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Two weeks in the books, and almost 1/3^rd of the pool has been eliminated. Cleveland gave me a little bit of a scare when they trailed the Texans briefly last Sunday. But, we managed to get both picks through again. Seattle and Pittsburgh caused the most casualties last week, with no huge upsets occurring. After watching the Thursday game this week, I think I may have made a strategical error in not locking in a Panthers pick while I could. I stayed away because I'm not a Sam Darnold believer yet. After watching the Panthers offense for the first time this year, I'm not sure I will be able to trust them to win against any opponent other than Houston playing a rookie backup QB.

The Denver Broncos are my top pick this week. After starting the first two weeks on the road against a couple of tomato cans they return for their home opener to face the hapless Jets. That Denver crowd should be fired up and loud after a 2-0 start and that defense will cause fits for rookie Zach Wilson. Teddy Bridgewater should have another good game as well against a week Jets secondary.

I like the Broncos so much I almost wanted to use them for both picks. But alas strange things can happen in the NFL, so I want to spread out my eggs a little bit. My second pick for the week is the Arizona Cardinals. After narrowly escaping the Vikings last week on a missed field goal at the end of the game the Cardinals travel to Jacksonville to feast on the winless Jags. The undefeated Cardinals are just too powerful on offense for Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars to hang.

Lots of good games this weekend should make for a fun Sunday!

Cheers! Drink Five!

            ENTRY #1                               ENTRY #2

            RAMS                                      BUCCANEERS

            BUCCANEERS                       BROWNS

            BRONCOS                              CARDINALS

Wow! What an opening NFL weekend! Start the week with Tom Brady ripping out Dak's heart and close it with a wild Monday night where the Raiders almost blew a game in the biggest way I've seen since the famous Herm Edwards play that led to the invention of kneeling. Between all of that, we had two Super Bowl favorites in the Bills and Packers getting handled. The Bills alone knocked 111 from the pool and with all the other losers brought the survivors down to 1210 from the starting 1604 entrants. But Alas, I got both of mine through.

This week my top pick goes to a team that couldn't win last week, but who can blame them when you're up against Mahomes. In this case, being close is enough for me to think the Cleveland Browns can handle the Houston Texans at home. They are the biggest favorites of the week at -12.5 and should make for a safe pick. I can't pretend like I actually watched any of the Jags/Texans game but I did watch the whole Chiefs/Browns game and what I saw was that Cleveland will be a playoff team again. The Texans are in rebuild mode and will be finishing at or near the bottom of the worst division in football. 

For the second pick, I'm going with the other -12.5 favorite Tampa Bay Buccaneers. As good as Tom Brady looked in Week 1, this pick is all about Atlanta. I quickly remembered how bad they were last season after their performance against the Eagles and they won't be better this year. The Packers should be another popular pick this week, but I'm staying away until Rodgers proves he's not a mole trying to cost the team games.

My strategy early on in these pools is to keep it simple as long as you can and worry about making tough picks when the time comes. Saving teams always seems to bite you, just ask all the people that busted on the Jags in week 1 trying to be clever.

Cheers! Drink Five

Welcome back for the 2021 NFL season! This year's survivor pool has 1274 entries with two of those entries being my own. I already got one in the bag after that nail-biter on Thursday night. Normally I'd prefer to avoid Thursday games, but the first game of the season with Tommy touchdowns with weeks to prepare, I couldn't resist. However, that game was not my top choice for the week.

My top choice for this first week is the Los Angeles Rams over the Chicago Bears in the opening of the brand new SoFi stadium on Sunday night. The Bears defense should be solid as always and may slow down Matthew Stafford, but I can't imagine an Andy Dalton lead offense producing enough points against an Aaron Donald-led defense to get a win. I'm sure all the Bears fans will be rooting for a quick, merciful death for Dalton so they can transition immediately to rookie Justin Fields. I expect the stadium to be loud as Rams fans were already in midseason drunken fighting mode the first preseason game and now they will see real footballing!

Call me crazy, but I want to avoid picking the 49ers over the Lions in Jarred Goff's debut. I wanted to stick to home teams this opening week and get a feel for the teams since everything is held pretty close to the vest these days in the preseason.

Cheers! And happy footballing!

Twenty teams were eliminated last week, this brings our surviving entrants down to 186 with 8 weeks left to go in the
season. Last week we managed to fade the dreaded Thursday night nightmare on Halloween of all nights,
when the 49ers were able to pull out an unnecessarily close victory against the Cardinals 28-25. The
Cardinals jumped out to an early 7-0 lead and had me doubting game manager Garoppolo's ability to
keep up with the potent Cardinal offense. But then the tables turned and the Niners had the 21-7 lead at half,
wrap it up, easy game right? Wrong the Cards rallied back outscoring the Niners 18-7 in the second half
capped by an 88 yard touchdown from Andy Isabella to bring the game within 3. But alas, the Cards
couldn't get a stop and the Niners held on. Seriously, I would not bet against Kyler Murray if they are down
by a score and have the ball last.

Now, on to this week, where I will again be taking the cowards way out by selecting the largest favorite of
the week in the Saints at -13.5 on the road vs the Atlanta Falcons. The announcement that Matt Ryan
would be returning for this game shockingly did not move the line an inch. Bottom line in this one is the
Falcons can not stop anyone, and this week that anyone is Drew Brees and the best team in the NFC.
Could this be Dan Quinn's final coaching performance? Hopefully the Dolphins can do me a favor and
knock off the next biggest favorite Colts at home, which will surely eliminate a large number of
remaining players.