Pick Em Week 4

(For Pick Em standings -- week-by-week and YTD -- click here.)

Oooooooooooookay, so...look...Last week was whack.  Yes.  I said "whack."  Last week was so messed up, my vocabulary actually trailed back in time to a safer era in the early 90s.  I've never seen so many sports pages use the word "Bizarre." This situation caused the President to feel the need to take time away from important things to make a statement about it, and for the Romney camp to find a way to compare it to the Presidency.  I hate to make excuses, but...yeah - that's why our picks sucked.

Well, rumor has it that the real refs might be back on board by tomorrow night, so maybe this week will return to normal.




...and, by "normal," I mean that Forty's playing it safe, Keller is being strange (thanks for the excuse to edit a Bucs logo) and I'm pulling the Crazy Ivans.

Lock of the Week (Keller): Hated Ravens over Cleveland Browns (Baltimore will win, but not cover the 13 point spread) 23-14:   As I see it, there's no down side to this pick.  Either I'm right and I get two points or I'm wrong (like I usually am with my Lock of the Week) and the hated Ravens lose.  Also, Cleveland sucks and Baltimore does not.

I know this is a classic "letdown" game and that the hated Ravens will probably not have the energy available to put forth their best effort on four days rest... but, Cleveland sucks, Cleveland sucks, Cleveland sucks.

Lock of the Week (Weidman): Hated Ravens over Cleveland Browns (Baltimore won't cover, but they'll get the W.) 21-14: I hate picking the Ravens, but I continue to find myself doing that.  Eh, they're playing the Browns and are on a roll.  I don't see myself picking the Browns at any point in the future, so that by default makes this a lock for me.  The Browns are the Pirates of football, and as long as Ray Lewis is walking upright, Ed Reed continues his deal with the devil to make his hands and the ball magnetic opposites, and someone on their team is mourning a dead brother, I'm gonna pick the Ravens.

Lock of the Week (Forty) Baltimore over Cleveland (Ravens tend to play to their competition, so take the under and Cleveland with the points.) 24-17: We were all terrible last week thanks to all the crazy upsets, overtime games and referee debacles. The no brainer I missed was picking the Browns over the Bills. The Bills aren't as good as they were originally predicted to be and had an eight game road losing streak. What I ignored was Cleveland's overall losing streak, depleted secondary, that the offense is led by green rookies and the chaos around the sale of the team.

The Browns showed in the Bengals game that they can spark offensively, but the veteran Ravens defense with Ray Lewis and Ed Reed should probably keep that in check easily. The Ravens are also more likely to be able to handle the quick turnaround time from Sunday to Thursday and the high pressure of a Thursday night game. There could be some let down after the big win Sunday night against the Patriots, but I think the game and rallying around Torrey Smith over the death of his brother has pulled them together as a team. A word the Browns have to look up in the dictionary to know the definition of. 

Meet the "Experts":

Brad "QBERT" Keller is the inventor and sole proprietor of the QBERT (Quantitative BERT jones is awesome) system for rating quarterbacks. Using this innovative approach and working tirelessly part time breaking down film and finding angles inside the angles, he has mastered the art of picking and handicapping NFL games. With an expanded playing field this season, he's anxious to defend his title against a formidable group of experts that... hey, you know what? He can beat these two jokers, right? No problem. Because he has a foolproof system.



"Arena" Weidman's prime qualification for this contest is that he's spent more than a decade watching Steelers games with Keller while drinking. Because of this, most of his picks might seem like they were done while drunk, but that's just a facet of how he gets into "recall mode." A devoted follower of the Arena Football League, Weidman's NFL world view is colored through this lens. Because of this, he possesses strong opinions on why more people should go to Power games and how the the Cardinals should really be using the Rattlers as a farm team. Mainly, he just has trouble with the field being way too big.



Leonard "Forty" Hayhurst earned his nickname for his ability to grow the facial hair of a 40-year-old man at the age of 16, not his ability to pound 40s of King Cobra, but there's that too. He owns the largest collection of Drew Bledsoe memorabilia in the world (five items would be the largest, right?). He feels for Cleveland Browns fans because when he started rooting for a 2-14 club in the New England Patriots, they eventually won three Super Bowls. Then Steelers fans brag about how they have six Super Bowl wins, to which Leonard says they would have had eight if the Patriots hadn't beaten them twice in the AFC Championship game. They then mumble something about Franco Harris and walk away.