Divisional Playoff Picks: Nobody's Perfect

One thing I started doing this season that I am utterly baffled as to why I wasn't doing last season was tracking how I actually did at picking a team correctly. Now, obviously the teams that win or lose only a couple of games a year are fairly safe bets. The St. Louis Rams, for instance, were picked by me to lose every single week of this year and last. Because they only won one game this year, that means I was 15-1 picking their record straight-up.

Of course, now that we're in the divisional playoffs, a good majority of my best teams are gone. Basically, three teams that have gave me the most difficulty got into the postseason—and two are playing this weekend.

But here's how I did at predicting the records of all 32 teams this year (playoff teams in bold):

St. Louis Rams 15-1
Detroit Lions 14-2
San Diego Chargers 14-2
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 13-3
Seattle Seahawks 13-3
Washington Redskins 13-3
Atlanta Falcons 13-3
Cleveland Browns 12-4
Indianapolis Colts 12-4
Philadelphia Eagles 12-4 (12-5)
Dallas Cowboys 12-4 (12-5)
Minnesota Vikings 11-5
Kansas City Chiefs 11-5
Tennessee Titans 11-5
Buffalo Bills 11-5
Oakland Raiders 11-5
New Orleans Saints 10-6
Baltimore Ravens 10-6 (10-7)
San Francisco 49ers 10-6
Green Bay Packers 10-6 (10-7)
Miami Dolphins 10-6
Houston Texans 10-6
New England Patriots 9-7 (9-8)
Chicago Bears 9-7
Carolina Panthers 9-7
New York Giants 8-8
Jacksonville Jaguars 8-8
New York Jets 8-8 (8-9)
Pittsburgh Steelers 8-8
Denver Broncos 8-8
Cincinnati Bengals 7-9 (7-10)
Arizona Cardinals 7-9 (7-10)

I think you see what I did. It would have been nice to have had some green there, and you would think that I would've managed to get at least one of the four games right, but no sir—serves me right for having the same picks as Ron Jaworski, I suppose.

But I take comfort that at least after one week of the playoffs, we already know nobody will be able to say they got every game right. Here's how everybody's first round went:

1. Eric Allen, ESPN: 3-1
1. Jason Cole, Yahoo: 3-1
1. Michael Silver, Yahoo: 3-1
1. LEV, crazy colored glasses: 3-1
5. Mike Golic, ESPN: 2-2
5. Merrill Hoge, ESPN: 2-2
5. Chris Mortensen, ESPN: 2-2
5. Pete Prisco, CBS Sports: 2-2
5. Charles Robinson, Yahoo: 2-2
5. Mark Schlereth, ESPN: 2-2
5. Seth Wickersham, ESPN: 2-2
5. Wunderdog: 2-2
13. James C. Black, Yahoo: 1-3
13. Brian Burke, The Fifth Down: 1-3
13. Pro Football Weekly Editors: 1-3
13. Adam Schefter, ESPN: 1-3
17.Ron Jaworski, ESPN: 0-4
17. YOURS TRULY: 0-4

Yeah, I don't really know what to say about my own showing. Let's put it this way: I need to be perfect the rest of the way to beat last year's performance.

Everybody's got kind of the same picks this week for the most part, but let's pretend like this'll be suspenseful. I'll see you at the end of the scroll:

Jason Cole, Yahoo
Charles Robinson, Yahoo
James C. Black, Yahoo
Michael Silver, Yahoo
Pro Football Weekly Editors
Wunderdog
Eric Allen, ESPN
Mike Golic, ESPN
Merrill Hoge, ESPN
Ron Jaworski, ESPN
Chris Mortensen, ESPN
Adam Schefter, ESPN
Mark Schlereth, ESPN
Seth Wickersham, ESPN
Pete Prisco, CBS Sports
Brian Burke, The Fifth Down
LEV, crazy colored glasses

I'm still waiting on bro-in-law, but I'm sure it'll dawn on him shortly after I post this. As for my own picks? Well, what fun would it be to play it safe at this point, right? (Oh, I'm ditching the regular season records I had included last week, although I am still keeping the Power Ranking data—even though I'm kind of ignoring whatever it says.)

These are all supposed to be descending order of confidence, but really the first pick is the only one I'd put money on (if I did that sort of thing):

San Diego Chargers over New York Jets
+104/+7 : +95/78/+17 : +10/-9

There's a reason that nobody's picking the Jets this week—and it ain't just the Jets not being one of the better teams left. The Bolts haven't come into the playoffs with this kind of hype in quite some time, and while you have to wonder if the team's ever going to miss a beat after rattling off 11 straight wins, they're probably my sentimental favorite right now of the eight teams left. Of any team I'd like to see win it all, if I had to pick one, I'd vote for the Chargers because they really have felt like the best team in football for most of the year anyway.

