Week Three Power Rankings: The Shortshank Redemption

The Dolphins are no longer undefeated when they bust out those orange jerseys, but that Sunday night loss didn't matter for me when it came to the PoolHost confidence pool last weekend. Unlike last year's Miami-New York game that earned me my first top finish of the season, most participants in the pool picked the Fins this year. The outcome of that game (and Monday's) was a moot point by the time that game kicked off, thanks to two huge missed field goals that afternoon and 94 points proved to be just enough in the big pool this week.

Indeed, I'd have to say that the two biggest outcomes that secured my own victory with my picks this past weekend were the Atlanta Falcons knocking off the defending Super Bowl Champions in overtime thanks, in part, to Garrett Hartley missing a 29-yarder in overtime. Only one other person picked Atlanta and many people had the Saints for double-digits. Additionally, my fate would have been much different had Sebastian Janikowski—the highest-paid kicker in NFL history, for the record—not shanked a 32-yard attempt as time expired in Arizona. More than a few others who were close at the time had Oakland, but my seemingly foolish gamble of eight points on the Cards paid off.

Of course, the hometown Bears knocking off the Packers did cost me a top finish in the Yahoo pool, so unlike last year, it appears that winning one pool doesn't necessarily mean I win both. Still, a win's a win, and it's a huge relief to have my first victory only three weeks into this young season.

Things I made while offline: Metallica

Because this blog will be dominated by football-related content for the next five months, your author has decided to make an effort to regularly post pictures his lovely and talented sister took of some of his artwork. These posts will include a brief thought or two about when the piece was made. 

This week: Ink and permanent marker piece of the band Metallica

Week Three Picks: Resorting to the fashion intangible

Woo hoo! The Dolphins are breaking out those grotesque orange jerseys for their Sunday night game with the Jets—and maybe you remember how that week went for me last year when Miami did the same thing for a Monday night game against the same opponent. 

Oh, and locally, it's Bears-Packers on Monday night this week, which is sure to be a big deal to conclude the weekend. There's even a pretty good chance that the winner in both pols could be decided by that game—depending how the bets go.

But before we get to that final game for Week Three, there's plenty of other games that maybe I'm not giving enough credit to. Still early in the season, I'd have to imagine the top quarter of my sheet will closely resemble many others' picks, but here's how the four hypothetical arrangements break down for Week Three:

Week Two Power Rankings: Joke's on me, I suppose

"So the numbers this week are good for a laugh but not much more beyond that."

Remember when I said that after making my picks this past weekend? Well, when my little formula for the Power Rankings said the Bears and Chiefs would end up at 2-0 after this past weekend and those should be the two biggest bets, it seemed absolutely fucking insane. But insane was actually me, still getting back into the swing of things (obviously), failing to pick a single upset in a week that had no shortage of them (of course). The result is that my picks were good only for 88 points, even less than I scored in Week One. I suppose the homer in me should be happy that the Bears went into Jerry's house and took a little more air out of those inflated expectations of Big D playing in a Super Bowl that city will be hosting, so things certainly could have been worse.

It's not like I finished in last, I guess.

Things I made while offline: Sarah Michelle Gellar

Because this blog will be dominated by football-related content for the next five months, your author has decided to make an effort to regularly post pictures his lovely and talented sister took of some of his artwork. These posts will include a brief thought or two about when the piece was made. 

This week: Scraps used to make a portrait of Sarah Michelle Gellar

Week Two Picks: Time to get serious (... obviously)

While it's been a fun week of distractions during last weekend's opening kickoff and this coming weekend's games, I can tell I'm still not quite truly back in the swing of things yet by the fact that the only upcoming matchup I've really been aware of this whole week is the hometown Bears going into Big D to play the Cowboys. Considering the bro-in-law's a devout Dallas fan, that holds the potential for some relatives (other than myself, of course) to never let him forget it should Chicago pull off an upset in the House that Jerry Built. But considering the officials already handed us one game last week, I'm not really counting on it.

