6 yards per carry) but Giovanni Bernard has emerged as one of the best out-of-the-backfield weapons in the league, and the Bengals' screen/swing/checkdown offense is so prolific that it doesn't quite matter that they can't run the ball effectively (yet). They're off next week, and then have a brutal stretch of at New England, home for Carolina, at Indianapolis, and then home for Baltimore. If they can go 3-1 there (very possible), we could be looking at Cincinnati getting to 12 wins and securing a first-round bye.

-JC

NFL Week 2 Primer (With Picks): The Year of the Underdog?

Underdogs like Ryan Tannehill and the Miami Dolphins were inordinately successful in week one. We explain why that trend may continue throughout the season.

 By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

Week 1 is in the books. The lesson is always "don't overreact to Week 1." If you're good at this whole picks thing, just stick to your guns from Week 1. That's what we did last year - after getting creamed in Week 1 (Jeremy was 5-10-1, Joe was 6-9-1), we just rolled it all back and turned it around Week 2 (Jeremy was 9-6-1, Joe was 10-5-1). Vegas overreacted, we didn't. And it worked for us.

Everyone comes into the year with a few preconceived notions, and a few of those get challenged in Week 1. If you thought the Rams would be able to survive without Sam Bradford, you got a rude awakening. If you thought the Panthers would regress horribly and Tampa Bay would pick up some of that slack in the NFC South, you might have left Week 1 pretty confused. If you thought the Patriots and Saints were potential 13-3 juggernauts (gulp), you might be scrambling to re-calibrate. But we preach caution. Don't completely change up your strategy based on 60 minutes of football. There's plenty more to come.

There is one trend that's worth keeping an eye on, which Bill Simmons actually covered in his 2014 Gambling Preview, but it came into light in Week 1 - last year, favorites covered an inordinate amount of spreads (52.2 percent, the third-highest number in the last 25 years, according to the Sporting News). But, in the years following inordinately successful favorites, the lines swing the other way, and favorites cover just 47 percent of spreads. The last two times favorites covered more than 52.2 percent (last year's figure), the following seasons saw swings of 13.2 percent (from 57.8 in 2005 to 44.6 in 2006) and 6.4 percent (from 52.9 in 1998 to 46.5 percent in 1999).

So what happened in Week 1? Underdogs went 11-5 against the spread. Hmmmmm....

NFL Week 1 Primer (With Picks)

It's an interception! No, it's a touchdown! Who cares, football is back, starting with Green Bay making its return to Seattle for the first time since the "Fail Mary" tonight.

 By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

It's here, you guys.

It's finally here.

It took eight months, but meaningful football games are back, and they're here to stay (through February).

I feel like I say it every year, but I have never been so excited for football season. It might actually be true - maybe every successive football season is more anticipated than the last. There are so many things to be excited about, starting with anywhere from five to seven potential juggernaut teams sprinkled throughout the league (Denver, New England, Seattle, New Orleans, Green Bay, and possibly Philadelphia and San Francisco, depending on how optimistic you are).

Former playoff teams like Houston, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore could all bounce back in a big way. San Diego and Chicago have emerged as sleepers with high-octane offenses. Carolina and Kansas City look to hold on to the success that they found last year. Cleveland, Minnesota, and Jacksonville all have new first-round quarterbacks who could see substantial playing time this year. And in case you didn't notice, I just named more than half the league, every division is represented, and there's plenty of more excitement to be had for the teams I didn't mention.

Football, baby. Football.

Game(s) of The Week

Green Bay @ Seattle (8:30 p.m. Thursday, NBC)

As per usual, opening night features the defending Super Bowl champion squaring off with a high-profile foe. You forget it now, but the Ravens were, in fact, the defending Super Bowl champions on opening night last year. On only two occasions has the defending champion lost on opening night, and on only one occasion has the home team lost (the Ravens as defending champions lost on the road in Denver when a scheduling conflict with the Orioles forced the game out of Baltimore; the Giants in 2012 lost at home to Dallas). That might tip the scales towards Seattle, but more on that later.

Long And Suite Preview: The AFC North

The Ravens and Steelers were once the class of the AFC, but both missed the postseason in 2013. Can they bounce back this season?

By Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin) and Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe)

The AFC North is about as wide open as a division can be. Not quite to an NFC East level, perhaps, where all four teams could have conceivably won the division entering each of the last three seasons (with nothing to say of this one), but over the last three seasons, it's been anybody's guess as to who will reign supreme in the American North (unless your guess has been Cleveland).

The AFC North has represented the conference in the Super Bowl in two of the last four years and three of the last six, which doesn't seem overly impressive, but they're the only division in the conference that has had two representatives make the Big Game in the last half-decade (the NFC West has had three different teams make the Super Bowl since 2009).

Wild Card Weekend Roundup: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Andrew Luck is taking on the persona of his former coach Jim Harbaugh, who was Indy's "Captain Comeback" in 1995.

By Joe Parello (@HerewegoJoe) and Jeremy Conlin (@jeremy_conlin)

Every week, editor's Jeremy Conlin and Joe Parello bring you the good, the bad and the ugly from the pro and college football weekend that was. Well, actually, just pro football this week. Joe will have you covered with a bowl wrap up after the BCS Championship Game.

The Good

Andrew Luck

He was far from perfect Saturday in a home win against the Chiefs, but Colts quarterback Andrew Luck proved again why he's the most resilient signal caller in the game today.

Trailing 31-10 at halftime, he got the ball in his hands after a mistake laden first half, and promptly… Threw a pick that led to another KC score, putting the Colts in a 38-10 hole.