Arizona Cardinals over New Orleans Saints
+28/-27 : +21/41/+62 : +85/-7

I guess that last year, Arizona technically avoided the No. 1 seed, but the whole scenario seems familiar and the Buzzsaw is finally getting a vote from me. I view it as a "can't lose" sort of situation because even if I'm wrong, at least I won't have them screwing with me next week. But if you're seeking legitimate logic here, then all I can tell you is that Kurt Warner has been playing out of his mind and I can't help but wonder if Drew Brees and the Saints don't take a drive too long to catch up.

Minnesota Vikings over Dallas Cowboys
+67/-4 : +63/6/+57 : +61/-4

Dallas is in an unmistakable groove ever since ending the perfect run of the Saints in New Orleans, but beyond the fans inside the Metrodome is still a very good Vikings team that doesn't really seem to fuck around too much when they play there. So I'm tempted to believe that the big performance they keep saying they'll need from Adrian Peterson is something they're going to get. I'm all for a good, low-scoring defensive struggle, and I'm preferring to think of this as another "can't lose" for me because I'll be happy to know that at least one of these two teams won't win at all. Next week it can be the other one, I hope.

Baltimore Ravens over Indianapolis Colts
+67/+4 : +63/24/+87 : +83/-4

We didn't do a playoff pool this year, but just because I'm remembering how fun it was last time, I'll take probably my biggest upset pick this week. I see the Ravens coming in with nothing to lose and the Colts dealing with more pressure than any other host team this weekend, mostly because of all the hoopla that came out of Jim Caldwell's decision to rest his starters for the playoffs. If I'm right, then the entire thing will be debated all through the off-season for Indy.

Your Web experience can only avoid the "IRL" aspect for so long

As you might recall, I wasn't rushing to sign up for Facebook for the longest time, and then when the excuse seemed best ("USERNAME?!"), even that backfired. But that got corrected, there I was, and I guess the idea is that I'm supposed to go back and reconnect to all these people I really couldn't be any less interested in talking to. Not right now, at least. That's what I tell myself.

And while I can honestly say that Facebook has yet to inspire any sort of enthusiasm or curiosity about it for me, I can say it will honestly bug me when I do go back and see this picture. I really haven't taken it upon myself to try and accumulate as many of my friends as I could find as quickly as possible, but when all the rest of my old colleagues from The Chronicle added me shortly after I joined, I figured maybe Mr. Sulski didn't check in that often. And so, because it's Facebook, I assumed that maybe like me, Sulski just didn't bother that much with it.

It was only last week I found out that he had been fighting cancer for three years—right about how long it's been since I graduated, and hence, last saw him.

Only days after I found out via e-mail that his condition was most certainly not good, he died Thursday morning with his wake and funeral this past weekend. I immediately went through photos from an old holiday end-of-semester party with The Chronicle staff from a few years back and put up a post on my Tumblr (the site where virtually everyone I maintain contact with are people I've never even been in the same room as, but also still where I prefer to spend a majority of my online free time).

None of the "likes" that followed for that were all that unusual or unexpected, but one note on my dashboard did seem particularly noteworthy:


You know, a song I posted ... in July. Just a coincidence, of course.

Jim Sulski was 52. I was only able to attend the wake, but it marked the first time I'd ever been to an open casket service. It's hard to recall the many things that were going through my mind at that moment, but mostly I'm sure I just wanted to make sure I wasn't doing anything wrong. Considering how I was most of the times Sulski had seen me, I'm sure he would have been happy just to know I was sober. (Then again, when I graduated and he hugged me after coming off the stage, he told me, "I don't want to see you when you're not drunk.")

I saw a number of people at Sulski's wake that also wrote their reactions to the news, including John Kass, Richard Roeper, my other advisor at The Chronicle, and my one-time assistant for the section. I also saw the man that trained me for that same job, again realizing how long it had been since we had last spoken. I came to that realization a lot. Much like the reminder that I wasn't the only one that didn't land a job "in the field."

There were equally moving obituaries from the Tribune, the Sun-Times, the Chicago Journal and—of course—the Chronicle. There was also this guy that I don't know but he seems to be talking about the same person, and that's kind of how I was this past week: I kept looking for more stuff about Sulski, like maybe the news would change.

Now the one thing I fear is the day that the pending friend request on Facebook goes away, as I'll almost certainly be tempted to believe there's still a possibility of seeing him one more time. But even when that particular reminder disappears, Sulski's memory will live on. I hope his passing teaches me to better express how sincerely I appreciate those I still have around.

UPDATE: More Sulski tributes from James Ewert, the friend holding the sign in the legendary photo I use to promote this here blog, and a moving piece from heartofanewsie.