Of course, my numbers system argues otherwise—because with only one week's worth of misleading results in the book, the numbers compiled from opening week and then factored into this week's games come up with a rather, um, interesting hypothetical confidence pool sheet. The Bears win over the Lions puts them at +14 when picked to win, and a somewhat stunning Dallas loss that makes them a -10 when picked to win, thus giving that game a total difference of 24—the largest difference of the week. If you think I'm putting 16 points on Chicago this week though, you're even crazier than Brian Baldinger.

The rest of that sheet by the numbers is pretty mystifying and I'll be stunned if it ends up being the best this week (the picks based on PFW's straight-up picks and ranked by their spread had the highest point total last week with 100.5, although Wunderdog had the best straight-up record at 11-5—whatever that's worth [hint: nothing]), but here's the other three before we get to my own picks for Week Two:

Blah, Blah, Blah: Another obligatory fantasy update

Your author is hard-pressed to think of something that can cause an immediate loss of interest quite like hearing about someone's fantasy team. Having friends and co-workers recite their rosters with no real purpose other than to gloat about conquering leagues you're not involved in seems quite banal and pointless, no?

That said, the author knows full well that you the dear reader probably also couldn't give two shits about whatever fantasy team he's gone and created after so many years of taking that road less traveled where non-participation seemed cooler. Now the author has multiple fantasy teams, and while he tries mightily not to bring those into the other posts here on BMC that you might actually read, every once in a while, if for no other purpose than to help him remember who he had on such teams in a given year, he likes to keep a recorded entry of how he's done.

This is one of those times. Your non-interest in the remainder of this post is understood.

Week One Power Rankings: Where there's always 16 ties

The opening week's Power Rankings are traditionally the most meaningless numbers of the season, but still fun to look at and reflect on which teams came through, which were surprises, and which were real busts. Considering that many people in both confidence pools got their 16-point—and supposedly most confident—game wrong (including yours truly), this week wasn't short on surprises—or as the picture to the left there proved, a little bit of controversy. (For the record, I immediately said I felt "dirty" after seeing the Bears win the game like that.)

My picks were good for 90 points last weekend, a real drop from the 117 points I had to open last season. But how good was that in comparison to the other participants in the two confidence pools I'm in?

Things I made while offline: Fergie Jenkins

Because this blog will be dominated by football-related content for the next five months, your author has decided to make an effort to regularly post pictures his lovely and talented sister took of some of his artwork. These posts will include a brief thought or two about when the piece was made. 

This week: Charcoal pencil drawing of Chicago Cubs Hall of Fame pitcher Ferguson Jenkins

Week One Picks: How do I do this again?

As another season gets ready to kick off here, I'm trying to remember how I did things last year—and the year before that. So be patient with me as I adjust, but I'll have you know that I fancied up the table of predictions from others for this year. Brian Burke's probabilities haven't been listed yet over at the New York Times' Fifth Down blog, so adding his theoretical confidence pool sheet to the table is apparently going to have to wait for another week. Still, in the meantime, here's four other confidence layouts for me to use as a starting point and for you to peruse in perhaps filling out your own:

2010 NFL Predictions: Far from confident

The NFL season kicks off tonight, and it has once again snuck up on me—despite my being in two different fantasy football leagues (where my interest is rather "meh") and the same two confidence pools (where my interest will once again be more along the lines of "batshit crazy").

On a local level, I'm sure my lack of enthusiasm going into this season is somewhat justified by the hometown Bears losing all four of their preseason games. Oh sure, it was "just the preseason" and my uncle was quick to remind me about the Lions winning all four of those meaningless games the same year they lost all 16 of the games that did count. But I would've preferred some semblance of, say, an offensive line to make sure Jay Cutler is not ending up on his ass as often as he had to last year. So I'm not too terribly optimistic about my own favorite team's chances.

I'm also not too optimistic about the owners locking the players out next season, which will probably become a story we'll hear more about throughout this year—nor am I too terribly confident in general about how my prognosticating about the forthcoming NFL season in general is going to go.

Still, this blog's basically all about the predictions I make for the four major sports, and I'll give it another shot this year.