NFL

Ugh. This was almost ready to go and then Brady’s knee got Gillooly’d by Bernard Pollack and I couldn’t think about football until now. By the way, love the consistency of the NFL – Vince Wilfork gets pushed into J.P. Losman in last season's opener and got flagged and fined; Pollack hits the reigning MVP below the knee and gets nothing. Anyway, I’m amazed by the amount of glee all the Patriots’ ‘Haters’ have shown to Brady’s injury and look forward to an exciting season.

Thank heavens we're done with the boring, pointless and mostly unnecessary preseason (like 1 or 2 games wouldn't suffice?) and we can finally move on to the real games. This is going to be a quick preview of the season and predictions of each team's final standings.

AFC East

The AFC or Alpha dog Football Conference is where all the parity talk in the NFL flies right out the window. Pencil in the Pats, Chargers and Colts. The rest of the teams comprise the beta dogs (well except for KC they could be best summed up as the three legged dog that urinates blood and lives in a gutter), and these teams will fight for the meager scraps left come playoff time.

I'm going to keep this short and sweet. If you haven't been living in a cave for the past two weeks, you've been bombarded with reasons why each team can or will win. I feel it comes down to a simple question - are you drinking the Giants Kool-Aid or not?

While I was dead right about the Packers, my usually sound advice went for naught after that. Luckily for me, I woke up Sunday and had a feeling, parlayed the Chargers & Giants (getting the points) and threw an additional bet down on the Giants to win (+250). It was a good Sunday.

Round 2 - and all spreads are over a TD. That makes for some tough picking. They can't all cover ... or can they? Let's preview each game with my prediction of the final score. A common theme to remember though - the home teams were all better during the season, and had an extra week to rest and prepare. Here we go:

Seattle @ Green Bay (-8), Saturday, 4pm

Seattle covered. Jags won (as predicted - I said pick them to win, not to cover, and while they barely did, they still did, and I didn't get stuck with the push). G-men did cover - and won convincingly, which I didn't see coming, but figured within 3 they'd be. And the Chargers covered, also albeit barely (Vince Young playing being the bad QB on the road, you're welcome). So if you laid the SEA -3, JAX (-140), NYG +3, SD -10 parlay like I did, well, pat yourself on the back, like I am.

Oh boy - playoff time! Time to make money betting against bad QBs on the road. Let that be the cardinal law. Let's break down the 1st round match-ups:

Redskins at Seahawks (-3.5) (Sat, 4:15)

Michael Vick, once one of the highest paid and well known players in the National Football League, was sentenced to 23 months in prison for financing a dogfighting ring and helping to kill pit bulls that couldn't finish when it came to the big fight. Vick should be grateful that the same rules didn't apply to him during his over-hyped NFL career when he failed to lead his team all the way on several occasions. I'm also willing to bet that any of those dogs he put down would have ripped off Vick's left nut if he went against them 1 on 1 in the ring.

I love how all the pundits & blog-posting non-Pats fans are all rooting (openly or not) for the Pats to take the loss this week, and how they’re coming up with reasons why it’ll “definitely” happen (especially imploring the Steelers to use the “blueprint to beat the Pats,” despite the fact that the Pats haven’t lost). I implore some member of the media to stop blowing smoke up their collective Steeler asses to point out that the Steelers schedule has been one of the easiest in the league. Impressively easy. Note these points: