Slim pickings in Week 11 as we enter the real 2nd half of the 2009 NFL regular season.  There are exactly 11 more weekends of pro football left until it’s over.  Until next September.  I’m already starting to panic.

 

Before you roll your eyes too hard, please kindly take note that I live in Minnesota.  When football season ends, I, like all the other residents of this state, tend to wake up that second Sunday in February to the stark reality that the next 11 to 12 Sundays are going to be Minnesota-Winter Sundays…without football.  That isn’t comforting.  Sundays go from anticipated to hated.  Sunday is aleady the crappy weekend day before your weekend ends.  During football season, Sunday is blanketed in the NFL’s filthy-rich Snuggie of distraction.  It makes Sundays bearable during the early months of ‘Minnesota Winter’.  When football ends, then what do we do?  If you don’t have a thing for ice-fishing, then you’re pretty much stuck watching Spaceballs for the umpteenth time on Sunday afternoons.  And it’s on network TV, which means commercials and editing.  And you’re chained to your tiny apartment in a 105-year-old house with steam-heat radiators and bad wiring until the temp climbs back up above -15.  See why I’m panicking?

 

My thoughts exactly.

 

MARQUEE

 

INDY at BALTIMORE: Excellent game.  Even though the Ravens have been less than what I expected from them this season, no one should ever try to say that any opponent doesn’t have to take them graveyard-seriously.  The teams that the Ravens have lost to are good teams: Patriots, Bengals and Vikings – and the largest margin of defeat has been 10 points.  And this week they play the Colts.  They still have to play Pittsburgh twice.  That’s a tough schedule.  Baltimore will be 5-5 after this week, and they’re a damn good team.  They won’t beat the Colts.  They deserve to, but they won’t:  Indy 26, Ravens 16.

 

 

MARQUEE-ISH

 

There are a bunch of mid-level games and pseudo-mismatches that have playoff implications this week.  They aren’t worth your time if you’re not a fan of either team, but they are important:

 

DENVER at SAN DIEGO: My, how the tables have turned.  After a 2-3 start, the Chargers have won 4 in a row; after a 6-0 start, Denver has now lost three in a row.  What are the chances that the Broncos are able to blunt the inertia of both of these teams?  Not too good, especially with Kyle Orton likely to sit with an ankle injury.  This is strangely reminiscent of Orton’s 2008 season, when he sustained an ankle injury about halfway through the year, and was rushed back and was ineffective against a division opponent deemed too dangerous to play against with the backup.  In fairness, that backup was Rex Grossman, and also in fairness, this backup is Chris Simms.  I hope Denver doesn’t make the same mistake.  Let him heal and the Broncos will be cool.  Even if they lose this game, which they will.  Chargers 28, Broncos 13.

 

ATLANTA at NY GIANTS: Until last week, the Falcons could still make the argument that they hadn’t lost to a team on a lower shelf yet.  But then they lost to the Panthers.  The Giants haven’t won a game in a month, and their road isn’t getting any easier than it has been.  If New York loses, they’re finished.  If Atlanta loses, they’re likely finished too, but they still get to play the Bucs twice before the season is over, so they could still have a wildcard pulse.  I don’t trust either team, but I’ll say Atlanta 27, Giants 21.

 

NY JETS at NEW ENGLAND: The Jets popped up on the Patriots’ schedule at the wrong time.  Bill Belichick is sick of the 2nd-guessing of his 4th-and-2 call from his own 28 last week, the call that cost the Patriots the game.  Someone must be punished for this indignity.  Someone must suffer for this outrage.  That someone is the New York Football Jets.

 

 

That isn’t to say that Rex Ryan won’t have his team fully aware of that fact all week.  The Jets should come out playing for their lives, which they should be.  New England will be amped.  Brady will be looking to put up big points against a snarky division rival who had the audacity to beat them earlier this season.  The Jets defense will put up a fight, but Mark Sanchez might poop his pants come kickoff.  If he manages to win the game, it will be the coming-out party to end all Mark Sanchez Coming Out Parties.  But he won’t.  Pats 28, Jets 19.

