Pick Em Week 16

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

Well, the good news and bad news is that the playoffs start for the Steelers this Sunday.  One and done is a possibility both of these last two weeks, and that's kind of how the Steelers like it.  If Hines Ward were still around, he'd be explaining to us right now how everyone's against us, no one thinks we can make it, and we're in it for ourselves.

I don't think it's going to work worth a damn, but it's a nice thought to get us through the end of the season.  Right now, the Steelers are doing a magnificent impression of pretty much every episode of VH1's Behind the Music and team continuity has gone right out the window.  Whether or not Haley and Roethlisberger really are setting up a power struggle, Big Ben certainly wants us to think it.  Our receivers are dropping everything that comes their way and blaming everyone but themselves.  Tomlin has reached total incomprehensibly incoherent, while trying to pretend that everything's just fine and the band is going on their scheduled January tour.

That being said, Keller and I both picked them Stillers because they're going to win at least one of these last two weeks.  Besides, #StupidForty is up by 6 games and we gotta do something.  If the gods are smiling, Forty will drop all three swing games and his lock, and Keller and I will only be two games back in the final week.

I'd also like a new bike and a Nerf N-Strike Raider Rapid Fire Dart Blaster, Santa.



Lock of the Week (Keller): Green Bay over Tennessee (take the points and the over): 38-17.

Boy, there are a lot of great options, including the Greatriots favored by two touchdowns on the road.  I think that the Broncos will keep it rolling, but there's something about the Browns at this time of year, with everyone fighting to keep their jobs, that has just enough of a spoilery quality to it to keep me away.  The Packers are still fighting for a first round bye, Aaron Rodgers is still fighting to prove any naysayers wrong because he thinks they still exist, and Green Bay as a team is fighting to remind everyone that they were 15-1 last year and may not be too shabby.  I watched the Packers-Bears game on Sunday and it wasn't as close as the score would indicate.  I watched Jets-Titans on Monday night football and wish I could have those three hours of my life back.  Tennessee needed luck and a 94 yard touchdown to beat a horrible, horrible Jets team.  Take the Packers all the way to the bank and thank me later.

Lock of the Week (Weidman): New England over Jacksonville (Take the points, but the over might be pushing it): 

Okay, I think Peyton's a really safe bet, but #StupidForty is going with him, and I need to have some hope.  Also, RAHDGERS! is the man....but I gotta go with Brady.  He lead my Crafton Cripplers to their first ever Fantasy Football Championship, so I gotta back my QB.  Plus, the Pats got humiliated last week and they don't tend to let that stand.

Lock of the Week (Forty): Denver over Cleveland 34-17 (Denver's been blowing people out the last few weeks and they're at home. Take the 13 point spread and the over 44.)

I was dead wrong last week in thinking Baltimore would wake up and Denver wold lighten up. Thanks to the 49ers shocking the Patriots at home, the Broncos still have something very important to play for this late in the year. Since New England holds the tie breaker over Denver, they need to pretty much win out in order to get a first round playoff bye. No team is hotter than Denver right now, winners of nine straight. I like to look at scores and Denver has usually been scoring over 30 while holding opponents to the mid-20s or lower. Cleveland is still a team with fight in them, but they're just way overmatched here and too young to surprise a veteran Broncos team, led by Peyton Manning.
 

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.