Week 4 picks

I took a bath last week and did terribly in the pick 'em pool. On the year I'm 13-21, yet more than a dozen spots from last place.

A lot of us did poorly. In fact, I've never seen a year quite like this one, with so many pick 'em players under .500 going into week 4. Only 7 of 34 Honest Wagner players are at or above .500. Only 25 players on the whole site (not sure how many total players there are, but I'd guess hundreds) are at or above .500. Tell me again why the books have to take a cut of any winnings? They are rolling in the profits so far this season.

My picks last week were sweet, even if all wrong. That can happen.

This weeks' picks are sweeter. Have fun picking against them.

Using the lines at pigskin.com, here the picks. Detroit covers at Tampa Bay. So laughable, it just might happen. Houston covers at Cincinnati. More laughter. Indy rolls Tennessee. Kansas City owns Philadelphia. The Bolts come and lose a squeaker to Tom Brady. The Seahags outrun the Redskins in DC. The Giants crush the Rams. The Jets cover at Baltimore.

Jets cover at Baltimore??? I am not afraid of first-time starters at quarterback. I am afraid of bad quarterbacks, of course, but first-timers are not always bad. Tom Brady, for example, was a sixth-round understudy when Drew Bledsoe ruptured his spleen in 2001.

Bollinger was a mobile, smart quarterback at Wisconsin. He's been holding the clipboard for three years. So what if his name is synonymous, in New York, with third-string offensive ineptitude? We've yet to see what he can do with the first-stringers.

Quarterbacks can lose a game; Kyle Orton knows something about that. Generally, though, they are an overrated part of some system. If they take care of the ball, whether or not the team wins on offense is not so much determined by their play.

The Jets offense may be in bad shape around him, but so too is the Ravens' offense. The Ravens are not as good as many think on defense, and the Jets are better than many think on defense.

All in all, even with the first-time starter at QB, this should be a close game. What clinches it for me is the insanely low number: currently 30-31. A seven-and-a-half-point spread is enormous in a game that's expected to generate that little scoring.

Moving on. I had a blue-and-black striped dress shirt in my hands the other day at the mall. It was spiffy. I was going to buy it, but something about it ... bothered me. What is it? I kept thinking. Suddenly I knew: the color scheme was identical to the Dallas football colors. I put the shirt back. I could never wear it without thinking, every time I looked in the mirror: "How 'bout them Cowboys!"

Dallas covers at Oakland. Minnesota covers at Atlanta. Green Bay covers on Monday night.

There are three games I see as a 50-50 proposition: Buffalo "at" New Orleans, Denver at Jacksonville, and San Francisco "at" Arizona. If I was over .500, I'd stay away. But now it looks like a few coin flips might improve my record. I'll take all the visitors. I'm especially curious to see how J.P. Losman, former Tulane standout, plays against the Saints. Since he has a reputation for being too emotional, I guess he might be a little out of control.

Still time to get in our pool. It's free.

Huzza for express, now first among our pool players with the min. plate appearances (24 games picked).