 

NOT MARQUEE, BUT NATIONALLY TELEVISED

 

PHILIDELPHIA at CHICAGO: The Bears suck, but Philly has won contests against the likes of Carolina, the Giants, KC, Tampa Bay and Washington.  They don’t have a quality win yet.  And they still won’t after they beat Chicago this week.  Eagles 24, Bears 13.

Jay Cutler Glamour Shots photo. They told him to look like a Baldwin

 

TENNESSEE at HOUSTON: It’s Run vs. Pass; Thunder vs. Lightning.  The Titans have enjoyed a bit of a resurgence lately under the steady hand of Vince Young.  Tennessee’s 2nd-ranked rushing offense faces a mediocre Houston defense, but the Texans’ pass game is elite and the Tennessee pass defense is GARBAGE (31st overall).

 

So what matters more?  Is this a referendum on the evolution of the NFL passing game?  Does this game represent the clash of the NFL past vs. the NFL present?  Is this going to be an epic showdown of cataclysmic consequences?

 

No, actually it’s just a fairly meaningless division matchup pitting two largely forgettable teams against each other.  The favored team, Houston, will win, and it won’t be all that impressive, just enough to get the job done.  Texans 31, Titans 17.

 

MISMATCHES

 

So, which of my declared gimmies will fall this week?  There are three at-home underdogs here, and I missed on two last week, although I doubt I was the only one.  I’ll take all the squads in italics to win by the score of 31-19:

 

CINCINNATI at OAKLAND

ARIZONA at ST. LOUIS

NEW ORLEANS at TAMPA BAY

SEATTLE at MINNESOTA

PITTSBURGH at KANSAS CITY

 

THESE GAMES DEFY CATEGORIZATION

 

MIAMI at CAROLINA: Two good run games with two has-been/never-was QB’s.  Could be an old-fashioned ground-grind, or it could be a really long, boring field-goal fest.  Kinda the same thing, I guess.  I’ll say that the result is somewhere in between, and that Miami proves to be the more complete, well-rounded team:  Dolphins 22, Panthers 13.

 

SAN FRAN at GREEN BAY: This will probably be a quality game between two desperate teams, but I just can’t tell you with a straight face to care about it.

 

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Both these clubs will hover around .500 for at least the rest of this season, and while I wish goodwill to both of these hallowed franchises, they just aren’t relevant this year.  Both teams have bright futures once the leading teams in their respective divisions put their geriatric quarterbacks out to pasture.  I’ll take the Pack at home, and the 49ers need to go get an actual QB.  GB 23, SF 14.

 

WASHINGTON at DALLAS: I realize that this is a mismatch on paper, but integrity/CYA states that after Dallas’ loss to the Packers and the R*dsk*ns’ victory over Denver, I can’t put this game in either the Mismatch or the Marquee slots.  But it is a rivalry game.  Dallas will probably win at home and it probably won’t be close.  Cowboys 33, D.C. 9.

 

WEEK 11 TOILET BOWLS

 

CLEVELAND at DETROIT: I’m taking the Lions, and it has nothing to do with anything Eric Mangini said/did or didn’t say/do this week.  I don’t care what the blank-faced half-wit does or has to say.  It’s because the Browns are terrible.  It’s because Brady Quinn is terrible.  It’s because the only guy worth even thinking about on the Browns, Josh Cribbs, is likely out with a concussion/neck injury.  I’ve already spent too much time on this game.  Lions 20, Browns 10.

 

BUFFALO at JACKSONVILLE: I’d like to take this opportunity to say sayonara to The D*ckface.  The Bills fired their head coach, Dick Jauron, this week to scapegoat the team’s putrid 2009 season.  I don’t blame them.  I’ve experienced firsthand just how The D*ckface operates.  Jauron is so over-obsessed about playing mistake-free football that the entire gameplan revolves around doing just enough to lose respectably.  Whatever the other team does is okay as long as it appeared on paper that you made them earn it.

 

This mantra wasn’t working as of late, especially last week when Buffalo suffered the pain of not only being mudstomped by a one-dimensional bottom-feeder, but also being flipped the bird by said bottom-feeder’s 86 year-old patriarch. 

 

 

Tough week, to be sure.  Jags 15, Bills 12.

 

Email: nick.thomas@flyingpigskin.com