BuffOrange

I guess that's the fast food mentality of the internet where nobody has a memory spanning longer than 3 years. Warner was a ridiculously good QB in his prime.

Overreact less to obviously jest posts already.

I heard him do the Bills-Broncos game last year - I don't remember thinking he was terrible or great. All I know is he is neither funny nor insightful in the studio. Collinsworth has always been very fair to the Bills - he did the '95 playoff game in Pittsburgh and couldn't stop praising us for being in the game with all the injuries. On another footnote Vermeil did the Miami game the week prior.

I think that's about the only opinion any 2 fans can agree on - Vermeil & Jaws were great and ought to be regulars At least the season is here for the gold standard that all sports broadcast teams should aspire to: McDonough/Bilas/Rafftery on college hoops.

Fixed your post.

I just typed in 'insight' on dictionary.com and I'm pretty sure that doesn't apply to Sterling Sharpe.

I didn't get to see it but man, I couldn't disagree more: Collinsworth >>>>>> Sharpe & Wilcots. Collinsworth is the only thing about "Football Night in America" that doesn't totally suck.

As Vader said that's a valid point, but I'm still not convinced they're the best team in the division. People can try to blame everything on Bledsoe (I'm certainly not a fan of his) but to me there's no excuse for getting your ass kicked at home on both sides of the ball on national TV in a game that is significantly more important to you than your opponent. That it what happened to Dallas vs. the Giants on Monday night. Do I sound like a bitter bettor who put a wager on Dallas that game?

OP, I don't really see Bennett/Furrey being that expensive. Justin Smith maybe.

I don't think I really buy the "must-win" argument for Pittsburgh anymore - realistically their season ended when they lost to Denver if not to Oakland. Plus Ward might not play. The Raiders defense is a lot better than people think, but the Chargers offense is still explosive enough that Oakland will still likely have to score more than 10 points to cover. Not sure they can do that. Schottenheimer for all the grief he takes - his teams are pretty good at dominating teams they should beat - and he hates the Raiders about as much as Shannahan (and is just as successful against them). I like your reasoning on NO-ATL, although both of those teams are in the wildly unpredictable Bengals category of "teams I never wager on or against".

I didn't realize you took it that seriously. I do it more recreational - though I do get lots of income from poker - and that has taught me a lot about short term variance and luck; and helped me develop a disdain for many of the hindsight arguments we see here. What are your thoughts on homefield advantage? Is it generally 3pts across the board or more/less for certain teams? If the latter, do they distribute it to the correct teams? Clearly 11 weeks of this season isn't enough of a sample to determine how important it is to a given team. A few pet peeves I have: A) the notion that homefield is more important to the Colts than most teams - this is clearly wrong given their similar home/away record under Manning as QB. B) Seattle is "the toughest place to play" - they were undefeated last year because they had a really good team. When they were an average team in '04, they got destroyed by the Bills and lost to a mediocre Rams team twice. Some other casual observations over the years: A) It means close to nothing to any team in the NFC South. B) KC & St. Louis I think have the widest discrepancy in how they play home and away. Because of this, I was shocked that the Chiefs went into St. Louis and won, though I guess the Rams muffed a punt and did some other stupid things in that game. If I wasn't lazy I might back up these thoughts with research ATS #'s over the last X years; but I'm reasonably certain the above is correct.

The Chiefs are so $ at home. I was hoping NE would be an underdog vs. the Bears, but to my dismay they're favored by 3. I'll still put a small wager because I can't see the Pats losing that game.

Not at all. I'm just saying, the two "hottest" teams in November aren't necessarily the best. Salisbury seems to be the posterboy for bandwagon jumping. If Dallas doesn't beat the Giants next week they'll have to play 3 road games in the playoffs.

I think you went to the Sean Salisbury "I love the team that happens to be hottest currently" school of predictions.

Houston knocked them out of the playoffs 2 years ago too. It's just a bad matchup for them.

Did they really go for 2 up by 11?

Just because some JP fans started a dozen or so threads that read: "Look how bad Eli was his first x games and look how great he is now" - doesn't make him a good QB. The theory that Eli isn't a good or accurate QB has been accepted by a lot of people for a while.

I think Jacksonville is close to a mirror image of Minnesota, though obviously a little better. I don't know if there was really a blueprint strategy to winning that game - we basically had 1 good drive to start the game, a couple athletic plays by Fletcher, and the Vikings pulled a Gilbride. We're going to have a hard time running because A-train is a between the tackles guy, but the Jags pass-rush isn't great, so I think it just comes down to JP and run defense.

OK, the Colts game wasn't a one series drive though and you're pretending like it was; neither was the Lions game for that matter. I agree he would've gone for it vs. the Colts. As for being an "NFL coach" - I tend to give NFL coach the benefit of the doubt in the routine playcall/gameplanning department when they're watching film for 80 hours and I'm not; but not so much in the 4th down decisions which are heavily predicated on mathematics where coaches across the league consistently drop the ball. One day they'll see the light and math will change 4th down decision making the way sabermetrics has changed baseball. To be fair, DJ did at least go for it on 4th&1 from the 37 in the 2nd Qtr, when cowards like Gregg Williams & Marvin Lewis would've punted.

Kelly, seriously? Stop pulling a Daquix and arguing for arguing sake. In the NFL no team is so much better than another that it's easier to get the ball back w/ 2:20 than 6:20. Oh, and the Jets & Lions suck on the ground - we've conveniently forgotten that.

I think it was a bad decision as well. Sure Houston isn't Indy, but the Jets & Lions aren't Indy either and we couldn't get a step on our last defensive possession in those games. As far as the hypothetical scenerio of going for it & not making it: "even if they stop 'em 3&out" - there is no "even if" - either we force the 3&out or the game is over. Much better off taking your shot on 4th&4 which is not a terribly low % play.

I've heard from various sources the Pats will have mucho cap room next year.

I agree that the turnovers are going to be even more crucial than usual and it should be low-scoring. I'd give Jax the edge because their running game has a much better chance of being successful and we'll likely have to put the ball in the air more often. Our special teams could be a nice Xfactor in a game like this though.

Kzoo is absolutely correct. In true TBD fashion, you just can't resist the straw-man argument. Nobody is saying that the Lions are going to "get hot" or that they're a sure bet. It's just that the general public puts way too much stock into the previous 2 weeks of games when its true impact is minimal. There are countless examples this year: "OMG how is ATL only -5 @Detroit after lighting up the Steelers", "Baltimore only -6 @Cleveland?", "The Chargers only -5 @KC who barely beat Arizona last week?" Sure there are examples of the 'hot' road favorite covering as well (they did unusually well last year), but in the long run they are losers. And yeah, a positive turnover table usually wins, generally because a team gets behind and starts throwing. Fumble recoveries are luck, much less those that are returned for 60 yard TD's. Good teams don't consistently win games with those kind of plays when they're trailing in the 4th Qtr.

I'm inclined to agree. KC always looks juicy to me whenever they're a home dog too. Also pretty sure NE will beat the Bears, but much to my surprise/disappointment NE is actually favored by 3.